Monday, March 2, 2015

Death by chocolate: the sugar-fueled diabetes surge in South Asia

More disposable income combined with a traditional Indian fondness for sweets and snacks are leading to an epidemic of type 2 diabetes among South Asians

The midweek buffet lunch at a fashionable vegetarian restaurant in Bengaluru was delicious but unexceptional until the dessert arrived one table over. It levitated on a cloud of cardamom smoke, hissing loudly: the sizzling chocolate cake, drowning in chocolate syrup, the size of a dinner plate. Actually two. One for each twentysomething computer techie. Both finished the whole thing.

Much of the Indian professional class may be at risk from these muted metabolic timebombs. A traditional Indian fondness for sweets and snacks has combined with rapidly rising incomes for employees in technology, banking and related sectors to enable the buffet stage of gastronomic evolution.

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