Why My Mother Didn’t Gain Weight After Delivery

My daughter Divya loves home-made ghee (clarified butter). As a young girl, she’d put ghee on hot chappatis (Indian pita) and watch it melt with glee. She would then put a teaspoon of sugar, roll it and eat. She also loved ‘Adai‘, which is made by grinding a mix of soaked cereal grains and lentils and spiced generously with chillies and ginger. She’d stand next to me and wait until I made a crispy pancake out of the mix, and relish it with a melting dollop of ghee and a piece of jaggery.

Dosa/Adai via Wikipedia

‘Paruppu sadam’ —cooked-lentils-with-rice was another favorite of hers. So when Divya came home from Memphis on a vacation, I served her hot rice, followed by a generous dollop of ghee.

“Mum, Stop it!! I don’t want to look like you!!” she poked an accusing finger at my matronly figure.

My mother butted in to support me. “We used to have cows in our village those days, and my mother would feed me a cup-full of ghee each day after I delivered every baby of mine, yet when I returned to my mother-in-laws house after five months, she would taunt me saying my mother didn’t take good care of me, and I looked thin as a reed.”

Divya shook her head disbelievingly, probably dismissing it as another incredible yarn spun by the oldies.

I know my mother’s words as representing facts, because she fed me the same diet when I delivered my children. It was a special diet with menu items that would promote fast healing, wouldn’t cause gas to form, have lactogenic properties, etc.

At night, she would boil garlic cloves in milk and ask me to have the milk as well as the garlic. Early in the morning she would extract the juice from ginger, to which she would add palm jaggery along with powdered peppers (piper nigrum and piper longum) and heat it. On this hot mix, she would pour two tablespoons of ghee.

Piper Longum Courtesy: FRLHT

The select vegetables that would be served in the afternoons would be cooked in ghee. After the lunch, I’d have to devour wads of betel leaves with lime and areca nuts. Am I not lactating? That would call for several glasses of milk to be drunk throughout the day.

The important question is why this diet did not make one fat.

The trick lies in the combination of food items.

The Benefits of Piper Nigrum and Piper Longum

Piper nigrum and piper longum are powerful thermogenic herbs that help in the thermogenesis of fats and accelerate metabolism in our body. In other words, the Piper family took care to see that the enormous amounts of ghee did not deposit itself as unsightly fat. Although thermogenesis is a key factor in maintaining weight loss, it also helps the body to digest and absorb the nutrients in the intestines. Piper nigrum stimulates the endocrine system, increases cellular oxygenation and expedites energy expenditure. Piper nigrum stimulates the taste buds and the stomach to secrete more hydrochloric acid, thus improving the digestion of proteins.

Benefits of Garlic

Stating all the benefits of garlic would call for another article. Suffice to say, it is an antioxidant crammed with cardiovascular benefits for the consumer, and makes large amounts of saturated fat consumption safe.

Benefits of Ginger

Ginger promotes the flow of bile and is excellent for treating nausea and an upset stomach. Like garlic, ginger is anti-inflammatory and supports a healthy cardiovascular system. It is useful in treating colds and allergies as well.

Remember all the benefits from the food get passed by the nursing mother to her babies too.

The Benefits of Butter

Finally. Butter has all the nutrients necessary for the baby’s developing brain. Butter contains Vitamin A necessary for thyroid and adrenal health both of which, in turn, are essential for the proper functioning of the heart and cardiovascular system. Abnormalities of the heart and larger blood vessels occur in babies born to vitamin A deficient mothers.

Home-made butter is full of health sustaining good bacteria like lactobacillus plantarum, and lactococcus lactis. Butter contains conjugated linoleic acid, which is a potent anti-cancer agent, muscle builder, and immunity booster.

Butter contains lauric acid, a medium chain fatty acid found abundantly in breast milk, which is responsible for the antiviral, antibacterial, antimicrobial and antiprotozoal properties of the butter.

Butter contains the vital mineral selenium and also lecithin, an essential nutrient for cholesterol metabolism. Like the Vitamins A and E that is found in butter, selenium is also an anti-oxidant that protects against the damage the free radicals cause to the arteries.

No wonder, my mother did not gain weight after delivery. But she is old now; she is no longer thin — the lack of exercise has taken its toll after all.

Did I say ‘me too’?