Today, we are becoming increasingly health-conscious, and the demand for healthy foods in on the rise. In fact, a mid-2016 survey by market intelligence firm Mintel showed that living a healthier life triumphs traveling the world or having a child as a short-term goal for most Indian consumers. Pushed by sedentary lifestyle and the diseases it brings, Indians are now waking up to the need to lead a healthier life and the industry in its turn is responding to these changing trends with the introduction of salad bars.
In Goa too, the restaurant scene is rapidly changing. Rather than serve salads as side dishes or just garnish for the main dish, many restaurants are giving salads a prime space in their menus. In fact, now there are also restaurants and services dedicated to delivering you only healthy food.
“I had spent 10 years in the fitness industry working as a gym trainer. I realised that people often find it difficult to maintain the diet needed after workout. So, we opened a cafe to serve health-cautious people, ” says Amar Mhamal of the Health Bite Cafe in Mapusa. Over the years however, the nature of their service has changed. “There is great demand for customised diet plans, and now we home-deliver customised diet to our customers,” informs Mhamal. His core clientele comprises of fitness enthusiasts. Clarifying as to why he shifted from a restaurant to home delivery service, Mhamal offers insights into the goal behind the venture.
“We started a long-term home delivery service because you don’t get results within one or two healthy meals. It is difficult for people to come to our restaurant all the time for the diet. Instead, if it is regularly home-delivered, it is also easy for the customers to have a meal in the comfort of their home, and maintain their lunch and dinner timings.”
For those of us who are not exactly on a diet, but would prefer healthy food, there is the option of a salad bar. One of the recent additions to this sector is the Panaji based Simply Salads. “The goal of is to get people to eat salad meal, and to make raw vegetables taste good,” informs the establishment’s proprietor Devaki Rataboli. “We make fibre tasty, and we do that without using off-the-rack sauces. We stick to salads becauses health is our central thought,” she says. Simply Salads serves 19 salads in total.
“Many restaurants talk of farm-to-table philosophy, but few things on your plate are unprocessed,” Rataboli says. Some even go as far as serving chicken chilli in the name of salads, she states. “We use fresh, highly perishable ingredients, and focus on serving unprocessed food. Additionally, we have an open kitchen to emphasize hygiene.”
Rataboli, who works as an HR consultant, chose to open a salad bar after witnessing young people suffer from ailments brought on by sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diet. Simply Salads also aims to procure all its raw material from organic sources. The establishment is now carving a niche for itself on Goan food scene. “ According to Ayurveda, the afternoon meal should be heavy. But as my wife and I are both working, we do not get time to prepare full healthy meals. Here, we can have salads as full meals. They give you the vital proteins and also help retain the water content of the body,” says Jitu Shah, a customer at the salad bar.
While the local outlets are introducing healthy food, big brands too are jumping on the health bandwagon. Subway, in addition to being a sandwich giant, is paying attention to promoting a range of salads in its menu. Kishor, the manager of the brand’s store in Miramar says. “We always had salads on the menu but now we’re promoting them in the light of their health benefits.”
