Ravi Mantha - The Baby Elephant Diet

Ravi Mantha is a health guru who is an expert on prevention and wellness. He speaks at conferences around the world on how to take control of our own health and bodies. Ravi is a strong proponent of sustainable agriculture, an organic farmer and a foodie. This is his second book on health. He can be reached on

Published by

Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2015

7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

New Delhi 110002

Copyright Ravi Mantha 2015

While every effort has been made to verify the authenticity of the information contained in this book, it is not intended as a substitute for medical consultation with a physician. The publisher and the authors are in no way liable for the use of the information contained in this book.

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ISBN: 978-81-291-3745-6

First impression 2015

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This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publishers prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

Contents

Foreword

After the success of my first book All about Bacteria, I received numerous queries from my readers, with most of them asking, What about nutrition? If my first book on health dealt with what lives on your body, this book is about what you put into your body every day, and its health implications. As before, my modus operandi was to study historical perspectives on nutrition, combine these with the latest research in nutrition science, and give you practical and useful tips on daily living so you can live a long and healthy life.

I am a gourmand, a man who likes to enjoy life to the fullest. There is nothing I like more than a delicious meal made with fresh ingredients and enjoyed in the company of family and friends. You will see that I am always biased in favour of taste as well as nutrition. Food is not just about sustenance, it is about joie de vivre or the very joy of living, and it must always be consumed in that context. But if you are someone who just eats for sustenance, thats all right too in fact, this attitude will make it easier for you to choose the right foods to eat, and this book will help you make healthy choices.

I write not as a nutrition scientist but as an inquisitive individual. Plenty of scientific research today is funded and controlled by special interest groups that usually have a commercial goal. As you will see in this book, I have the opposite aim. Every solution you will see in this book is designed to keep you healthy, and these home solutions will be easy on your pocket too. Yes, I do endorse products that I genuinely believe are good for you, but I have never accepted any incentive for doing so (and if I ever receive any in future, I will disclose it).

I am not a new-age writer. As with all my work, unless stated otherwise, I have attempted to place this book firmly within the realm of the scientific method, citing published works where appropriate. I have tried to differentiate fact from conjecture and anecdotes from statistical evidence. But science itself is a process of discovery, hypothesis, conjecture, testing and finally proof. In the field of nutrition, most experts have a one-size-fits-all approach; hence they come up with universal pronouncements like eat a big breakfast or eat six small meals a day. But we are not all made the same way.

Nutrition science is evolving all the time, so there may be areas where I will be proven wrong or lacking as science advances. But I can assure you that if you follow the simple guidelines on nutrition in this book, you will dramatically improve your health. This work is a follow-on to my bestselling book All about Bacteria which explored the various ways the trillions of microbes on our body help us maintain our health. I hope you get a chance to read that book as well.

Fond wishes and good health!

Ravi Mantha

Introduction

How the Baby Elephant Became Ganesha, Our Friend, Our Dietitian and the God of New Beginnings

Have you ever wondered what it is about a baby elephant that makes you smile? Why is the most popular deity in Hinduism the mischievous one with the elephant head? Why do Hindus associate wisdom, intelligence, pre-eminence and fondness with someone they call the leader of all the classes of beings or Ganapati? This is not a story about Vignesha the controller of obstacles, but it is a popular science tale about how his living representative on our planet, the baby elephant, can inspire you to transform your body by eating right.

You can call it the Ganesha Diet after Lord Ganesha if you like, but it is really just the Baby Elephant Diet, and it will be a game-changer for you.

I know many of you will smile knowingly at my unapologetic attempt to use what biologists call charismatic mega fauna to sell you a health and diet concept. But there is a lot more substance to it than that. The baby elephant may be an adorable animal that also happens to be the living incarnation of Hinduisms most popular god (even more popular than cricketer Sachin Tendulkar!), but soon you will understand why the Baby Elephant Diet is so brilliant for health.

First of all, the baby elephant eats a lot. It never counts calories or thinks about restricting itself. You must have seen enough diets that tell you how many calories there are in each item, and frankly those kinds of diets are really tiresome. The Baby Elephant Diet doesnt work like that at all. In fact, as you will see later on, you will actually be able to increase the quantity of food you eat once you start following this diet. Now who doesnt want to follow a diet where you pretty much do not have to think about every calorie you are eating? In the Baby Elephant Diet, calorie counting is out, and eating the right foods is in.

Second, the baby elephant eats lots and lots of fibre. Have you ever seen a pile of elephant dung? It has so much fibre that there is actually a company, Elephantdungpaper.com, that makes paper out of elephant dung. Each elephant produces enough dung to make over 100 sheets of paper a day! Looking at it another way, only 4 per cent of what an elephant eats has nutritional content that is absorbed by its body. The other 96 per cent gets digested, and then passes right through as fertilizer. The fundamental secret of healthy living that the baby elephant is teaching us is eat more fibre.

Third, the baby elephant is a vegetarian, although it becomes vegan when it stops drinking its mothers milk. In this regard, we are not strictly baby elephants. Humans must have some animal protein even as adults, whether it is dairy or eggs or fish, although we dont need much of it. Indian vegetarians who consume dairy do just fine. While referring to the fast bowling attacks of former Indian cricketers Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad who are pure vegetarians, a famous commentator would complain that so much vegetarianism in India meant that we could not produce really fast bowlers implying that one must eat meat to build muscle. This is complete nonsense. While it is true that one must eat protein to build muscle, there is plenty of research that shows that you can eat vegetable or dairy protein (as many Indian vegetarians do) and be as strong as anybody. You dont have to eat meat. In fact, Patrik Baboumian, one of the strongest men in the world, is a vegan, just like the baby elephant. If you doubt that vegetarians can be strong, just ask an elephant or a rhino or a hippobut do it from a very safe distance. The strongest beasts in the animal kingdom are all vegans, and they can get quite grumpy if they dont get their daily plant fix.