Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Nov 13: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, who is also a renowned Diabetologist, said here that Diabetic diet is recommended for non-Diabetics also because it is in fact nothing but a normal diet based on the scientific principles of nutritionally balanced optimum food intake.
On the eve of World Diabetes Day, Dr Jitendra Singh, as chief guest, was addressing the inaugural session of National Webinar with focus on Diabetes and nutrition. The faculty speakers in the Webinar included some of the well known national and international names in the field of Diabetology including Dr V. Mohan from Chennai, Dr Sheshank Joshi from Mumbai, Dr S. Arul Rahaj and Dr Amit Sharaf.
Elaborating his point, Dr Jitendra Singh said, whenever a diet plan is made for a patient of Diabetes Mellitus, the main considerations are the person’s daily routine, his professional requirements, his level of physical activity, his daily calorie requirement and his natural food habits. Depending on all these factors, he said, a diet chart is formulated based on the principles of quantity or calories required, quality comprising optimum mutual ratio of different ingredients like carbohydrate, protein and fats, and distribution over 24 hours which necessarily involves the timing of each intake. These, precisely, are also the guiding principles of the diet which should be ideally consumed by any individual, regardless of whether he has diabetes or no diabetes, he explained.
In fact, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the right amount of diet containing the right proportion of various food components and spread judiciously in the right proportion into timely consumption of breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, evening tiffin, early dinner, bedtime snack, etc are advised even for healthy individuals. But, unfortunately, in our society, only when an individual develops a metabolic disorder like Diabetes and he is advised to follow this diet pattern, it comes to be known as diabetic diet chart in the popular jargon, whereas actually it should be known as a healthy diet chart for everybody, he said.
Emphasizing that in India there is a need to relook into the rapidly changing dietary patterns, especially in the urban population, Dr Jitendra Singh said, like every other sphere of life, in matters of diet also, we are an evolving society trying to discover the optimum indices. As a result, our diet patterns, particularly in many urban areas, end up as a strange mix of western and oreintal diet as well North indian and South indian diet and often the basic scientific principles of healthy diet get inadvertently compromised.
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