Local Food Benefits (5 Benefits Of Eating Local Food)

Importance Of Local Food:

It is good to have locally grown food than imported food for the following local food benefits. Our bodies are made as per the place we’re born as the products are grown here, are the most our parents or their parents ate. But, these days some western fanciful nutritional plans and diets are ruining our system. So, the importance of local food came into the picture and it explains what is a healthy diet.

For whatever reason, when health, fitness, or fat loss is on the cards, we can’t help but think foreign. We seem to be convinced that bread is better than dosa, idli, or upma.

The west has told us that kale and broccoli promote health and fat loss more than Indian greens (keerai, palak) and cauliflower. And somehow, we’re ready to pay four times the money for quinoa than we would for amaranth, though the latter is rich in protein, potassium, and magnesium.

Here are five facts about Indian food that will convince you to eat more of local Indian food.

5 Benefits Of Local Food:

It is said that outside India the food is always 3 months old and shelved. It doesn’t serve the purpose of eating it for health. The following 5 benefits of local food will elaborate on why shelved food is bad and how local food benefits in nourishing our health.

1. Why Local Food Is Healthier:

Because we’re in India! Indian food is local, safer, and more sustainable for us.

Indian food is cooked with ingredients that are locally available. Such as the vegetables, meat, oils, and everything else we need for our food can be procured in good quality without too much pesticide use, storage, or transportation.

This, in turn, makes the food more nutrient-rich and less expensive than a foreign food, which either needs a special soil or climate to grow in or needs to be cultivated across the globe, stored, and transported all the way here.

local food

So, even if a foreign food is more nutrient-rich on paper, the version of it we get here just isn’t. Indian foods made with local organic ingredients are optimal for health when in India.

During the harvest festival- Sankranti time “The festive foods cooked and served at this time all over India have a few very distinct characteristics: because they’re from the harvest, they’re at their freshest, which makes them very high in antioxidants and phytochemicals,” says Delhi-based dietician Manjari Chandra.

These help the plant fight disease, so when we ingest them, it helps our bodies do the same. Farm-fresh produce scores over cold-storage produce in terms of minimal degeneration of nutrients.

2. It Comes Loaded With Micronutrients:

Indian food, North, South, East, or West, has ample amounts of vitamins and minerals.

As a culture, we go back a long way. At every step along this way, our ancestors have learned things about which foods contain which micronutrients, and have incorporated them into our dishes.

Sure, we don’t have clear published information about what nutrients are present in what foods like the West, but over the centuries, our foods have included spices, vegetables, and fats that nourish and protect us with their properties.

Turmeric is an example. So are onions, tomatoes, amla, millets, greens, and spices, which are regular in most Indian cuisines.

micronutrients

Usually during the Sankranti festival time “All the preparations eaten at this time are also anti-inflammatory in nature,” says Manjari. Take biotin and choline. “Peanuts and sesame are high in the former, while the sweet potato is very rich in the latter — and both form essential parts of several cultures’ celebrations.

Biotin increases our body’s metabolic rate, while choline is great for the digestive system. Both are recommended as supplements when people have high markers for inflammation,” she says. Instead, we’re getting them in their best form — from nature.

3. Low On Protein:

The one thing our cuisine doesn’t contain enough of is protein, and because of that, our foods become dominant in carbohydrates and fat.

But all cuisines are like this! Be it Mexican, Italian, Chinese or Ethiopian, every cuisine contains more fat and carbohydrates than protein, and that’s because it’s the only way more people can be fed.

protein food

But when activity levels are low and health and fitness need to be improved, we need to increase protein and decrease fat and carbohydrates, irrespective of the cuisine.

Simply pull out some rice, roti, dosa, idli, and other carbohydrate-rich foods from your diet, and eat a little more meat, eggs, milk, curd, and other protein-rich foods to balance things out.

4. It’s Delicious With Indian Flavors:

Overeating is the single greatest hurdle when it comes to fitness or fat loss.

A close second would be lack of activity, but even those who are active tend to undo their efforts by overeating. Why does this happen? Because tasty food is hard not to overeat, as it activates reward centers in our brains.

masala dosa

Being dominant in starch and fat, a lot of our traditional foods fall under comfort foods and make us overeat a little at every meal. So as healthful as our food is, portion control is paramount.

5. Local Indian Food Has Everything Our Body Need:

From variety to nutrients to taste to portability, it does have everything. It is just about what we choose. In other words, Indian food can be simple, healthful, delicious, and therapeutic, or it can be rich, junky, and disease-promoting.

It is simply about the choices we make. So choose simple traditional foods that are abundant in protein and vegetables and low on starch, sugar, and fat. Most of our health, fitness, and fat loss problems will be long gone if we do this.

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