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Are you dependent on bread for small hunger pangs? If so, then eat the leftover bread from the night with vegetables for breakfast in the morning.

‘Kavita, I think I am addicted to bread.’ A client said this to me recently, and there was a little embarrassment on his face. ‘Toast for breakfast. Sandwich for evening snack. When I don’t know what to eat, I eat bread. I smiled. ‘No’, I told him. ‘You are not addicted to bread. You are addicted to not having to think about what to eat. And to be honest, a lot of us are like that. Bread didn’t become unhealthy overnight. Well, bread became our easy answer to everything to food and drink. It is getting late? Toast. Don’t feel like cooking? Sandwich. Are the children hungry? Bread. Evening tea? garlic bread.

Before we even knew it, bread quietly took over every empty space in our day. Now the funny thing is this. People often ask me, ‘Which bread is the healthiest, brown?’ Multigrain? Whole wheat? Or sourdough? My first question is usually different. How often do you eat bread? Because, in my experience, the problem isn’t that you have bread on your table. The problem is that there is nothing else. Variety is the real superfood. Our traditional Indian food naturally included a variety of ingredients. One meal consisted of pulses, the other curd, then vegetables, fermented foods and millets. Without much effort, our grandparents consumed a variety of nutrients. Today, the desire for convenience has given way to variety. And when one thing starts dominating your plate every day, your body is deprived of the things that other food items provide. That’s why I rarely tell anyone to give up bread completely. I just tell them not to make it an ‘automatic choice’.

five-second rule

Here’s a little habit that has helped many of my clients. Before reaching for the bread, just pause for five seconds and ask yourself – ‘Can I eat something that’s just as quick but more nutritious?’ You would be surprised how often the answer is ‘yes’. Instead of making toast yourself, you can choose to:

1. Vegetable Poha
2. Vegetable Upma
3.Idli with Sambar
4. Dosa with Sambar
5. Chilla of gram flour or moong dal
6. Bread Rolls Filled with Cheese or Egg
7. Sprouts Chaat
8. Yogurt with Fruit and Nuts None of these things are difficult.

Most things do not require more effort to make than making a sandwich, yet they contain more protein, fiber and nutrients. Last night’s dinner should be given more importance. There is one more thing that I never understood. We happily eat leftover pizza the next morning, but find leftover dal ‘boring’. One of my favorite nutrition hacks is this – the easiest nutritious meal is often leftovers from last night.

1. Leftover kidney beans. 2. Pulses and rice. 3.Chickpeas. 4. Dry vegetable wrapped in wheat bread.

These are balanced and nutritious meals that just need to be reheated. Our grandmothers knew this before nutritionists even started talking about ‘meal prep’. She neither wasted food nor nutrition.

feeling hungry between meals

Most people eat bread because they are really hungry. So make sure you have easy options.

keep things like

1. Boiled Eggs
2. Cheese pieces
3. Roasted gram
4. Homemade Yogurt with Fruit
5. Nuts and Seeds
6. Peanut butter with apple or banana.

Stale food is nutritious

You can eat bread two or three times a week, on other days eat poha, idli, dosa, cheela or leftover food.