FOOD FOR THE SOCIAL MEDIA SOUL: WHY INDIANS VICIOUSLY DEBATE NUTRITION ONLINE 8th May 2019 https://genderit.org/feminist-talk/food-social-media-soul-why-indians-viciously-debate-nutrition-online by Sylvia Karpagam
Excerpts: Social media occasionally erupts into a tizzy over food choices. While true blue vegans swear by almond milk, non-dairy ice-cream, scrambled tofu, flaxseed, maple syrup, fortified plant milk etc., “pure’ vegetarians get into a sublime trance over thayir saadham , molagu maanga , poosanika pachadi, kurkure mushroom, malai chaap rolls, tandoori paneer momos, achaari tikka* etc. Meanwhile, the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are going ballistic over the extreme cruelty meted out on animals by the meat-eating, leather wearing, animal experimenting sections of society.
By a strange but not unnatural coincidence, caste and class sit closely aligned in each of these groups – with the ‘pure’ vegetarians lauding the vegan army, and also claiming to be PETA activists in their spare time. It’s also this same group that occupies large tractlands on social media with little cognizance or sensitivity on how little the other groups are represented in these spaces.
Discussions on social media around nutrition and food choice get cluttered with multiple issues. The modus operandi seems to be to shout, abuse, play the victim card and/or share links of google search documents that validate one’s own pet prejudices
In the meantime, India is reeling with several food-related crises. In some states, there are documented starvation deaths, especially with the introduction of the Aadhar card and biometric verification of people’s citizenship. 33.2% Indian men and 36% women have a Body Mass Index less than 18.5 which means they aren’t getting enough food to perform even activities of daily living, leave alone heavy labour. The poor in India have smaller heights, weights, chronic energy deficiency, poor bone health and a high risk of non-communicable diseases which can be attributed to poor diets that are cereal-heavy with nothing much else.
While food is an extremely personal choice, its access and availability are closely linked to and affected by policy decisions around the land, water, environment, agriculture, pesticides, labour rights, gender, caste, education, social welfare schemes, healthcare etc.
Research shows that animal food, when eaten in the recommended quantity, has better absorption and bioavailability of proteins, vitamins and minerals than vegetable sources.
However, given the rigid hierarchical caste and class structures that operate overtly and covertly in India, this mobility is almost impossible. Those that do move up on the social ladder often continue to face harassment, discrimination, abuse, humiliation, rejection etc.
Nowhere is this more visible than in how the vegetarians treat the meat eaters. Ideas of purity/pollution, clean/unclean, higher value/base value, sattvik/tamassic play out repeatedly with the single-minded agenda of maintaining a hierarchical status quo of humiliating the meat eater into a self-imposed state of inferiority.
Corporates such as Pepsico, Nestle, Coca Cola, Mars, Ajinomoto, Unilever, Monsanto, Bill and Melinda Gates, World Bank etc, - never slow to identify a market opportunity, have already occupied the policy-making table in the country, along with the predominantly vegetarian policymakers to push for fortification, processed foods, veganism and sattvik diets. The vegans, in the meantime, have quietly snuck up into the Indian sub-continent riding on the backs of the processed food industry – an agenda of large corporates and multinationals to divest food from the hands of communities and take full control.