What are the Indian junk foods?

novanicol

Is an average Indian aware of healthy eating?

Brisso

I think India pioneered healty eating - esp South India. Junk foods - the whole range of Coca Cola syndicated drinks. Oh, and many of the native sweets.

puchoo

curious to know why you want to know that.

I would like to think yes , but given our situation i.e surrounded noon and night with samosas, pakodas, a 100 varieties of sweets , its a bit difficult to be healthy..

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AprilFlower

Theoretically, most are probably aware of what "healthy eating" is. In practice...not so much. My family puts away more oil and sugar then I ever imagined in the US. Even salads and the like are usually dosed in oil. Their saving grace is that they don't eat meat. Compring my families oil consumption with that of our extended family one might say that we are not even one leg of a centipede . I have seen vegetables made with several inches of oil floating on the top and I often can not eat when I go to visit relitives or I will assuredly get sick.

Also when you say "avarage" indian then I would think that would mean the millions who are still living in the traditional way. These people still do back breaking labor all day and have very little money/food. These people aren't worried about health. They are worried about filling their tummies.

nayan

I presume from your homepage that you are an Indian.

What do you think? Surely you donot need to know about "average" Indian eating habit from a travel website ?

Layman

I would consider a large part of our common foodstuff as 'junk food' or at least unhealthy food. Deep-fried items such as pakora (N India), murukku, bajji and bonda (S India); Naan (due to being made out of processed wheat) as opposed to the healthier roti; most of our sweets too.

loveface

In my experience, Americans are a lot more aware of healthy eating but in actuality, they eat a lot more junk food. Indian junk food at least as something resembling real food, ex. chaat has potatoes and onions, pakoray have chickpeas, etc. However, for desserts, American cuisine is much much better.

Indians are sometimes completely clueless and/or have different ideas of what is healthy (ex. Mango juice will promote heat in your body) but in fact, they do eat healthier. Even though the veggies do sometimes come with oil, the oil is not necessarily unhealthy for an underweight or very active person. The main problem is that Indians are becoming more sedentary.

munda_kamaal

Yes, normally people in the cities are aware, but I don't think anyone cares whether they are eating healthy or not, the prime reason being the delicious food that people eat in normal routines like for eg- fried food items all indians know that they are not healthy but still everyone eats it, we indians normally believe that healthy food is not tasty .

kalbarri

it is a lot easier there to snack on healthy foods as they are on sale at many shops or stalls ie; bananas, nuts(packets of) freshly roasted peanuts, coconut juice and fruits. i used to buy sprouted chickpeas from a stall, when i lived in the north.
these days it is easy to buy western junk, like packets of crisps or coca cola.
i don't think of samosas, pakhoras or gelebis as junk foods but maybe i am a denialist they are great munchies!
i guess because there is not the obesity problem in india, like in the west, they are not so calorie or health conscious.
when i was in the united states, about 10 years ago, it was comman amongst friends of mine, to read the calorie etc contenton the backs of packets and tins. i was suprised as i've never done that but i usually eat fruit and lots of salads and steamed veggies and not much packaged stuff.
rice, veggies, lentils and other legumes, chapatis and dahi is a pretty rounded diet, i would say.

eshaan

in Maharashtra, especially Mumbai / Pune, VADA-PAV would win all votes in the junk food category... its basically the indian vegetarian version of the burger.

munda_kamaal

Lehar kurkure.. yummy.

kaushaa

Mc Donalds has newly introduced Mcnuggets and it seems its ruling the food charts now a days. Its damm tasty and i feel the best thing is it is worth the value. These chicken mcnuggets are so soft, spongy as well as non-oily. Have you people tried it? U cant miss it...i bet your tongue will bless you for this. Its the most taste bud tickling recipe frm Mc.
people who have tried it...you'll like it with BBQ or mustard???

Brisso

Highly processed chicken-like snacks may be a novelty in India - here they are viewed as flavoured cardboard and offal composite.

Cardinal Divide

I confess I love Mad Angles Tomato Mischief. They are so bad and yet so good!

Boston123

I hate to burst your bubble, but try and avoid McNuggets if you can... very high in salt, saturated fats, etc.. stuff that leads to higher cholesterol levels,and increased risk factors for coronary / cardiac disease.

BTW, research in the US has shown that Indian males( especially first generation immigrants)have among the highest levels of cholesterol( the bad kind),and risk of cardiac disease.Key contributors to this were: Sedentary lifestyle, stress, and increased consumption of ready to eat, or frozen, and fast foods.

Ironic thing is that McDonalds is promoting 'healthy' meals for kids in the US, including apple slices and milk as sides, instead of burgers and french fries only.