Changes in diet from India to USA

This is what we do:

1) Milk: we drink very little cow's milk, and what we get is organic from a local dairy
2) Vegetables and fruit: all leafy vegetables we buy are organic. In addition, we buy organic as much as possible from the 'dirty dozen' list. I usually have my coffee with almond milk.
3) Meat and fish: I am vegetarian, so this is just for my husband. We buy organic from a local store, or directly from farmer's markets. This is very expensive, so meat is only a small part of meals. I will include it in soups and stews, so it more of a flavoring, not the main part of the dish.
4) Eggs: cage-free always.
I have a small amount of brown rice instead of white rice.
We have learned to avoid processed sweets and food. So we eat salads every day, avoid ice creams and desserts and have fruit instead.

 

Hi Sarah,

I didn't change any food habits.
Added Salmon in Fish. That's all..


1. Milk - Oak Farms Dairy Whole Milk
I drink Bru here also. Available in Indian Stores.

2. Bkfast Idli, Dosa , Upma , Scrambled Eggs or Paratha
Eggs I get Nice! Grade A Eggs.

3. Lunch - Rice (Sona Masoori), Chappathi, Dal, Sabji
Sometimes Chicken Gravy or Fish Gravy ( I get King fish in Indian Stores) or use
salmon to fry

4. Evening - Fruits/ Raisins ..Coffee
when cold.. Onion Bajji or Vazhakkai Bajji

5. Dinner - Chappti - Vegetables/ Chicken. Sometimes Dosa.

Once in a while I cook mutton.
I get Mutton & chicken from Indian Stores.

I don't get anything in particular as 'Organic' . I never got anything per se like that in India either.
We follow the same diet as in India. My DD grows the same way as she used to grow in India.. We haven't put any extra weight or have any health issues.

 

Dear OP

Nice thread and informative posts..

When we first came here 5yrs ago not aware of good and bad choices and had put on lots of weight but later accustomed to the weather conditions and learned about lot of options available in the market.

1) Milk: we are having 2% low fat milk from costco
2) Vegetables and fruit: we choose all greens and some fruits like apple/strawberries from organic section and remaining we buy normal and try almost all veggies available 3 servings of veggies and 2 servings of fruits per day.
3) Meat and fish: we are eggetarians
4) Eggs: Grade A eggs
[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]5) Carbs- Replaced white rice with brown rice/quinoa/oats/barley
6) Breakfast: most of the days are indian breakffast like idli/dosa/pongal/upma but change main carb ingredients as said in 5th point.
7) I prefer making at home be it burger pattie or pizza or pasta or Chinese or Thai so I know what my family is having in each of it but we do try outside once a month just for a change.
8) We make sure to have all food groups in our every day diet and plan accordingly.
9) Though the temperatures will be low or high we take our liquids in some or other form like green tea/mint-lemon/cucumber fused water/simple warm water based on the weather.
10) Last but not least we include atleast 30mins of activity in our day..

We learned these in hardway but worth the effort.

Good luck[/FONT]

 

Hi,
I get Veg and Fruits from Kroger. They are fresh..
Peeled garlic, Onions and some desi greens from Patel bros.

 

I don't get anything organic. Apart from being expensive, they also stale very quickly.
I have balanced food menu. I include carbs, protein, fat (in the form of ghee) and fibre in equal proportion. I mostly cook only Indian food. I don't know to bake.
I use less oil in my cooking. I use sunflower oil for cooking. I avoid deep frying except occasionally for snacks during winter. I bloat the extra oil in tissue even in snacks. I include raisins in my diet as well as my DDs.
During summer, I prepare Buttermilk for drinking periodically and fresh lemon juice for my DD. My DD is sissy about fruits.. So I make milkshake for her with fruits.
My DD gets 2 hr TV time daily. I encourage her to be active otherwise.. Playing or dancing.

 

We are living in the U.S. since quite sometime but haven't really changed our diet.
We have typical Indian food most of the times except having breakfast cereals in the morning and occasionally I cook continental food for a change. Indian diet is the most healthy diet if we make li'l changes.
Regarding your questions-
Milk- I use vit D milk from qfc. I like the taste of it as I am used to having full fat milk always and I feel nothing can beat the taste of drinking coffee with full fat milk! For few months I used organic milk from whole foods as I had irregular periods ( I was thinking may be the milk here has hormones and that's causing me hormonal imanalance) but using organic milk didn't help in any way so switched to vit D milk again. We were not having any problem with the milk here but some of my friends say that the milk available in US has lot of hormones in it and causes hormone imbalance and others effects which I am not really sure of.
fruits and vegetables- we get it from qfc. Green leafy vegetables like spinach and others, I try to buy organic from Costco.
Cooking oil- I use organic Olive oil as its healthy and safe. Hubby loves oily food and I'm afraid of the trans fats in vegetable oil and cholesterol levels.
Meat- I have no idea.
Overall, we haven't changed our food habits much. We eat a lil more healthier now.
we use whole wheat bread, try to avoid processed/ frozen foods. Few food stuff we try to buy organic but not everything.
Hope this helps!