Top Risks for Diabetes from South Asian Diet

Tue, 06 Jul 2010
The South Asian diet triggers many health problems amongst the UK's Asian communities, including Type 2 Diabetes .

South Asians are 6 times as likely to develop diabetes than the general population and twice as likely to die due to heart disease .

Here are five foods South Asians eat which could be cut down.

The first is fried food. These play a central part in any family gathering and religious celebration. The odd samosas, pakora, puri or bhatura is okay. However, eating these all week is not on. Fried foods are high in calories and help you to put on weight .

You could try to home bake samosas and use filo pastry as opposed to shortcrust pastry. Healthier starters could be curried chick peas or mixed veg.

Traditionally curries are cooked in butter or ghee, which are saturated fats . They originate from animal products and increase cholesterol levels and furry arteries.

It is better to use small amounts of polyunsaturated fats like sunflower or corn oil or monounsaturated fats like olive or rapeseed oil which protects the heart.

Sugar used in Asian sweetmeats or ‘mithai’ like ladoo, jalebi, burfi and gulab jamun. They are all high in fat and sugar, offering minimal nutrition . Traditional sweets are made from ghee, sugar, full cream milk powder, coconut and sweet condensed milk.

You can lower your consumption of sweet snacks by swapping them for more healthy snacks like fruit or low fat yoghurt.

Excess salt can trigger high blood pressure and increase the risk of stroke. It is vital you try and limit your salt intake to around 6 grams per day, which is around a level teaspoon. You can reduce the amount of salt you add in cooking and not add any extra to your food when it is plated.

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