Will you be celebrating National Curry Week with a take-away or cooking your own fiery feast?
This year, National Curry Week takes place from 5th to 11th October. The event was founded by the late Peter Grove in 1998, a prominent journalist who had fallen in love with curry. He wanted to encourage others to try his favourite food and had a vision of driving awareness and appreciation of the burgeoning Indian restaurant industry, whilst also raising funds for charity.
Well, I’m not sure if it is all due to Peter and ongoing National Curry Week celebrations, but our love of curry continues to grow unabated, whether that is a takeaway, a restaurant meal or home-cooked food.
There have been some fantastic highlights during respective National Curry Weeks over the last twenty-plus years including:
2003 – a double-decker bus tour across you the UK serving free curry made by famous chefs;
2005 – fashion designer, Lisa Myers, created the world’s first dress made entirely of – poppadums!
2012 – the world record for the tallest stack of poppadums, standing at 1.72 metres.
The nations favourite supper?
It has often been said that curry is the “national dish” of Britain, with curry houses becoming a staple of the high street since the 1970’s, and millions of curries consumed every single week.
Is it really the nation’s favourite supper? The answer depends on which poll you are looking at and there does seem to be an ongoing battle between fish and chips and curry for that number one slot.
But apparently, orders of Indian takeaways nearly quadrupled in the first four weeks of the lockdown, a significantly bigger increase than that for fish and chips and Chinese takeaways, so it certainly looks as if curry is in the lead at the moment.
But is curry healthy?
The short answer is – it depends!
Curries can be extremely healthy meals but there are, of course, so many variations.
If you are ordering a takeaway or eating in a restaurant, your choice of dishes, the way the meal is cooked, and the quality of the ingredients will all impact the potential health aspect of the meal.
Eating lots of poppadums, chapatis, naans and deep-fried foods will certainly be highly calorific and the link between fried foods and obesity and heart disease are well known
And unfortunately, unless you are eating in a higher-class restaurant, the quality of ingredients is likely to be quite poor. In particular, chicken dishes, which certainly seem to be the most popular curry choice, are likely to be made with the cheapest possible chickens that are kept in very poor conditions and fed a very poor diet. The same will probably apply to many of the ingredients. If you care about animal welfare as well as eating healthily, chicken and meat take-aways are perhaps best avoided!
The best way to ensure you have a healthy, quality curry is to cook it yourself at home. Before you decide which dishes to cook, you need to decide the following:
- Are you cooking from scratch?
- Will you use a curry sauce?
- Will you use a curry paste?
In the latter two options, check the ingredients to ensure there are no nasty additives. As a general rule of thumb, you do tend to get what you pay for with both curries and pastes, but if you really want to make it healthy, cooking from scratch is the best option.
Additionally, accompanying your curry with wholemeal rice rather than plain white rice is a much healthier option.
Why not go veg*n?
It is estimated that in India, 20-40% of the population is vegetarian, so there are plenty of options for tasty curries if you are vegan or vegetarian (veg*n) or just trying to cut down on your meat consumption.
With the extensive use of herbs and spices which often have many health benefits, vegan curries have certainly become a popular, healthier, but equally tasty, alternative to meat dishes and National Curry Week is the perfect time to try something new.
If you would like something quick, easy, healthy, tasty, and vegan, why not try this Red Lentil Coconut Curry, a warming curry in the South Indian style, flavoured with aromatic fresh ginger, cumin and coriander. It’s made extra creamy and luscious thanks to the addition of organic coconut milk.
If you partner a lentil curry (dal) with rice, this provides a complete protein so there is absolutely no need to think you are not getting sufficient quantity or quality of protein in the meal. And of course, it is really easy to pack lots of interesting veggies into different styles of curries to help ensure you get your 5-a-day.
The lentil curry mentioned is featured in Marlene Watson-Tara’s definitive vegan book Go Vegan. She says:
Many people are turning to a vegan diet in the desire to live a healthier life, with a focus on wholegrain, beans, vegetables from land and sea, fruits, nuts and seeds, and these ingredients work particularly well in spicey curries.
So, do enjoy a curry or two during National Curry Week, but try and celebrate with healthy options!
Image credit
Image by Aarohi Rane from Pixabay