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PNN
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 2: For years, the language of healthy eating has been dominated by subtraction: less sugar, less fat, fewer calories, fewer indulgences. Wellness culture added its own vocabulary of elimination, with diets and trends encouraging people to cut out particular ingredients in favour of rigid routines or the latest “superfood”. But the way we think about nutrition is becoming more nuanced. Alongside the familiar focus on nutrients and calories, there is growing interest in individual nutritional needs, food quality, sustainability and the experience of eating itself. The question is increasingly not just whether a food is healthy, but whether it is satisfying, practical and enjoyable enough to become part of everyday life.
Nutrition is personal
The appeal of a universal diet is obvious. It simplifies a complicated subject and gives people a set of rules to follow. Yet individual responses to food can vary considerably. “Following generic diets would mean that you are ignoring the rich context that every individual comes with, including genetics, gut health, activity level, existing deficiencies, family history and health goals,” says Urvi Lakhwani, Chief Nutritionist at DeAge. She advocates an approach that takes into account bloodwork, lifestyle, biomarkers and cultural context, rather than applying the same dietary formula to everyone. “Trends are there for virality, not physiology and we should treat them as such,” she adds.
Nikita Garg, Celebrity Nutritionist and Founder of Entech Wellness, similarly points to the importance of understanding individual requirements. While the human body relies on the same broad categories of nutrients, people differ in how much they require and how they respond to particular foods. Genetics, age, metabolism, medical history and gut health can all influence nutritional needs. “Your diet needs personalisation,” she says, emphasising the importance of aligning nutrition with an individual’s goals and circumstances.
Research into Indian dietary patterns demonstrates why a uniform approach can be difficult to apply. An analysis based on the ICMR-INDIAB study, published in Nature Medicine in 2025, found considerable variation in diets across Indian states, including differences in refined cereal, whole-grain and added-sugar consumption. The diversity reflects more than geography. Eating habits are shaped by family traditions, culture, income, availability, work schedules and personal preferences.
Lakhwani suggests a less prescriptive starting point: observation. Rather than constantly trying to optimise a diet, she recommends noticing how different foods affect energy, hunger, digestion, sleep and concentration. Over time, that awareness can help people make choices based on their own responses rather than relying entirely on external trends.
From label awareness to understanding
Consumers are paying closer attention to what goes into their food. Protein content, sugar levels, additives and ingredient lists are now common considerations when shopping. But greater awareness has brought its own challenge: knowing how to interpret all that information.
“Consumers are more label-literate than a decade ago, sure,” says Lakhwani. Yet contradictory influencer claims, marketing language and loosely used terms such as “detox” and “clean” can make it difficult to distinguish evidence from promotion.
Garg sees a similar gap between reading a label and understanding it. Protein is one example. Consumers may look for a high number on the nutrition panel without considering where that protein comes from or how useful it is nutritionally. She points to products marketed as “sattu bars” that may use besan-based protein. “Protein quantity means nothing if the quality is poor,” she says, raising questions around digestibility and whether a source provides all the essential amino acids.
The distinction is important as packaged and convenience foods become more prominent in people’s diets. India’s 2024 Dietary Guidelines, issued by the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition, emphasise dietary diversity and balance while addressing changing food habits and the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases. Research into ultra-processed food consumption among Indian adults has also highlighted the changing food environment. One study found that ultra-processed foods contributed 17 per cent of total energy intake among participants, as well as significant proportions of added sugar, total fat and sodium intake.
Rather than adding another list of foods to avoid, the emphasis can instead be on understanding ingredients and the broader nutritional value of a meal. That distinction becomes particularly useful in an environment where food marketing often compresses complex nutritional information into a single headline claim.
Where taste enters the picture
Nutrition also has to contend with a basic fact about food: people want to enjoy it. Chefpreneur Shivani Sharma, Founder of Gourmestan and Maison Gourmestan, believes this should be central to the way healthier eating is approached. “I think the first step is to stop thinking of healthy eating as restrictive,” she says. “Nutrition isn’t rooted in guilt but in making better choices while still enjoying what is on your plate.”
Flavour is fundamental to whether a healthier food will become part of someone’s routine, Sharma believes. At Maison Gourmestan, she works with familiar foods such as bread, crackers, pastries, cakes and batters, looking at how they can be made more nourishing without losing their aroma, texture or flavour. “If a product is nutritious but doesn’t taste good, people are unlikely to make it part of their everyday lives,” she explains.
Chef, Food stylist and author Sheeba de Souza sees presentation as another part of that experience. “With visually driven food content becoming such a powerful part of how we discover and experience food, presentation has certainly become more important,” she says. “We eat with our eyes first.” Colour, composition, texture and plating can create anticipation, but de Souza is clear that appearance cannot substitute for flavour. Fresh herbs, vegetables, fruits and spices can provide natural colour, while contrasting textures — crisp, creamy, crunchy and juicy — can make a nutritious dish more appealing. Thoughtful plating can create a sense of occasion without relying on excessive fat, sugar or salt.
The culinary approach, in this context, is less about replicating a diet plan and more about making nutritious ingredients work within the sensory experience people already seek from food.
Bridging food and wellness
The growing overlap between food and wellness gives chefs an opportunity to translate nutritional knowledge into something more tangible. “Chefpreneurs have a unique opportunity because we understand both sides of the conversation,” says Sharma. “We understand food from a sensory and culinary perspective, but we can also use that knowledge to think about ingredients, nutrition and how food fits into people’s everyday lives.”
Rather than focusing exclusively on what people should remove from their diets, chefs can demonstrate what can be added or adapted. A familiar product can be reformulated; a different grain can alter the nutritional profile of a dish; herbs and spices can build flavour; and ingredients such as millets can be incorporated into contemporary formats.
This is particularly relevant in India, where regional cuisines already offer an extensive repertoire of pulses, grains, vegetables, fruits, fermented foods, nuts and spices. The challenge is often one of making these ingredients work for contemporary lifestyles, where convenience and accessibility can be as important as nutritional value.
A broader idea of health
Nutrition is also increasingly being considered as one part of a wider picture of wellbeing. An understanding of foundational medicine has shaped Natashya Phillips’ approach to health as something built through everyday habits rather than only through interventions when something goes wrong. “Health gets built through the daily choices we make, not the intervention we reach for once things go wrong,” says Natashya Phillips, Managing Director and Co-Founder of LCHHS.
Food is one of those choices, but it does not operate independently. Phillips points to movement, sleep, emotional health, breath and other aspects of wellbeing as interconnected. Someone can eat an apparently exemplary diet while being chronically sleep-deprived, for instance, and still struggle to feel well. This wider perspective also affects how sustainability is understood. A nutritional approach needs to fit within the realities of a person’s schedule, budget, culture and social life if it is going to be maintained over time.
A healthier wellness culture
The proliferation of nutrition advice has made it harder to distinguish lasting principles from passing trends. Phillips believes wellness leaders have contributed to this problem by presenting each new ingredient, supplement or dietary practice as though it might be the missing piece. “People are more confused about nutrition today than they were ten years ago,” she says. “That’s not progress.”
Her approach is to ask whether a claim is evidence-backed, whether it applies across different types of people and whether it is likely to support long-term health rather than simply attract attention. “Leaders also need to get comfortable saying ‘it depends’,” she says. The qualification is important because nutrition sits at the intersection of science and daily life. Broad principles around a balanced diet may be well established, but their application is shaped by the person, the food available to them, their culture and their circumstances.
The experience of eating has always involved more than nutrients. Taste, habit, culture, memory and convenience all shape what ends up on the plate. A contemporary approach to nutrition has room for those realities alongside the science — making healthy eating less about following a perfect formula and more about developing an informed, enjoyable and sustainable way of eating.
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