Beauty, indeed, is only skin deep

India has an undeniable affinity towards all things shiny. If you don’t believe me, check the quantum of revenue generated by gold jewelry in India or the fact that the fairness creams were the only recession proof products in India. Have you noticed how, even when you shop for groceries, you automatically move towards polished and uniform looking products?

As a result all pulses shine, all grains shine, all fruits shine, even vegetables, you guessed it, shine. But that is not how Nature designed it. Pick anything fresh from the field and it will not dazzle your eyes with polished awesomeness. But beauty, indeed, is only skin deep. Today we pick one such unfortunate basket that lost its sheen to the race of superficial beauty – unpolished wheat products.

It is sad that only well-heeled Indians switch to unpolished food when they are on a diet. Few realize that, apart from the lower fat content, there are many compelling reasons to eat this way. Quoting from a story published in The Hindu, a doctor once asked his students, “What was the single most important factor for the health of the nation at the beginning of World War II?” The answer, “Raising the amount of the grain used to make bread flour from 70% to 85%.” His next question was, “Who do you think made the most complaint about it?” The answer was, “The laxative companies.”

In 1880 the English flour mills began to produce a very fine white flour consisting purely of the endosperm of the grain, sans roughage, vitamins and minerals. The introduction of this very white flour and its very white bread was eagerly taken to by the masses of the country, as it was only the well-to-do who had white bread heretofore, it being very expensive to sieve out through fine muslin.

In 1900s, some twenty years after the introduction of this special white flour, there was this interesting new illness, coronary thrombosis, along with constipation, gastric ulcers, diverticulitis, varicose veins, gall-bladder problems and general ill-health. The one section of the community who knew something has changed was the grannies of English society who could not understand why they were now constipated. So worried were they that colonic washout clubs were formed to deal with the problem.

The other wonder product from the family is brown rice. Brown rice basically refers to unmilled and unpolished rice that we used to eat before rice started coming packed almost to our doorstep. Only the outermost layer, the hull, is removed to produce brown rice. This makes the rice retain all the natural nutrients. The most important benefit is that it prevents heart diseases because it tackles obesity, diabetes and cholesterol. Since the bran is never removed, it is also rich in essential oils and also helps maintain insulin levels.

Coming to the laxative properties, it prevents food from just sitting in your gut and letting the poisons and toxins to be produced by unhealthy anaerobic bowel bacteria. If you allow that to happen it can cause illnesses from acute appendicitis to bowel cancer especially of the large intestine and rectum.

Off late we also see a lot of effort to add the leached original goodness back to the products and sell them under “fortified” or “added fibre” categories. But that is, and can never be, as good as the real thing.

Coming back to beauty being skin deep, brown is rice is great for the skin. It is rich in vitamin E and the bran layer contains zinc and magnesium which can make the skin glow. Oh boy, I love irony.