10% vs 30% vs 60%

Two news items may have missed your attention this month as we were swamped, starting with the farewell to a living legend Muhammed Ali to the last Presidential primary to #OrlandoShooting to the Cavaliers’ win to #Brexit to Messi’s retirement. The posterity would remember June 2016 for long, we too though for different reasons and two news items would change the direction of our campaign.

First, Philadelphia became the first major city in the US to impose the soda tax.  Actually major or minor, it is only second city after Berkeley, CA to go that route. Needless to mention the millions were spent from both sides, Mr Bloomberg on one side and the beverage companies with Teamsters union at the other.  But the Mayor of Philadelphia Mr Jim Kenney in his speech at the signing event did not mention a single time why the soda tax was imposed in a city with 68% of obesity and overweight prevalence. Like he did mention he needs money for the community schools, health centers, parks but he did not have courage to say reduced soda consumption in his city would be better for its residents. Berkeley did not mince words though.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/04/08/473548273/philly-wants-to-tax-soda-to-raise-money-for-schools .

Second news item involves soon-to-be the world’s largest agriculture company Bayer AG, a German company, who is buying Monsanto, the US company.  So someone at Bayer’s crop science division tweeted ‘reduced meat demand would be good for our planet.’ And there was such a blow-back from the farmers here in the US that Bayer’s unit apologized to the farmers. See article here -

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bayer-crops-tweet-idUSKCN0Z623O .

I was shocked but not in disbelief. I don’t think anyone needs a college degree to know the sodas are bad for our health and the current meat consumption is not good for health as well as not sustainable. Please read my earlier posts. We do have data  - the obesity rate inched up to 36% last year and then the last line of this global obesity rate stamped what we suspect already~

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/01/health/global-obesity-study/index.html

“What chance does the United States have to stop the rise of obesity by 2025? Zero, the study says.”

Are we so helpless? Is not the ‘Freedom of Personal Choice’ being misused? Remember our first 75:25 rule. 75% of the health issues owe its origins to being overweight or obese. Need proof? The US has 5% of world population but consumes 52% of total world medicines.

Read here ~http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Js6160e/6.html .Is not this crazy? Like some experts would claim the longevity of the population has gone up, the mortality rate of some groups has gone down but with the help of piles and piles of medicines. Whereas the world over lot of people are leading the healthy life without medicines.

But both of these news items authenticated my classification of 10% vs 30% vs 60% which I mentioned fleetingly in my earlier posts. I would explain. Second, I am not very political and for me, 99% vs 1% is over simplified. But from now, we decided to go for the socio-political campaign for #DisruptiveEating to maximize its impact.

10% of people are super rich and they don’t get impacted by our issues. Like nothing means nothing can change their fortunes or well-being except for some untoward heavenly interventions. They are out of my purview.

30% of people are well educated and skilled in some way or other. It includes the people working for the Beverage companies to the meat industries to the Teamsters union to the restaurant owners to the big food and agriculture corporations to the pharmateutical companies to the health insurance providers to the hospitals to the majority of politicians.They are well-paid, majority of them earn in excess of $50K per annum.

60% people live paycheck to paycheck or the paycheck to the food stamps and back, majority on the hourly wages. So 5%% people may be jumping around between the last two categories. Incidentally almost 70% of people are overweight here in the US. And the obesity rate among the African-American women is 56%, Hispanic women 46% as against 36% for all. No brainer this menace is directly linked to the income level.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/health/obesity-rises-despite-all-efforts-to-fight-it-us-health-officials-say.html?_r=0

In the Philly case, Teamsters union who represents the workers of the beverage bottling plants argued that due to soda tax, the consumption of soda drinks would go down, hence the bottling of sodas would go down and hence the workers would lose jobs. The same logic for the farmers who forced Bayer AG to apologize because they are earning million per year and are not ready to take a hit due to the reduced meat demand.

So these 30% people are smart. Barring few they are not overweight or obese. They have money and access to buy the healthier options. That’s why Whole Foods Inc, Trader Joe flourished during the worst recession of our time. Like they are not drinking sugary drinks or eating red meats in tons, trust me I put myself in this category. And I meet people all the time who won’t touch even potatoes, leave aside the red meat. Or if they become obese or overweight, they have resources to go for weight loss surgery, or buy diet meals from big name experts or see a nutritionist or join the fitness centers.

Now take 60%, majority of whom are obese or overweight. They don’t have money or access to healthier options and nobody tell them or restrict them to eat or drink whatever they want under the garb of Freedom of Personal Choice. So they become slaves to their bad health and the medicines, spending their most of time, energy and money for the good health. Once you are not healthy, it is an uphill task to achieve the income and educational equality as you spend your resources traveling to and fro to health care providers to buy medicines, skipping hours at your job or missing your kids’ home work or absence of them at the schools.

All of us know these things, right? They why we don’t do anything about it? Why we accept the status quo meekly? Why us 30% for our extra well-being or good life let our fellow community members from 60% to struggle to get their basic things right? People are compassionate here no doubt if you think of multitude of the foundations, the money spent on the charity and the respect for the animals of all types. They why we could not be a bit extra compassionate towards our fellow human beings? Like why we can’t prevent something which are preventable rather than spending money for the cure?

When I mention ‘I am OK’ is not enough, I mean exactly that. let me share an example. We all know the whole grain is good or the whole wheat bread is good. Like if you read our blog at website ‘Why whole wheat bread’, you would think why I am eating the white breads when 1 whole wheat bread is equal to 8 white breads. We struggled for a year to discard the Naan white bread at Nirmal, synonymous with Indian food here as 95% of the Indian restaurants serve the Naan. Naan white bread is made in Tandoor oven which consumes 3 times more energy that that used for making Roti, the whole wheat bread, at Tawa. The way of working at Tandoor oven endangers the health of Tandoori chef as his face and hands continuously come into contact with 900 F. But what clinched the issue for us was a NPR report when the expert called the ‘white bread’ a trash. yes you read it right because the white bread harms you like other high glycemic index (GI) foods. You feel full for sometime due to the blood sugar spikes when you eat high GI food items and then you again feel hungry say in one-two hours forcing you to eat the junk foods, kind of double whammy. But because majority of 30% eat other healthier options, they are OK with Naan white bread or do-nuts or bagels or white bread burgers. That is the reason I don’t find the whole wheat flour at nearby Sam’s club or GFS, the two biggest suppliers for the restaurants. And as majority here eat outside, you are deprived of the whole wheat or whole grain options at most of the eateries.

So many whys? And the answers are simple for 60%. Prevention is always better than cure. When we first heard it may be in 6th grade, right. How many of us practice it in our daily life? And it is not that hard. Total $100 Billion plus is spent to fight the obesity and overweight prevalence in the US every year but the dietary guidelines which have potential to reduce the overweight prevalence, come once in 5 years. Why? Because so many jobs would be lost if 60% start #EatRight in 7 steps or even #EatHealthy as detailed in my earlier post. Does not it sound ironic or weird?

I remember signing a petition to stop the usage of computers in the offices, colleges when I was in college in India around 1990s. Like some people came and said this machine can do the work of 10-20 person alone and would take the jobs of our family members and the neighbors. Now when I think back, these computers created millions of jobs In India and all over the world. So when 50% of our population are not producing  output at their 100%, what happens to the economy or the community or the city? So effectively they become the consumers only, not the contributors and all of us lose out on the long term. Healthy people make a city, state or country, not the ventures, the parks or the big factories.

June 2016 would be another watershed month for our journey when we decided to shed our cloak of ‘political correctness’ and go whole hog to position Indian food as the best option for the prevention mode. How?

Starting with our second 75:25 rule for alkaline vs acidic food. See this link here ~http://greenopedia.com/alkaline-acid-food-chart/ . Please go through these charts and you would say it makes sense to eat more alkaline food. Most of spices, tomato, onion, ginger, garlic, the core of Indian food, are alkaline. Mother’s curry, made of onion and spices, which we use in the majority of entrees, has PH of 6.4 as per recent lab report, low acidic as water is considered neutral at PH value of 7.  Beef and pork, the most acidic meats, are strict no-no in Indian cuisine.

But if the key is eating more plant proteins, more whole grain, more vegetables, start eating Indian food and you would find how easier it is. Like lentils, parboiled rice or whole wheat bread is so easy to cook at home which would make your lunch or dinner more affordable. Lentils with any whole grain is the complete protein. Why I talk about the lentils and the home cooking? Canada is the largest producer of lentils in the world. India is 2nd largest and the lentils are a staple food in Indian cuisine. Why not here as the lentils could be the cheapest source of protein as well as has 2nd highest protein per calorie after the soyabeans. It is also the richest source of the dietary fiber.

Another reason for the home cooking of Indian food is to avoid the Indian restaurants here. Reason, they don’t represent what we eat at home, authentic Indian food. We eat Roti, the whole wheat bread, at home daily but Naan white bread is cynosure of all eyes. Chicken Tikka Masala is the most popular dish here, a creamy entree whereas we don’t use dairy cream at all at home. Actually only North Indians eat creamy items but mostly the butter, to be fair to them. Though India is so diverse that every 100 miles our food changes with our language, no kidding.

Are you aware of ‘Seven countries study’ done in 1950’s which put the Mediterranean diet atop the perch of the healthy eating here in the US. Please read here -http://www.sevencountriesstudy.com/about-the-study/countries/ .

The seven countries in the study were US, Greece, Italy, Finland, Netherland, Serbia (formerly Yugoslavia) and Japan. Fast forward 2015, the overweight prevalence in 6 countries except Japan are over or close to 50%, Greece just behind the US with 63%. if you combine Japan’s overweight prevalence of 23% with the obesity rate among Asians in the US being only 12% last year, you can easily give the thumbs up to the Asian food and our eating style. But Indian food reduces your meat consumption considerably which we need to do eventually. India has 500 million vegetarians, 42% of its population as compared to 10% in the US and 5% in China. The credit for the vegetarian eating goes to the Curry as the spices in the curry dominate your taste buds not the chicken or the cauliflower. Below is the data for overweight prevalence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/22/youll-never-guess-the-worlds-fattest-country-and-no-its-not-the-u-s/

Back to soda, we stopped serving soda drinks at Nirmal, replacing it with so many Indian drinks from lemon water to cumin drink to almond drink to yogurt drink to off course ubiquitous Indian tea with spices, last one served hot. Soda drinks are most acidic and lemon water is in most alkaline category so does the other drinks. But the soda drinks have 300% profit margin. Normally the other food items have 30-40% profit margin. Why don’t the cities or the county can give incentives to the restaurants to discard the soda drinks? Or Mr Bloomberg? My 2 cents. Given that majority here eat outside, that could make the huge impact, better than the soda tax, for sure.

Our task is cut-out. I can wish though the Columbus could have discovered America on his return journey after buying spices from India like other traders of his time. What keeps us going despite the Mount Everest of skepticism is this tribute to a G.O.A.T  from an Indian girl at his funeral services this month, so inspiring.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160612/jsp/frontpage/story_90779.jsp#.V3RXv0vR_IU

he stood tall in the face of pelting rain and shouted: 'I am the disturbance in the sea of your complacency and I will never stop shaking your waves'."

Freedom of Personal Choice?

It all started at Twitter, see some tweets here.

Does @BBCWorld really think children should never have a sweet drink, not even when out for a special dinner? Ever?

Do you think water can be more effective than the #sugartax to fight childhood #obesity and oral #health issues? http://bbc.in/1SI0BV8  

nt abt ever? we know alkaline better 4 us, why nt lemon drink instead of cola~http://www.indiahomeclub.com/interesting_articles/ia_ph_list_of_acid_alkaline_foods.php …

 It's not about which is best. It's about the freedom of personal choice. Or are you just a slave?

The issue was a BBC World article, link above, which mentioned how in Britain the restaurants were issued the advisory to provide free water to their patrons on top of the recent announcement of the ‘Sugar tax’ on the sugary drinks. Britain too have the obesity problem far less as compared to the US but these efforts are targeted specially at the childhood obesity.

Very relevant for the US if you think of 80% of the restaurants visits are to the fast food places and I don’t think they are designed to offer free water. If you ask for water, some places may offer a smaller cup but the water and cola come from the same fountain. Who would monitor? But the basic fact is offering water does not make business sense. Like cola costs 10 cents assuming 2 small cups (16 Oz) of consumption and even if you sell at $1, it is the highest profit margin for any item at a food joint. So when we discarded the sodas at Nirmal café eventually, we lost one major profit making item. Now our yogurt drink called Lassi and Lemon water are the best selling items. But yes our patrons can get free water from a separate source themselves.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/09/24/income-gap-fine-dining-fast-food-restaurant-industry/16146559/

Now back to our debate – Freedom of personal choice? No

thing wrong with that. My contention is simple. We need full disclosure. Think of it. Whether you go to a bank to get a $500 loan or get a credit card or go to your doctor or have faced the judges at the courts, everywhere first you are told all information including what you can do and can’t do, what is good, bad or ugly. It’s another matter that most of us don’t even read all info printed in the small letters which may need the binoculars. Do we get full disclosure of the food items? Like if you agree with 75:25 rule which I mention all the time, you may agree that our eating and drinking choices may decide what type of life we live both quality and quantity wise. Specially now we have two 75:25 rules, the latest addition being 75:25 ratio for alkaline:acidic food we consume. I would request you to go through these two links:

http://www.mindfood.com/recipe/balancing-acid-alkaline/

http://www.indiahomeclub.com/interesting_articles/ia_ph_list_of_acid_alkaline_foods.php

That brings us to the ‘Mind’ food – food with a thought. One disclaimer here, we are not related anyway with Mindfood.com based in Australia though I love their info. But we go beyond #EatHealthy which takes care of you only to #EatRight which impacts you, the community, the country and the planet. How?

My favorite example is the goat meat for a purpose. First, I grew up eating goat meat and it used to be a staple meat in India, India still 2^nd largest producer in the world. Second, the huge disconnect here. The goat cheese is wildly popular in the US rightly so as the goat milk and cheese are only alkaline dairy products whereas there is no taker for the goat meat. The male baby goats are killed within a week which has resulted in the Heritage Foods USA’s campaign for ‘No Goat Left Behind’ or ‘Eat Goat to Save Goat.’

But what we know about the goat? The goat meat is even healthier than Chicken, see our website blog. Or the goat meat could be far less acidic than beef or pork. Or one pound of goat meat needs 127 gallons of water to be market-ready as compared to 1800 gallons of water for beef and 700 for pork. Or for the same quantity of meat, the goat needs 1/3^rd of grass for beef or 1/5^th of grain for pork. Also the goat could be reared anywhere from the Himalayas to the sub-Saharan Africa.

Taste-wise goat is almost similar to the lamb, for me the best specially with Indian curry. The why the world meat consumption is pork 36%, poultry 31%, beef 25% and goat mere 6%. Trust me here the cola profit margin is not the issue, information is. Like I, eating goat meat for the last 30 years or so, came to know about all these info during the last 2 years when we failed to convince our patrons to make switch to goat instead of lamb. Eventually we discarded the lamb too at Nirmal. Food exclusion combined with info is the best way to challenge the status quo.

Why you think all financial documents have small prints? Because they want us not to read these, period. Same with the meat industry. They are big and powerful. Why to change the status quo even if it means bad news for the planet or the poverty and hunger all across the globe. 64% of the world agriculture land is used for producing the animals’ feed.

We are slaves of our own ignorance and get exploited. Here is the deal. We humans are the social animals, not the animals. Whatever personal choices we make in any aspect of our life, good or bad, impacts the whole family, the community and in turn the country and the planet. So nothing is personal as such if you care for others, the basic tenet of being the human.

We need to boil the ocean

The first time I heard this phrase, I was dumb struck. I was meeting an expert at the entrepreneurship center of a big name university and his first question was ‘why you are trying to boil the ocean.’  Implicit in his question was you are asking for the business advice to build the first ever Indian food chain. So why your business plan looks like that of a non-profit or at most a social enterprise? I fumbled completely to explain how our mission is integral to our business and that meeting went haywire.

But I don’t blame him or anyone who slams us in the reviews. Like are we a restaurant or nutritionist’s office, why we are making such a big deal of saving energy saving planet or we don’t get it why we serve only whole wheat bread, parboiled rice or why we discarded sodas from our menu. One gentleman predicted our mission would boomerang on us. It did actually it bomb-ranged. Like we lost 60% of the sales in the last 2 years and we have barely survived. But we are still hanging on the hope that the people would come out of this ‘Ocean.’ Let me explain.

Everything is so oceanic peaceful. People are eating or drinking whatever they want and without thinking about their choices. The result is 70% population being overweight and the obesity rate being up now to 36% from 33%. But there are so many gyms, health clinics, weight loss surgeries, diet plans to take care of you, no worry. As being overweight is precursor to most of the health issues, the trips to the hospitals are ever increasing. But the doctors won’t tell you to check your BMI, the Body Mass Index or you being overweight because it would violate your privacy or be offending. So 60% of US adult population don’t know their BMI. The hospitals and the health insurance companies are the most profitable business here. The health care costs are going out of the roof, no worry. Because the politicians are there to take care. Like we all are seeing the fight over the Obamacare for the last 6 years.

Who suffers the most for this oceanic nonchalance? No prize for guessing. The low income populace who does not have money to buy diet plans or can afford weight-loss surgeries. The people who don’t have insurance despite of Obamacare. We are convinced that the health equality is the key to fight the income and educational inequality- 3 components of the social inequality.

Am I sounding like 99% vs 1%? But I am more in 10% vs 30% vs 60%. 10% are super rich here, if not billionaires, no need to waste any line here. 30% are the upper or high middle-income, they have insurance, they can afford the healthy food of all types from the Whole Foods to the soup-salad bars. 60% people live here from the paycheck to paycheck. They can’t afford the healthy food or some of them don’t have insurance. They lose their pay for their absence from work or can’t afford day-care if their kids become sick and miss their schools. And once they fall into this vicious health inequality, it become an uphill battle to overcome the income and the educational inequality.

Not a single day passes in the news cycle without the mention of Obamacare or the school of choice debate or the food stamp fight. How many times you hear about the healthy eating or the media coverage about the celebrities denouncing the excess meat consumption here or vouching for the plant protein like we do. May be everyone would agree that this could be the root cause of the overweight prevalence or the obesity menace. Like the government comes with the dietary guidelines once in 5 years. Is that enough if you think of more than $100 billion spent per year for this fight? Or the last sentence of this article in CNN -http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/01/health/global-obesity-study/index.html .

What chance does the United States have to stop the rise of obesity by 2025? Zero, the study says.

If I remember correctly we hear about ‘Prevention is better than cure’ may be in the 4^th or 5^th grade and it is true for all aspects of our life, not only for the health issues. But how many of us are in ‘Prevention’ mode or may be some of us can’t afford this mode when we talk about the healthy food options for 60% populace. ‘Prevention’ is always much cheaper than the ‘cure.’

The foundation of ‘Prevention’ rests on the knowledge or sharing the knowledge. And I can say with confidence now that Twitter is the best or may be the fastest source for the relevant knowledge. Like you don’t have to tweet anything or you can always retweet whatever you like. Just have an account and follow the handles you need to. Our Twitter handle is @NirmalCurry. One caveat here never take any article or statement at the face value, always dug deeper. I always do and come across amazing info.

So when people say we are condescending because we share the nutrition charts or resorted to the food exclusion, hurt us most. I would share a personal example. I grew up in India eating goat meat, a kind of staple meat. I first ate chicken when I was 16. So we used to have both lamb and goat at Nirmal café and most of the patrons opted for the lamb. Very few Indian restaurants serve the goat meat because there are not enough customers. I was not ready to accept such fate because I and our chefs always felt that the goat curry is unique to Indian cuisine and far tastier than any lamb item.

One day I chanced upon the Michigan State University (MSU) article about the goat meat being healthier than even chicken, see our website blog. Much later I learnt that the goat is far more sustainable too than beef, pork or lamb. See link here from the National Geographic  -http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/embedded-water/

Like one pound of goat needs just 127 gallons of water as compared to 1800 gallons for one pound of beef. We discarded lamb altogether from our menu and that started our food exclusion spree. We eventually discarded the Naan white bread and the Sodas. The last two exclusions took a year more.

This info was coming from one of the top agriculture universities in the world, worth sharing. So when I sent this article to my uncles and aunts in India, they were shocked. The goat is a red meat and majority of Indians quit eating goat in favor of fish and chicken mostly around the age of 50-55 as a prevention. If you think of recent WHO guidelines about the red meat, it centers around the grilled meat. We Indians eat everything in curry with boiled and cooked meat and only grilled items we eat are Tandoori chicken. But the Tandoor ovens are used in the Indian restaurants only. So I am not sure if my uncles and aunts would revert to the goat meat or not despite all logical back-ups.

What I want to emphasize that people know what they want to know. Like I have had no inkling about the goat being healthier though eating goat for last 30 years or so. What about my uncles and aunts? Are they stupid, NO? But some are stupid for sure. There is huge uproar over the ‘BeefBan’ in India last year when one person got killed having beef at home. The war of words continued for 3 months among all sides. Beef is banned in India on the religious grounds as the cow is revered by us Hindus and the Hindus form 85% of India’s population. I wished and tried to share the MSU article and National Geographic link with all and sundry. I personally don’t believe that any food item should be banned on any ground. But no one even acknowledged my tweets.

Each of us needs to take charge of this ‘Prevention’ mode. We are not saying what to eat or what not. But when I do see the beef item in the tweets of the Food network or BBC Good Food or as a part of a diet plan, I want people to know 3 things – the beef has 40% more saturated fat than goat, the beef is the most acidic meat along with the pork and the beef is not at all sustainable.

Talking of acidic-alkaline food items which I came across only last week at Twitter. And I dug deeper as is my wont. See this link  - http://www.indiahomeclub.com/interesting_articles/ia_ph_list_of_acid_alkaline_foods.php

I found this article most comprehensive. Still some confusion persists with respect to the goat meat and the soya chunks, no info in this article. I am exploring further. But the key is to strike a balance and for this we need info.

One of my fellow Twitterer sent this tweet – I had a look at your blog. Go and read Tim Noakes, Gary Taubes, Jimmy Moore, Nina Teicholz + Weston A Price

They are big names no doubt but we are so different on many counts.

1. We are in ‘Prevention’ mode, not in cure, no diet or meal plans, we keep it simple. Eat Indian food if you want to eat more plant protein, more whole grain, more vegetables, less meat, period
2. We back-up our thoughts with the food at Nirmal café now. If we say that #DisruptiveEating revolves around the lentils and the goat, we aim to bring both these items in the mainstream of US food scene one day in the near future. Till then ‘Power of WE’ can do the needful.
3. We talk of ‘EatRight’ in 7 steps just not ‘EatHealthy.’ We want to bring the water foot-prints of the food items, the food wastage, the energy saving, the home cooking at the center-stage of our discussion. Watch out for our Mobile App. #DisruptiveEating empowers each of us to make the world a better place.

We want ‘Tsunami’ in this ocean of status quo pervading for so long. What a better time to challenge the status quo as we wade through such tumultuous Presidential election season.

The ignorance is not bliss

April’s Fool day 2016 came with the most comprehensive report on the global obesity till date. Read here ~ http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/01/health/global-obesity-study/index.html . The obesity has spread its tentacles all across the globe as suspected and expected. And it was not a joke, not even the last sentence of this article. What chance does the United States have to stop the rise of obesity by 2025? Zero, the study says.

I was not surprised at all. Not because the obesity rate inched up to 36% here as per the report in Dec 2015 despite everyone’s Herculean effort with a cost of $100 billion plus per year. But because of our experience for the last 2 years with Nirmal for Disruptive Eating when we brought the mission to fight the obesity or overweight prevalence here at the front, end and center of our Indian food venture.

Let me explain. Everyone agrees that the problem is real but whatever we are doing is not enough. So it took us almost 2 years to develop a concept of ‘Disruptive Eating’ as it centered around 75:25 rule which I heard first time from my Grandma in the childhood. Off course it came with ‘Early to Bed Early to Rise’ from Mr Benjamin Franklin of all-time greats. Again the ‘healthy’ was the first. I always marvel how my grandma with a 4th grade education in India used to know or utter these phrases. I don’t know how much it has changed. But here it is.

75% of the health issues in our life-time emanates from the unhealthy life-style, rest 25% from the hereditary or the accidental causes. 75% of the unhealthy life style depends on what we eat or drink and when, rest 25% on how much we sleep or play or work-out or watch TV or spend glaring at our phones. The last 2 items were not issues in my childhood though.

So we saw a distinct connection between the Indian food and a better way to eat or drink. Two data points help. First, the obesity rate for Asians in the US is only 12% including Indians. I am pretty sure it could be around 5% if only Asian Indians are taken into the account, same as in India. The overweight prevalence in India is 16% as compared to 70% in US and 28% in China. And I do have a reason to think so. The second data point, there are 500 million vegetarians in India, 42% of total population of India and 65% of the world vegetarians. For China, the vegetarian population is only 5% and for US, it is around 10%. And the credit goes to Indian Curry. So it could prove to be the best way to reduce the meat consumption here. Please read our earlier posts about why we believe that reducing meat consumption along with eating more plant proteins, more whole grain is the key to win this fight. Once you start eating Indian food, you would realize what we are trying to convey. I know Mediterranean cuisine has always been put at the high pedestal of the healthy eating in the US. But it revolves around the meat consumption specially beef and the obesity rates for the Mediterranean countries from the Greece to Italy to Lebanon to Morocco do not inspire any confidence.  Please read this article ~ https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2013nl/mar/med.pdf . Did you notice exclusion of India from the table of countries? And that is our challenge and that is how the title of this article comes from.

But I don’t blame anyone. The way Indian food business developed here and is presented now, does not make it a choice for the healthy eating and the rightly so. The most popular Indian dishes here are the creamy ones. Barring the northern part of India specially Punjab, where they use mostly the butter, I don’t think that the dairy cream is used in Indian entrees anywhere. When I say anywhere I mean in India, the cuisine and the language changes every 500 miles, if not 100 miles. Like I never saw my grandma or Mom using any cream or even the presence in their kitchen. But it is a fact that Punjabis started the majority of Indian restaurants here. So while researching in 2009 about why there is no Indian food chain anywhere, most common refrain coming from the chefs was that Americans like dairy cream, that’s why we use it. My poser to them was then why the Chinese food is the most popular ethnic cuisine here which don’t have a single drop of dairy in their food. Or take the Naan white bread. It is synonymous with Indian cuisine here. It is made in Tandoor oven, a special type of oven, which people can’t or don’t keep in their home. So we Indians eat the whole wheat bread daily, off course in some parts of India, people eat rice only. We Indians eat Naan when we go to restaurant once or twice a month. Majority here eat outside and if we know the difference between the whole wheat and white bread (please read our website blog), what is the point in feeding the unhealthy option? Parboiled rice is 80% nutritionally similar to the Brown rice and I grew up eating Parboiled rice of all kinds. We used to eat Basmati rice on some special occasions or for the feast. Here white Basmati rice finds the pride of place. But the most bizarre thing which I found was very few Indian restaurants serving goat meat and few serving beef too here. The goat meat is the staple meat in India. Like if you know goat meat is healthier than even Chicken, 50% less saturated fat than beef, why the Americans won’t opt for the goat curry. Like not even 1% restaurants serve goat or lamb here, both taste almost similar. On top of that, the goat meat is the most sustainable. One pound of goat needs 127 gallons of water as compared to 1800 gallons for beef, 700 for lamb, 600 for pork. 
See more at~ http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/embedded-water/ .

We are now ready with our concept and the franchise model. We want to expand and take our message to all over Michigan and beyond. We have started talking with the VCs and pitching our concept at various events. The response to our effort is kind of disheartening to say the least. Like one VC in Michigan told us why you are trying to boil the ocean, just to use the exact phrase. Like why you don’t sell only food, let people decide what or what not to eat. In the sense he was asking us to focus on our goal to make the first Indian food chain. One VC in California told me that he does not think the Americans would start eating goat anytime soon even in California where water usage is a big issue and we talking about the water foot-prints of the food items. Or one gentleman wrote on our Facebook page – do we think people here are overweight as well as stupid?

My high-schooler kid told me about the Ignorance project at TED.com which she watched in her class. And it was so real, see it to believe it. Then I have had opportunity to attend a TEDx event organized by Ypsilanti District Library (YDL) last month at EMU. One speaker Mr Derrick Jackson gave us lot of hope. He is the Director of the community engagement at Washtenaw county Sheriff’s office. He talked about how asking questions make so much difference to one’s life or others’. He was telling a story about a prostitute who was arrested 11 times by the cops before someone asked her why she goes back to the streets again and again? Then began the journey for her rehabilitation and now she is working with them to give other women like her a second chance.

For me, the ignorance and the stupidity are very far apart. The ignorance is the result of us accepting the status quo, not asking the questions. The stupidity begins when you don’t hear the answers or our learning ceases. We share a platform to ask the questions and find the answers.

We don’t accept such skepticism of the global obesity report with respect to the USA as we believe in the American exceptionalism. Let us join hands together to prove them wrong. This Michipreneur.com article did justice with our vision -

http://www.michipreneur.com/disruptive-eating-entrepreneur-may-disrupt-food-industry/

Why we need Disruptive Eating

Our concept revolves around so many WHYS.

Why 70% of US population are overweight?

Why obesity rate in the US inched up to 36% despite everyone’s Herculean effort at the price tag of $100 billion plus per year for the last 10 years at least?

Why obesity rate for African American women is 56%, Hispanics women 46%? Is the low income populace disproportionately affected?

Despite of such hullabaloo about obesity or overweight prevalence, why 60% of adult US population does not know about BMI, the body mass index?

Why per capita per day meat consumption in the US is 330 gms, way above than 220 gms for Europe and more than double, 160 gms for China? 1 pound = 454 gms and 1 Oz = 28 gms

Why 64% of world agriculture land is used for animals’ feed?

Why world meat consumption accounts for 21% of greenhouse gases, more than emission by all modes of the transportation from the aero-planes to the motorbikes.

Why the world meat consumption pattern is 36% pork, 31% chicken, 25% beef, 6% goat when one pound of goat needs 127 gallons of water, beef 1800 gallons, pork 600, lamb 700, chicken 500.

Why Heritage food USA has ‘Eat Goat to Save Goat’ campaign? Male baby goats are killed within a week of birth as there is no demand for the goat meat in the US. The goat cheese is wildly popular though.

Given the goat is healthier than even chicken, see MSU article ‘Why Goat’ at our website. For the same amount of meat, the Goat uses 1/3^rd of grass needed for beef and 1/5^th of grain for pork.

The whole grain is good. Why Sam’s club and GFS don’t have parboiled rice and whole wheat flour and they are two biggest suppliers for the restaurants here in the US? White rice or bread is not whole grain.

Why protein is meat or meat is protein here in US? People are eating excess protein and that too from the wrong source. Adult man just needs 56 gms and woman 46 gms of protein.

Why lentils is not eaten here even when Canada is the largest producer of lentils? Lentils may be the cheapest source of protein as well as the dietary fiber?

Why people here is the way out of ideal #ProteinProfile of 25:25:50 for meat:milk:vegan? This is my take, no survey here.

Why the US alone wastes $165 billion of food, 60% by the grocers, 40% by the consumers.

Like there are so many Whys. If these Whys bother you, you may agree that  we need to disrupt the way we eat, hence the Nirmal for Disruptive Eating. We rely on four things:

1.  You don’t need ‘Meat for Protein’ - Focus on alternate protein like lentils, soya chunks, tofu and other legumes which has more or equal protein with much less fat- key to achieve the ideal #ProteinProfile. #MeatFree is not about eating vegetables and fruits as they are not protein.

2.  The world is not becoming vegetarian overnight - Focus on the goat meat – healthier than chicken and most sustainable meat, we devised a way to serve the boneless goat, a first for any restaurant.

3.  Why Indian food is the key to #DisruptiveEating – first, lentils and goat meat are staple food items in Indian cuisine, India being 2nd largest producer of both. Second, Indian food is Curry based. Curry is made from the base sauce of tomato or onion or spinach mixed with plenty of spices. It makes the food tastier. Like you eat Soya curry or Chicken curry, your taste buds won’t complain because they would enjoy the dominant taste of the spices in Curry. No surprise India has 500 million vegetarians, 65% of total vegetarians in the world. Third, Curry is liquid and you are forced to eat with the whole grain, rice or bread like we can’t drink our lunch or dinner. And fourth, because your stomach is limited and you are eating more whole grain, you are eating less meat, hence avoiding the excess protein and excess fat.

   Curry may counter the recent WHO guidelines which revolve around the processed meat and the red meat. But the issue is cooking at the high temperatures as people here normally eat grilled meat. See this link:

  http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/11/23/456654768/turning-down-the-heat-when-cooking-meat-may-reduce-cancer-risk .

   The boiled or stewed meat could be a solution. Any curry with its ingredients is boiled and cooked with the meat or vegetables at 220-30 F. And it is far better and healthier. See this link -http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2222970/Boiled-stewed-meat-better-heart-burgers-grilled-steak.html

4. Food exclusion is not the forced eating – As a food vendor or the restaurant, we can limit the choices. Two examples here. We used to have both-the white bread called Naan and the whole wheat bread called Roti-at Nirmal.  Similarly we used to have the lamb and the goat and both taste almost same. We discarded the Naan and the lamb altogether. The patrons complained initially but majority of them made switch to Roti and Goat off course knowing why we did take such drastic step. Like Naan is synonymous with Indian cuisine here in the US and we may have lost 20% of the sales.

The obesity rate for the Asians including Indians in the US is 12% as compared to 36% for the general population. As we Asians are not very much in the physical exercising, our food and eating style does play a greater role. Given that being overweight or obese is precursor to most of the health issues we face today, a reduction of 20-25% overweight prevalence in the next 5-10 years has potential to bring the healthcare costs down drastically.

What we need? We need Nirmals all across the US. First to provide food what we vouch for- the protein substitutes and the goat meat. Nirmal may be among 2-3 restaurants serving the goat meat or may be among 10-20 restaurants serving lentils or soya chunks out of 300+ restaurants in Washtenaw county.

Second, the message. The restaurants are the best way to convey any message as people eat almost half of their meals outside. For example, you interact with Nirmal once, you won’t forget BMI. From our logo to our menu to the entrance poster to our toll-free number – BMI can’t escape from your attention.

Third, Nirmal makes Indian food affordable and positions it as a tastier and healthier alternative to the tacos, burgers and pizzas, the low income populace does not have access to the healthy food.

What Disruptive eating does – empower each of us to change the world-how?

First, the health equality – key to fight the income and educational inequality – 3 components of the social inequality.

Second, less meat consumption, less greenhouse gas, we join fight against the climate change, if 100 million people in the US skip meat one day per week, total savings of meat would be whopping 3.6 billion pound a year

Third, say lentils and goat become hugely popular here and in the world, both have similarity, could be grown anywhere, lentils have drought resistant varieties, Canada is the largest producer, goat could be raised anywhere from the Himalayas to the sub-Saharan Africa and we don’t need the farms to raise the goats. Both could be great tools to fight the global poverty and hunger. How?

The world has almost 20% of unused or infertile land. Why can’t we grow lentils? The lentils crop makes the land fertile in the long run. Or say the meat consumption pattern reverses in next 10-20 years for goat with 50%, chicken 30%, how much savings it would entail in the grass and grain.

How many poor people we can feed from this saved grain? How much agriculture land we can free from the animals’ feed and use it for the humans’ produce or the human living. The world population would be 9 billion in 2050 from the current population of 7 Billion and we need food and space both to accommodate them.

Recently I was accepted as a leader by PreventObesity.net. We may be the first food vendor in their rank. Another first would be our App or video game for disruptive eating (still at concept stage). Like we can’t stay away from the disruptive technology for long. This App would be a game changer and would take real and imaginary inputs and outputs. Like you just go on entering what you eat, whether you use recycled or bio-degradable products, how much food you throw, how many minutes do you work-out, how many times a week you cook at home. You can get bonus points for eating goat and lentils and get penalized for eating excess protein or calorie. The point you earn can use for fighting the drought in a country, saving a town from the tornado or getting drowned due to the global warming or feeding the hungry people all over the world-the imaginary outputs. Then based on your effort, you could be among 10 Heroes to be featured at Nirmal website every year with some real benefits.

The key is #EatRight not just #EatHealthy. Eat Healthy takes care of self. #EatRight starts from the self to the family to the community to the country to the planet. ‘I am OK’ is not enough, we need to care for others being OK too. Like we can go to a restaurant and ask for whole wheat bread or the goat meat or the soya chunks. This may work for the Indian restaurants easily as the curry is so flexible. And yes there are 3500+ Indian restaurants in the US. That would create the demand. We the people can challenge the status quo, very few businesses do.

The history has our back. Just in this same community, President Kennedy in 1960 at the University of Michigan asked us to serve and change the world and the peace corps was born. And it made USA unique and stand tall in the world. We have another opportunity to make the world better just with #EatRight and bring a food revolution starting from here. The world needs that, are you ready?