He believes in treating heart patients not with medicine but with healthy food cooked in ‘zero oil’. City-based heart specialist Dr Bimal Chhajer (picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya), who has penned over 70 zero-oil cookbooks in the past 15 years as part of his Science And Art Of Living (SAAOL) programme, tells t2 about his off-beat approach and its benefits…

You believe that calorie-free healthy food is the cure to all heart diseases…

Heart diseases occur from blockage in the coronary arteries caused by any kind of oily food. Today’s busy lifestyle doesn’t permit time for the required amount of exercise, so it all comes down to a diet that is sans oil, fatty acids or calories. By eating non-oily food, the fatty deposits in our body start depleting, which in turn reduces the risk of developing a blockage.

What can healthy cooking do for the heart that medicines cannot?

Popping pills never really help in clearing a heart blockage. Food cooked in zero oil means stopping the intake of fatty acids by which heart blockages can be reversed, even if it is a slow process. Along with eating healthy, one also has to give up on alcohol consumption and smoking.

What exactly is zero-oil cooking and how was it conceptualised?

As the phrase suggests, it is a method of cooking without a drop of oil and supplementing with water instead. But no oil does not mean no taste — the food can be cooked in a way to make it both healthy and delicious.

It was while treating heart patients at AIIMS (in Delhi) that I came up with the zero-oil cooking programme. After the first few experiments, we had patients coming back to complain that the taste was like boiled food. So I made some changes to the cooking method to pack in more flavours by cooking spices and masalas in small quantities of water. The method is to keep adding small amounts (one teaspoon) of water while stirring the ingredients in a non-stick pan. Currently there are over 150 zero-oil recipes that cover south Indian, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and Rajasthani dishes.

Can comfort food also be cooked in zero oil?

In my Zero Oil Cook Book there are recipes for snacky food like samosas, kachoris, pizza and burgers prepared the healthy way.

What are the long-term benefits of zero-oil cooked food?

The most important benefit is the prevention and reversal of heart disease. It also results in weight reduction and stabilising blood pressure. Digestion improves significantly, so acidity and gastric pain are kept at bay.