Love gujiya? 3 reasons they may be unhealthy and make you bloated!

Sweet ingredients

Gujiya is a dumpling filled with sweet ingredients such as nuts, dried fruits, khoya and saffron. But, not everytime are these ingredients as good they propose to be.

Why Gujiyas can be harmful

Gujiyas are the flavour of this season. Not only do they mark the beginning of the festival of colours, but also bring with them the happiness of savouring on Holi specialities. While bingeing on these holi favourites, such as gujiya, we often mistake nutritious with delicious and later face the consequences. Gujiya is an ancient Holi preparation, however, has been fiddled with countless number of times now.

Reason number 1

Firstly, market-bought gujiya is packed with trans fats. Not only are they deep fried again and again to freshen them up but are also fried in cheap quality oils to save cost. Vanaspati or old oils are used to fry them and are sold in massive quantities during holi.

Reason number 2

Next in the line is the khoya used to fill gujiyas. Even though khoya is delicious and nutritious at the same time, however, khoya of cheap quality is often used during festival times. They are loaded with starch to lessen their cost as using pure milk and curdling it to make khoya is both time consuming and costly for merchants. If you feel uneasy after eating even 4-5 gujiyas post holi, you know who to blame.

Reason number 3

Thirdly, pure saffron is expensive and although many manufacturers promise prime quality of ingredients used in their gujiya, chances are that gujiya has been filled with yellow colour or saffron infused synthetic colour. Synthetic colours are a common practice for large-scale manufacturers and are often used in usual sweets such as mootichoor laddoos as well.

Stale gujiyas

Lastly, there is a possibility that the gujiya may be stale and can be two to three days old. In such cases, not only are you attracting a week of indigestion and bloatedness but are also upping your chances of falling sick.