Conscientious food habits for us and our planet
For a while now, I have been doing some research on what forms food habits; the diversity of our palate and the health and nutrition we get from what we eat. This research was not particularly inspired by any great thinking. Rather, prompted by some conversations on whether or not we could be doing something else to lead healthier lives.
During the course of this ‘research’, I have been seeking answers to some very fundamental questions. Questions such as: Where does our food come from and does it provide us with the nutrition we need?
Is there a reason we eat what we eat? We have always heard that there is a connection between where we live and what we eat…what is that connection? For example (and though I never preferred it), is there a reason why rice is so preferred in the South and deriving some insights from conversations with my grandparents over meals that we had shared, the question as to whether we had always eaten this way?
Why do our grandmothers keep telling us that the foods they used to make were very different from the foods that we eat now?
The quest for answers to these questions introduced me to some very interesting literature, subsequently leading to some very interesting discussions on why we cook whatever it is that we cook; about farming practices, and some thoughts on what I need to be doing differently on my part, both to provide for the nutritional needs of my family and to play a more responsible role as a consumer.
Though not really ‘intended’, what also hit me like a ton of bricks during the course of this research are the following:
1. The undeniable connection between our food habits and the delicate checks and balances of our planet – one of them the impact of farming practices and food habits on climate change.
2. The need to harness the intelligence of (mostly lost) local communities that have been suppressed over time in the name of ‘development’ to give way to the half-baked knowledge that most of us possess.
3. The fundamental realization that the knowledge we possess is but a product of systematic advertising by big corporations; linear thinking as a product of a far-removed-from-reality, school education that most of us have undergone; and a lot of lethargy on our part resulting from a certain self-obsession to focus on ‘just’ our busy lives leading to always adopting what’s convenient, rather than what’s right.
This is what I am going to be attempting to explain now. Let me start with the food that we are most familiar with and which we think provide us with all the nutritional needs that weneed…Rice.
Rice has been systematically monopolized through a push for policy and economic gains not for the health of the masses and certainly not for the health of the planet. It takes 3000 liters of water to cultivate 1 kg of rice, which amounts to 6 million liters of water per acre of rice cultivation.
With the erratic availability of water for agriculture as a result of changing patterns in our climate, rice farming would probably be the first to face the brunt, as it cannot survive acute water deprivation. So, if this is the food we are accustomed to, and over which we hold deep-rooted belief patterns, convincing ourselves that they solely provide for our nutritional needs, what will we do when rice farming is no longer feasible?
What seems to have saved the day for some farmers is the adoption of bio-diverse farming practices.
Monoculture farming of ‘cash crops’ has led to the inevitability of often hearing in the news: Dependence on one crop, rising debts, and eventual suicide.
Here is what we do not hear about and do not know about:
1) the systematic loss of soil fertility.
2) The lure of immediate gains of growing cash crops including more returns for the sale of cash crops in the local Mandi (market) which incentivizes farmers to grow them in the first place.
3) The push for the heavy adoption of chemical fertilizers by corporations to keep the soil ‘producing’ which farmers who do not adopt bio diverse farming practices become heavily dependent on.
Kumaraswamy of Tiptur Taluka, for example, adopts horticultural practices and has a diversified farm with millets and other crops. He says that the problem with inexperienced farmers is that they look for quicker payoffs through the use of chemical fertilizers and stand to lose in the longer term as their farmlands cannot sustain the demands of industrial agriculture.
At a time when we should be reducing “food miles” by eating bio-diverse, local and fresh foods, we choose to adopt monoculture farming practices that ‘promote’ the growth of just certain crops which increasingly deplete the soil of all its nutrients. So, the questions that I pose for myself at this stage is to not just focus on something exclusive such as how best to meet the nutritional needs of my family. Rather, something more inclusive such as, how do I best meet the nutritional needs of my family while making conscious choices to encourage bio-diverse farming, not play a part in farmer suicides, and preserve the health and vitalityof the planet (in that order).
Benefits of bio-diverse farming
Forgotten local foods that are right for us
Millets for food and nutrition security
Consciously, diversifying the food basket with millets: A step in the right direction for our health as well as the health of the planet