Means and Ways to Quit Cooking Oil

In the previous update, I tried to explain the dangers associated with cooking oil. It would be complete injustice to the viewers if I don’t tell the means and ways to quit oil. Here comes how:

1. Ever since the promotion of Sunflower oil has begun as healthy oil, people started consuming more quantity of oil. As a result of this, the oil producers gained their profits but the consumer remained on the losing side as always. I don’t think anybody in the World consume as much oil as the Indians do. Whether it is north or south, east or west; every part of India except remote villages, people love eating deep fried food items.

Quitting oil is not very easy as we are conditioned to it for a very long time. You need to gradually reduce. First thing that you must do to quit oil is to become oil conscious. Before eating any food, I would advise all the Indian men to watch how their favorite dishes are made. I said Indian men, because they hardly cook any food at home as it is termed to be the duty of women in India to cook food. The women though cook food can’t remain conscious because their husband and children do not like the food if they cook with less oil or without oil. If you observe how much oil your favorite samosa, kachori, puri, vada, bajji, jalebi, gulab jamun or any other snack or sweet consumes, you will understand how harmful it is. Observing once will not help; you need to regularly observe and think before you eat them. Not only the snacks and sweets you must consciously observe every food you eat. This horns the alarm in your mind to change your eating habits. This is the first step towards natural way of living. To take an example, observe all the top and popular chefs in India or around, you will find majority of them in perfect shape and sizes. The very reason is the level of consciousness they have on oil and other fatty products. They make healthy delicious foods for others but they don’t eat as we do. They are very particular and conscious about their food.

2. Secondly, for men or women who make their food at home need to understand how much fat one need per day. Twenty to thirty five percent of your calories should come from fat. The bad news is that most of us consume more than 40% of our calories from fats. This overload of fat can lead to obesity and heart disease; as well as high blood pressure, cholesterol and countless other health problems.

Most of the fats should come from good fats. Saturated fats and Trans-fats are best avoided but in any case should make up no more than 10% of your total calories.

Dietary cholesterol intake should be less than 300 mg a day, if you have high blood cholesterol levels you should aim for less than 200 mg a day.

If the oil is heated beyond a particular degree it leads to Trans fats and no food is cooked without heating beyond 300 degrees. Moreover if you are using 1 tablespoon of oil say 10 gm, you are directly consuming 10 gm of fats in your food. You will be surprised to know that 1 gm of fat contains 10 calories and now think how many spoons of oil you add in your food and how many calories you consume through oil fat just to claim appreciation from the husband and children? When you understand this calculation your consciousness will never allow you to add uncontrolled volume of oil just to get a taste in the food. I am adding a table to see how much fat you should consume per day.

Daily total calories	Calories from fats (20-35% Cals)	Daily total fat grams (20-35% Cals)	Daily Saturated fat grams (No more than 10% of calories)
1200 cals	240 to 420 cals	27 to 47 gm	13 gm
1500 Cals	300 to 525 cals	33 to 58 gm	17 gm
1800 Cals	360 to 630 cals	40 to 70 gm	20 gm
2000 Cals	400 to 700 cals	44 to 78 gm	22 gm
2200 Cals	440 to 770 cals	49 to 86 gm	25 gm
2500 Cals	500 to 875 cals	56 to 97 gm	28 gm
2800 Cals	560 to 980 cals	62 to 109 gm	31 gm
3000 Cals	600 to 1050 cals	67 to 117 gm	33 gm

3. 4. Instead of regular breakfast of idli, dosa, vada etc, try to eat tummy full of seasonal fruits available in the market and if you find them expensive make sprouts of moong, cow peas and chickpeas etc and eat them as breakfast. This will help you in avoiding oil for one meal a day. Sprouts are rich in proteins and potassium which makes you light and stronger.

4. There are number of Dr. Mantena Satyanarayana Raju videos available in market and even on you tube showing the means and ways to cook oil free and yet tasty foods. You can even visit my blog www.mantenaskitchen.blogspot.in . The best way to follow his style of cooking is to begin gradually. Instead of cooking every day, cook those recipes at least once in 15 days a month. Continue this for couple of months and then try to cook once a week and 4 days a month. Then gradually increase the number of days. Choose a specific day of the month as a ‘health day’ and eat sprouts in breakfast, phulkas with curries or salad cooked without oil in lunch and fruits in dinner. Gradually try to increase the number of health days in a month. At least make a beginning, the rest will follow on its own.

5. Instead of cooking many varieties of vegetables cook only one curry or salad a meal with rice or phulkas. Develop the habit of eating phulkas at night. This can help in the reduction of oil and you can happily consume them with one salad or curry without any difficulty. If you are cooking a dall and a curry for rice, serve the dall seasoning without oil.

6. If you have the habit of eating evening snacks, need to replace the snack items with fruits and juices. This is the most important favor you can do to your body.

7. Stop eating the food cooked outside your home and 50% of your job is done. You see a tremendous change in your body only by doing this. If you had to consume outside food out of compulsion I found the only best option is to have a plain meal or curd rice.

Following some of these tasks will bring goodies to your health. It may be difficult to follow but not impossible. Dr. Raju’s method is direct. He takes you to the abyss and says jump to find the God and my approach is little cunning which takes you to the abyss, shows you the path down and ask you to jump from the middle. Task is the same, approach is different.

Inspired from the life of Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar, I took his path and let tell you my dear friends, health never comes easy. You can’t buy health for money nor can you borrow it from someone else. It will neither come with medicinal pills or doctors. You need to earn it by penetrating your skin, bones, muscles, nerves and many known and unknown layers of the body and mind to gain good health. It demands lots of devotion, dedication and discipline.

I hope you enjoy this and keep watching the space for more updates. Good Luck!