Anjali Mukherjee

We live in strange time where people avidly watch gourmet healthy cooking shows while devouring junk food. Junk food / street food today constitutes 35% of a teenager’s diet and approximately 27% of most people’s daily calorie intake. This along with other lifestyle factors like stress, no time to exercise, late nights, smoking, alcohol affect your immune system and you fall prey to many diseases. Today I find a number of people hungrily eating street foods like wada pav and Chinese bhel. Just so that you are informed the below table gives you an idea of their health quotient.

Ingredient Content of Chinese Bhel and Wada Pav

As you can see from the above ingredients both – Chinese bhel and wada pav are maida based fried snack foods. Assuming there is approximately 20-30ml oil used in frying; wada pav would contain approximately 250 – 300 calories and chinese bhel would contain almost the same ± 50 calories depending on the amount of sugar used and the portion size. What is important to note is that the oil used in cooking may be of questionable quality (re-used and rancid) and the maida content is best avoided. So none of these foods should even be considered as a snacking option for those who desire to stay healthy. The sprinkling of vegetables present in Chinese bhel offer insignificant benefits (if you take into consideration the other ingredients used). Of course if you generally eat right, exercise regularly and follow a healthy lifestyle you have nothing to worry - an occasional indulgence will not adversely affect your health; but frequent intake of these foods (more than twice a month) should definitely be avoided if you wish to stay healthy.