In November 2010, while I was returning from Haiti after a mission with CARE International, I had a cardiac arrest in a Los Angeles hotel. I was rushed to the hospital. I was rescued by 911 and hospitalised. There I realised that all tjree major arteries of my heart were severely blocked. The doctors suggested that I should undergo a bypass surgery without any delay as I am not having much time. But, I did not want the surgery. I returned home to Bangalore after 8 days and started looking for alternatives to bypass surgery. Then I came across information about Dr. Dean Ornish's method of Reversing the heart disesses through simple lifestyle changes like very low fat food, moderate but regular exercises, stress management through yoga and meditation. But, Dr. Ornish lives in the US and I am in India. My search in a Doctor in India who follows Dr. Ornish's methodology ended with me finding Dr. Bimal Chaajar, a Cardiologist based in Delhi but has centres all over the country including Bangalore.
Though Dr. Ornish says very low fat food, Dr. Chaajer advocates Zero Visible Fat or Zero Oil Cooking as one of the major components of his treatment. Though skeptical in the beginning about the possibility of such a cooking, now after 8 months I am a firm advocate of the method. Dr. Chaajer has written recipe books of over 1000 recipes from all over the country. I have experimented further more and made delicious dishes with traditional millets and mainly south indian dishes and will share some of them in coming days.
What do you mean by Zero Oil Cooking?
As the name suggests, it is cooking without any oil, either vegetable based or animal fat based. Humans are cooking since times immemorial with some kind of fat and the belief is that if there is no fat there will not be any taste. This belief is leading us to the misconception that it is not possible to cook tasty food with out oil.
If you look around you in the animal kingdom where humans also belong, no other animal uses external fat in their diet whether they are herbivourous or carnivorous. For general functioning of the body, it requires approximately 18 GM fat per day. We get this through consumption of pulses, cereals, vegetables and fruits as a certain percentage of fat is present in every food item we consume in our daily diet.
Cooking practices over millenia all over the world involves external fat usage almost mandatory. People of yore were consuming large portions of fat in the farm of butter, ghee and oils of various kinds. They were able to digest this fat through heavy physical activity. In today's sedentry lifestyle, we hardly do physical work. Machines and gadgets assist us everywhere. We spend most of our time sitting in our comfortable chairs in airconditioned offices. At home also we spend most our time becoming couch potatoes. In this situation where is the chance for the fat we consume to be digested. That is why cardio vascular diseases are common place now. I am also a victim of this deadly lifestyle with the deadly disease.
How do we come out of this situation? One of the several lifestyle change requirement is to turn to Zero Oil Cooking. It does not mean we need to eat raw food or salads only . In last 8 months, I have cooked almost all kinds of food, including normally deep fried items with Zero Oil. The food can be delicious, nutritious yet healthy.
How the food becomes tasty?
Does the food becomes tasty by addition of of oil or other fat? To this question the definite answer is no. The food becomes tasty by the processed spices added to the food. Zero Oil cooking uses all the spices we normally use in cooking and process these spices by dry roasting them and cooked with just water instead of using oil. If we do not disclose that a food item is zero oil, no body will even recognise.
During last months, I have experimented with Zero Oil Cooking, Low fat baking and extensive use of almost forgotten traditional millets which are so rich in nutritive value. I will share, my receipes one by one in coming blogs.
Though Dr. Ornish says very low fat food, Dr. Chaajer advocates Zero Visible Fat or Zero Oil Cooking as one of the major components of his treatment. Though skeptical in the beginning about the possibility of such a cooking, now after 8 months I am a firm advocate of the method. Dr. Chaajer has written recipe books of over 1000 recipes from all over the country. I have experimented further more and made delicious dishes with traditional millets and mainly south indian dishes and will share some of them in coming days.
What do you mean by Zero Oil Cooking?
As the name suggests, it is cooking without any oil, either vegetable based or animal fat based. Humans are cooking since times immemorial with some kind of fat and the belief is that if there is no fat there will not be any taste. This belief is leading us to the misconception that it is not possible to cook tasty food with out oil.
If you look around you in the animal kingdom where humans also belong, no other animal uses external fat in their diet whether they are herbivourous or carnivorous. For general functioning of the body, it requires approximately 18 GM fat per day. We get this through consumption of pulses, cereals, vegetables and fruits as a certain percentage of fat is present in every food item we consume in our daily diet.
Cooking practices over millenia all over the world involves external fat usage almost mandatory. People of yore were consuming large portions of fat in the farm of butter, ghee and oils of various kinds. They were able to digest this fat through heavy physical activity. In today's sedentry lifestyle, we hardly do physical work. Machines and gadgets assist us everywhere. We spend most of our time sitting in our comfortable chairs in airconditioned offices. At home also we spend most our time becoming couch potatoes. In this situation where is the chance for the fat we consume to be digested. That is why cardio vascular diseases are common place now. I am also a victim of this deadly lifestyle with the deadly disease.
How do we come out of this situation? One of the several lifestyle change requirement is to turn to Zero Oil Cooking. It does not mean we need to eat raw food or salads only . In last 8 months, I have cooked almost all kinds of food, including normally deep fried items with Zero Oil. The food can be delicious, nutritious yet healthy.
How the food becomes tasty?
Does the food becomes tasty by addition of of oil or other fat? To this question the definite answer is no. The food becomes tasty by the processed spices added to the food. Zero Oil cooking uses all the spices we normally use in cooking and process these spices by dry roasting them and cooked with just water instead of using oil. If we do not disclose that a food item is zero oil, no body will even recognise.
During last months, I have experimented with Zero Oil Cooking, Low fat baking and extensive use of almost forgotten traditional millets which are so rich in nutritive value. I will share, my receipes one by one in coming blogs.
