Why is Indian food a difficult choice at restaurants?” asked a well-traveled friend who otherwise loved her dal-roti-aloo meal. She wanted to eat it with less oil and spices at a restaurant, but the staff said they weren’t trained to modify the recipes. While Indian food, “the thali”, is the most balanced and nutritious meal, I advise my patients to be wary of Indian cuisine when they dine out.

Traditional Indian cuisine is rooted in Ayurveda, which focuses on maintaining health and healing illnesses by balancing the five elements of air, fire, water, earth and manifestation of the divine. Food preparation techniques incorporated these principles. Over centuries though, cooking practices have undergone tremendous changes thanks to influences such as those of the Mughals in north India.

A typical Indian thali consists of freshly-cooked whole grains, pulses or lentils, lightly-cooked seasonal vegetables, yoghurt, salad such as onion, cucumber and tomatoes, pickles, and papads. These are flavoured with nutrient-rich spices and condiments.

Today, there is nothing common between an Indian meal at home and that served at restaurants and dhabas. In restaurants that serve Indian, particularly North Indian cuisine, nothing is cooked without cream, butter, cashew, khoya (dried milk) or deep frying. Almost everything tastes the same. Lentils are given ladles full of ghee tadka and topped with cream and dollops of butter. Vegetable or paneer too are either deep-fried or drowned in gravies of butter, cashew and khoya. None of this happens to Indian food in mom’s kitchen. True, celebration and special food is always a bit different in cuisines globally, but to completely lose character is something else.

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