InstaGrub gets a healthy twist

A fresh-off-the-oven post of banana bread topped with homemade peanut butter pops up on your feed. (Maybe, just as you read this.) What follows next is an inviting and delicious prawn salad which took the user hardly about a couple of minutes to rustle up. But before you brush them away, assuming they are packed with calories and unhealthy fats, think again! Clearly the reign of healthy eating has reached an all-new high — from ragi brownies and sprouts in idlis to avocado cupcakes, youngsters are trying their hand at getting increasingly creative with their culinary skills that bring with it great insta-pictures and a whole lot of goodness too! We asked  foodies to comment about what did they just snap from their healthy box!

Mixing cooking with play is 23-year-old yoga trainer Carolyn Theresa Simon, who shares how developing her own healthy versions of popular dishes helps her indulge guilt-free. “I have the biggest sweet tooth, so I’m trying to work with healthier alternatives for sugar,  I use jaggery or dates for most of my dishes. I also try a lot of Ayurvedic recipes like jaggery poha, ragi brownies and avocado cupcakes — all dishes I love rustling up,” she explains. Adding how it’s a healthy trend, Carolyn says, “Social media is a great forum to inspire people to take to healthy eating. If you’re on it, you might as well post something that benefits your followers in whatever little way.”

Carolyn, a foodie, poses with a healthy Quinoa burger

While it works well for those wanting to satiate those sweet cravings, for some it is all about whipping up a storm in the kitchen for healthier lunches. Tamarra Sequeira, a 26-year-old lawyer, states, “I’ve made clean eating a goal to keep fit and keep my mind sharp. I think it is important for everyone, especially with work hours that don’t really allow for enough fitness time. Since people make time to scroll through Instagram despite having no time at all, I make use of the space to offer some healthy ‘food-inspiration’. I love pizza and so does my husband and we don’t like missing out on eating it for health reasons. So I’d definitely say my cauliflower-base sausage pizza is a favourite. We also love salad lunches, so I also make a host of chicken and prawn salads with different home developed dressings and whole wheat pastas. And yes, they make really good Instagram pictures too!”

Food entrepreneur Ranjini, who runs Tadka Pasta with her partner Ruchira, loves to add a visually stimulating edge to food pictures, but the focus has been on the ingredients and the results they bring about, more than the props! “Food has always been a multi-sensory experience, but never has it been so integral to the fabric of the every day dining ritual. While it is all well that Instagram feeds tell us what to eat and how to, food that is brimming with nutrients and flavour doesn’t always tick all the points on the aesthetic scale. Still, food that looks good always scores an extra point, and we do try to enhance ours by paying attention to textures and trimmings. That said, pizza pinwheel buns, millet pongal, khara bun paninis and buckwheat pancakes are what we dig into after Instagramming it,” she concludes.