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PULSES

Mihir Gupta, June 6, 2025

The nutritional elements available from pulses depend more on the method of making pulses. Soak for eight hours before making pulses. Take pulses with peels. Pulses with peels are more beneficial than pulses without peels. Soaking pulses activates many enzyme systems present in them, which increases the nutritional value of pulses. Pulses do not contain vitamin C in dry conditions, but after soaking, vitamin C appears in greater quantity. Similarly, the content of folic acid and other ‘B’ group vitamins increases by 23- times in sprouted grains as compared to dry grains. Soaking leads to germination.
Pulses in the dry state contain some anti-nutritional factors such as phytate and tannin, which adversely affect the availability of certain nutrients to the body, but in germination, these harmful substances are broken down and inactivated. It has been observed that only after soaking in water overnight, 50% of the tannins are separated from gram and tur. In this way, about 25 per cent of tannins can be extracted from moong and urad. After germination for 2448 hours, the tannin content further decreases by 10-15%.
Another substance in dried gram is phytate, which is more than 60% of total phosphorus, but after 48 hours of germination it remains only 44 per cent and thus there is no change in phosphorus. Due to these beneficial effects, the availability of iron from pulses is doubled after germination. Germination also changes the amount of starch in the grain. This makes the pulses digestible. It is known to all that pulses cause the condition of adamant or udder-vayu (gas formation).
Chana produces more gas than other pulses. The presence of some sugars called ‘oligosaccharides’ in these pulses is a factor related to gas formation. Due to the absence of suitable digestive enzymes in humans, these sugars are not absorbed. But bacteria in the large intestine act on these gas-forming sugars. These oligo-sugars are reduced when gram, moong, urad or arhar are sprouted. After germination for 24 hours, the concentration of oligo-sugars was found to be 50% compared to the initial value. By 48- 72 hours it was found to be less than 25-72%. This means that unsprouted pulses are less gas-forming. The two traditional methods of preparing pulses, especially gram and moong, are roasting and puffing. These foods taste good when roasted and puffed, the heat also destroys the anti-unfalteringly substances during these processes. The thickness of the pulp of roasted pulses is also reduced.
In this way, by using roasted pulses, we can reduce the quantity of food, especially in feeding small children. The popular method of cooking pulses is to boil them in water and cook. Those substances become inactive which do not allow the body to absorb some nutrients, but some nutrients get dissolved in the cooking medium. It has been found that by boiling 5-25% loss of riboflavin occurs. The tannin content of pulses shows that more than 80% of the anti-nutritional factor is separated from the grain after cooking. Cooking tur dal or rice does not affect the bioavailability of iron. Things made from pulses like papad, lentil-moth etc. are powerful food when given to the patients after their disease is cured. Sweets should not be given.

Face Beauty-
Apply boiled water of lentils and rice on the face and let it dry. Wash off after an hour. This will brighten the look of the face.

Authors

  • Mihir Gupta

    Do you know a punjabi who is not a foodie... well I would call
    Myself a health aficionado . Food has an enthusiastic effect on me . Being the younger sibling with various health conditions, I was nurtured in an environment of overprotectiveness. Their concern was rooted in my lower immunity and frequent illnesses and my mother always emphasized a healthy diet, instilling in me the belief that "you are what you eat”.
    This belief was put to the test when I was the only one in my family to contract COVID-19. The isolation was challenging but became a pivotal moment for self-care and introspection. During this period, I leaned heavily on the wisdom imparted by my mother, who shared recipes for nutritious green juices and herbal teas, all sourced from our kitchen garden. I meticulously journaled this experience, recording each meal and its impact on my health.

  • Breathing is not always automatic. I learnt that the hard way.
    Even now, I can recall the harrowing memory from when I was 4: 3 AM, my chest tightening faster than I could explain. My parents rushing to find the nebuliser.
    For most kids, a medicine cabinet is usually a background object. Not for me, though. Ours had a schedule. Steroids. Inhalers. Steam. Nebulisers.
    My missed school days were no longer measured by absences, but by how long it took for my lungs to recuperate. This illness exiled me from the very body my childhood self had once taken for granted.
    But alongside the treatment, I began to notice smaller rituals. Rituals that made the illness feel a little less consuming. The nushkas (home remedies) were endless: adrak wali chai, honey stirred into turmeric or the steam inhalation my mom transformed into a myriad of herbs. My mother never called it nutritional science, but she knew what to make and when.
    When “healthy food” came to my mind, I pictured imported products, expensive superfoods and products in a vocabulary my childhood self could not decode.
    But I looked at my own kitchen.
    Lentils simmering, ginger crushing, yoghurt culturing. Ingredients so familiar, yet so valuable. The more I googled, the more I realised health shouldn’t be hidden behind imported deliveries. Sometimes, it can begin with what’s already waiting on the kitchen counter.
    This realisation became the foundation of Food Thy Medicine for me.
    I met my co- founder in the waiting room of a pulmonologist's clinic, where our shared routines of inhalers and nebulisers made the idea feel less like a project but a conversation we had to continue. Thus, I began contributing to this project during the summers after Grades 9 and 10. What began as an interest in food and health became deeply personal: a way to turn years of dependence on doctors, prescriptions and steroids into a desire to understand the body better. As a co-author, I helped build a platform that makes nutrition information practical, not glamorous.
    The research for my AI ensured isn’t built for a perfect kitchen, rather the half- empty fridge, rushed day and leftovers that people ask “What can we do with this?” It turns familiar ingredients into realistic meal ideas and our research explains what those ingredients contribute nutritionally.
    The point was never to make food mythical but to make useful information feel less daunting and more reliable. It does not replace doctors or medicine: and it shouldn’t. I still take my prescribed medicine. I still live with asthma. But the illness taught me that care doesn’t begin and end at a clinic door and may be found in the ordinary decisions at home. What we cook, what we keep in the fridge and how we care for ourselves between appointments.
    I can’t control every flare up. But I can keep asking better questions, and help more people see possibility in the food around them.
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