Overview

• Hindustan Times features celebrity dietician Simrat Kathuria’s five-day Navratri menu highlighting dishes like sabudana khichdi, samak upma, singhare ki poori, kuttu puri and lauki chilla.
• Kathuria recommends avoiding wheat and rice grains, onions, garlic and processed foods, steering devotees toward traditional flours, fruits, vegetables and dairy.
• Her guidance underscores hydration, balanced carbohydrates with protein and healthy fats, restrained oil use with simple spices, advance batch cooking and skipping packaged items.
• Times Now compiles five fasting-friendly staples—kuttu (buckwheat), singhara (water chestnut) flour, rajgira (amaranth), sabudana and barley—describing their nutritional benefits.
• Barley is noted as an allowable but less common option in some fasts, valued for fibre and satiety with simple preparations like porridge or khichdi.