No more fried foods! Health Ministry`s canteen to serve only `good food for good life`

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday announced that from now onwards fried foods will NOT be served in Health Ministry`s canteens.

The idea behind this is to provide healthy food like baked samosas with row banana stuffing, millet roti, ragi sheera, Ayurveda khichdi, etc. "Our scriptures and scientists believe that our food is our medicine and it`s important to adopt good eating habits in life," said Mandaviya.

"Our idea is to provide simple dishes that they can be made easily and is also healthy. For example, we recently made efforts to eliminate fried food because frying is not healthy. We thought of giving a twist to the 'somosa' by eliminating potatoes and incorporating row bananas instead of them. This twist gave them a little twist in the taste and is healthy too," said Ronika Seth, Culinary Operations Associate, Hindustan Unilever limited.

"We will be adding more dishes to the menu if people demand. So far, the response to the changes has been good as people are happy with the healthy alternatives. In fact, we are running short of dishes every day. I am glad that people are accepting it," she said.

Seth further informed that they are planning to bring similar changes in the canteens of other ministries as well. Notably, the Union Health Minister himself is a fitness enthusiast and follows a healthy lifestyle. He performs exercise and yoga daily for 45 minutes. 

He performs exercise and yoga on daily basis and ensures that he cycles at least 20 kilometres every day. According to the Health Ministry sources, Mandaviya had been contemplating bringing this ''change'' into the Health Ministry canteen ever since taking over his post and had also commissioned it in October last year.