Voices THE new sunday express MAGAZINE Grain Devdutt Pattanaik Shampa Dhar-Kamath Ravi Shankar Anand Neelakantan Dr Deepali Bhardwaj Swami Sukhabodhananda Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment october 18 2026 SUNDAY PAGES 12 of Truth There is nothing called the best grain. Understanding their variety in Indian food is the key to good health I By Anjali Awasthi ndia’s nutritional crisis is a paradox. Producing enough food for everyone is a given, yet a large section of the Indian population remains malnourished. That is the Great Grain Puzzle: India’s problem is not that there is nothing to eat, but that no one agrees on what to eat. One doctor bans rice; another recommends red rice. The gym trainer swears by oats, grandmother by barley Millets are the new messiah: the government . even hosted a millet dinner in Washington. A colleague talks about quinoa as though it were a transformative mantra, while another insists on gluten-free flour. Somewhere amid the noise about low-GI foods, ancient grains and “good carbs”, the humble roti and pulao have acquired an identity crisis. Ordinary people feel it. Radhika Mehra, a 42-year-old Delhi entrepreneur, dropped wheat after reading online that it was “inflammatory” and now rotates jowar, bajra, and ragi. “My kitchen looks like a grain museum,” she laughs. “The only thing that’s lighter is my wallet.” In Bengaluru, software engineer Sandeep Rao, 36, swapped white rice for quinoa to lose weight, then doubled his portions. “Apparently quinoa can’t outrun my appetite,” he says. Leela Nair from Mumbai, a 67-year-old retired teacher raised on rice and dal, was told to add oats for cholesterol and barley for blood sugar. “I’ll need a spreadsheet just to plan my breakfast,” she jokes. Chef Ashutosh Awasthi hears it at his tables. Diners used to ask for the signature dish. Now they ask whether the roti is khapli wheat and which grain is healthiest. “Somewhere along the way, we’ve begun to believe that every food needs a healthier replacement,” he says. “It doesn’t. The goal is not to find the perfect grain. It’s to build a balanced plate.” That effort is visible in supermarkets as well as restaurants. Rice and wheat still occupy much of the shelf space, but they now share it with pearl, finger, foxtail, and little millets, rolled oats, barley, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, red and black rice, sorghum, and heritage wheats such as khapli. Their ritzy packaging promises better digestion, lower glycaemic impact and a range of other benefits, sometimes with more confidence than the evidence warrants. Grains are described as “ancient”, “heritage”, “whole”, “low GI”, “gut-friend- ly”, “high-fibre”, and “low carb.” Shivani Unakar, a foodsystems researcher, sees the renewed interest in grains as more than a nutrition story “Health awareness is . certainly one reason,” she says. “But farmer-producer organisations, chefs, food brands, researchers, and storytellers are all trying to rebuild demand for a wider diversity of grains. Alongside nutrition, discussions centre around biodiversity, climate resilience, culinary heritage, and supporting local food systems.” The evidence from the hype and what each grain really offers, who is selling the story, and what to actually put on your plate is often lost in the cooking confusion. THE WELLNESS INDUSTRY’S BEST HARVEST Grains are the perfect wellness product. People already eat them every day, so swapping one flour for another feels like an easy fix. The industry sells that feeling in five main ways. The health-halo label is the most in vogue. A label like “multigrain” says nothing about how much whole grain is inside; refined flour (maida) can still be the main ingredient. Millets now appear in cookies, chips, THE GREAT GRAIN PUZZLE Every grain has its strengths and limitations. Choosing which to eat, when, and what to pair it with will maximise nutrition and reduce disease risk Myth THE ONLY ONE THEORY Truth “Nutrition doesn’t work in absolutes,” says Ruby Balchandani, founder of Nurture, lifestyle nutritionist and medical counsellor. “Rice becomes the villain, then wheat, while millets, oats or quinoa become the new heroes. What matters is how much, how often and how you eat it.” Myth Rice makes you fat and diabetic Truth Large portions of polished rice eaten alone do raise blood sugar quickly A study of three . common Indian varieties (Sona Masuri, Ponni and Surti Kolam) found high glycaemic index (GI) values of about 70 to 77. But rice eaten with dal, vegetables and curd behaves differently Myth millet is good for diabetes BECAUSE THEY are low-GI Truth A 2021 review of 65 studies found millets had an average GI of 52.7, against 71.7 for milled rice and 74.2 for refined wheat. That is a real advantage. But GI varies by millet and by preparation, and a millet biscuit or noodle is still a processed snack Myth gluten-free is healthier THAN Wheat WHICH causes bloating Truth “For most Indians, wheat is not the primary cause of bloating,” says Dr Pankaj Sharma, Director of Robotics, Bariatric, Laparoscopic and General Surgery at Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh. True wheat allergy and coeliac disease affect a small share of people (coeliac disease is estimated at roughly 1 per cent in India). More often, the cause is overeating, eating too fast, low fibre, stress or another intolerance. Gluten-free packaged foods are often more refined, not less Myth Ancient and heritage grains are superior BY NATURE Truth Khapli (emmer) wheat has fibre and micronutrients, but it is still wheat and still contains gluten, so it is no answer for someone with coeliac disease. “‘Ancient’ does not automatically mean superior,” says Balchandani Myth Quinoa is THE better rice Truth Quinoa is NOT rice. However, it has a strong protein and amino-acid profile. But it is expensive, often imported, and only as good as the portion Myth Brown rice is always the better choice Truth Brown rice has more fibre than white. But very high-fibre grains can be hard on some digestive systems, and rice bran tends to hold more arsenic than the polished grain, so variety beats eating brown rice at every meal Myth Switching grainS HELP with weight LOSS Truth Kashyap Vora, senior content manager from Mumbai, switched entirely to khapli for months. “I didn’t notice any dramatic difference,” he says. “I hadn’t changed anything else in my routine. I was expecting one ingredient to do all the work.” Former Taj and ITC chef Rajat Kapoor did lose weight after cutting wheat, but adds: “There were other lifestyle changes too. I wouldn’t say wheat alone was responsible.” crackers, instant noodles, and breakfast mixes. “A biscuit doesn’t become healthy just because it contains millet,” says dietitian, holistic health consultant, and author Kavita Devgan. “Don’t read the front of the pack, turn it around. The ingredient list tells the real story .” Grains once bought loose and cheap at local markets are now sold in designer packaging at several times the price. “If the farmer hasn’t benefited from this renewed interest, we’ve simply turned another everyday grain into an expensive lifestyle product,” says Pearl Sandhu, food anthropologist and Senior Communications Consultant with the Coalition for Food Systems Transformation in India (CoFTI), supported by GIZ India. Heritage is the most milked product in everything from fashion to hospitality to foods. “Every colourful label on a packet is a brand’s positioning, not the whole truth about the grain,” Sandhu says. Government promotion has helped big time to create the market. India proposed the UN International Year of Millets in 2023, rebranded millets as “Shree Anna” in the 2023 Union Budget, and has offered production-linked incentives to companies making millet-based products. That support is valuable for farmers, but it also gives brands an official-sounding halo to borrow. This has happened before. When the UN declared 2013 the International Year of Quinoa, global demand soared, prices rose sharply, and quinoa became a premium health food far from its Andean origins. Gluten-free foods followed a similar path in the West, growing well beyond the small group of people who medically need them. Regulators are catching up. India’s food regulator, FSSAI, has moved to make sugar, salt, and saturated fat figures more prominent on packaged-food labels, which helps shoppers see past front-of-pack claims. RICE AND WHEAT ARE NOT THE ENEMY Rice and wheat fed India and the world. The Green Revolution of the 1960s ended famine-era shortages and dependence on food imports. “I don’t think rice or wheat are the villains here,” Turn to page 2