When fast food is good for health

After announcing a compulsory low-fat diet for its crews, it is heartening that Air India also intends to continue serving special Navratri meals for the coming fasting season. Fox nuts, french fries, sabudana pakoras and potato dishes (using only cumin and rock salt), dry fruit-based desserts and plain yoghurt may not be ideal Navratri fare for everyone as the fried foods in particular will not retain their special crunch when reheated, but it shows the government-owned carrier is still striving to keep passengers happy in flight. It could well have dished out only non-Navratri-compliant — albeit vegetarian — meals and left many observant passengers actually fasting.

Of course, the real indication of the increasing prevalence of fasting Indian air travellers will be the addition of Navratri meals as a regular seasonal category on all domestic and foreign carriers. After all, besides iftar specials on airlines such as Emirates and Etihad, even less-known carriers like Air Serbia not only provide Hindu and Jain meals besides halal and kosher options, they even offer vegetarian food cooked only with oil or water during the orthodox Christian fasting season of Lent. In any case, Navratri meals sans meats, legumes, lentils, and wheat and rice, after all, will seem familiar to even non-Indians as variant of the very fashionable keto diet.