Forced Vegetarianism

For three decades and a half, VEENA SHATRUGNA has worked on nutrition and health issues, especially those concerning women. She has campaigned vigorously against the brahmanical influence on the "balanced diet" prescribed by the government to meet the calorie needs of the poor, calling it a cereal overload that has led to myriad health problems. In a conversation with LATHA JISHNU, the nutritionist explains the politics of food that has left a legacy of abiding malnutrition. Excerpts: The majority in India eats meat, yet why are the diets recommended in India entirely vegetarian? The RDA (recommended dietary allowance) was calculated in labs by well-meaning nationalist scientists and economists like C Gopalan, V M Dandekar, Nilakanth Rath and M S Swaminathan. When you study nutrition in a lab, cost becomes a major factor. These were all upper class, upper caste—Brahmins, for the most part—who used their own preference for vegetarian diets to offer simple, scalable solutions to provide "adequate" calories to the vast numbers of the poor. They did not understand the food culture of the poor people who ate a variety of meats from mutton to pork, rabbits, tortoises, beef, and birds, apart from a whole lot fruits, berries, tubers and eggs. What was their prescription? Cereals and more cereals. RDAs from the early 1960s were loaded with cereals. Nuts, oilseeds, fruits, flesh foods all went out of the window. Without our knowledge we have been practising upper caste nutritional science. What was forgotten was that people who recommended cereals were consuming adequate quantities of milk, milk products and other items like fruit and nuts as part of their own vegetarian regime. Why was this done? It is easier for governments to deal with cereals, to procure and distribute. But actually they were taking many short cuts. About 60-80 per cent of Indians enjoy meat but the government ignored this fact. The entire effort was directed at finding the most economical solution. Are you saying this cereal overload is responsible for malnutrition? Some vital nutrients like good proteins, Vitamin A, Vitamin B12, and even folic acid are found largely in animal foods. Animal foods help absorption of iron present in greens, and this is important in a country where 50-85 per cent of women and children are anaemic. Vitamin B12 is found only in animal foods, not surprisingly we now have an epidemic of B12 deficiency. The over-emphasis on cereals and absence of animal foods in the diet spills into the middle and upper classes too, and excess of this has contributed to obesity and related chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Fullinterviewonwww.downtoearth.org.in