Heart-Healthy Eating, South Indian Style

Start with your plate

Aim to fill half your plate with vegetables and keerai (greens), a quarter with protein such as dal, sambar, channa, egg, fish or chicken (not fried), and only a quarter with rice, idli or chapati.

Smart swaps

• Replace part of your white rice with millets — ragi, kambu (pearl millet), thinai (foxtail) or varagu.
• Choose idli, steamed puttu and pesarattu more often than poori, vada and parotta.
• Have sundal, roasted channa, fruit or buttermilk as snacks instead of bajji, murukku or biscuits.
• Prefer fish curry or grilled fish to fried fish; remove skin from chicken.

Oil, ghee and coconut

The amount of oil matters most. Limit cooking oil to about 3–4 teaspoons per person per day, and rotate between groundnut, gingelly (sesame) and rice-bran oils. Keep ghee, butter, vanaspati and coconut-based gravies for occasional use.

Salt and sugar

• Keep total salt below one teaspoon a day — use lemon, tamarind, curry leaves, garlic and spices for flavour.
• Pickles, appalam and salted snacks carry a lot of hidden salt.
• Cut down on sweets, sweetened coffee and tea, and packaged juices.

Small steps, big benefits

Change one habit at a time and involve the whole family — heart disease often runs in families, and so do eating habits. If you have diabetes, kidney disease or heart failure, ask for a personalised diet plan.