Chaat is a savoury snack that originated in India. Typically it is served at roadside tracks from stalls or food carts . With its origins in Uttar Pradesh, India, chaat has become immensely popular in the rest of the Indian subcontinent. Most chaats originated in some parts of Uttar Pradesh, and some are results of cultural syncretism – for instance, pav bhaji (bread/bun with cooked and mashed vegetables) and bhel puri and sevpuri, which originated in Mumbai.
When hunger strikes, people tend to eat almost anything. Especially during evening time, common with people working in office, they just forget about the calories and eat whatever is available in order to satiate their hunger. Street foods like samosa, chaat and golgappa, etc are the common things which people prefer to eat during evening time. Then there is a tendency to skip dinner as the hunger pang is satisfied. But most importantly the question is “ are these foods healthy”? Well, it is true that chaats are very tasty and appetizing and not that unhealthy too. Whether a chaat is healthy or not, depends where you are eating.
Chaats can be healthy too, if you are making it with healthy ingredients or eating at good place where it is prepared and served in hygienic manner. But, if you are on a weight loss regime then, you are responsible for each bite you eat. Though chaats are prepared with the mixture of various ingredients yet, they are not so unhealthy to eat. But, there are Chaats like Aloo tikki chaat and samosa chaat can be unhealthy especially for the people who are trying to lose weight. The fact that more of oil is required for these preparations.
The good thing about the Indian chaats are that you get varieties to choose from. There are variant varieties of chaats that are popular all over India. Here’s a recipe of papri chaat which one can make at home easily. The home made chaat is much healthier as we are using fresh ingredients mainly curd and potato, onions and tomatoes which actually adds to the nutritive value.