India is not the best example to use here, 1 in 2 women are deficient in iron and 1 in 3 kids experience stunted growth as a result of malnutrition. It is why they are trying to fortify lots of foods like other countries have done to fight malnutrition. Sure people are surviving, but I wouldn’t call the current situation great.
That’s the whole point of this article by the UN, to look at malnutrition in developing countries like India and the potential causes.
India has very high levels of malnutrition among women and children. According to the Food Ministry, every second woman in the country is anaemic and every third child is stunted.
Fortification of food is considered to be one of the most suitable methods to combat malnutrition. Rice is one of India’s staple foods, consumed by about two-thirds of the population. Per capita rice consumption in India is 6.8 kg per month. Therefore, fortifying rice with micronutrients is an option to supplement the diet of the poor.
Yeah. No one is against fortification of food, here. India is suffering massively under its neoliberal government, which inherited the colonial-era policies of the British Raj. I can talk all day about the problems in India.
But there’s a reason I said “historically” and “thousands of years.” It was to show that you don’t need meat to live. People in India, before colonialism, lived just as well as people anywhere else without consuming huge amounts of meat.
The problems in India are not due to a lack of meat-consumption. It is due to colonialism and capitalism.
Before industrialisation but after the agricultural revolution people in general ate little meat.
Even hunter-gatherers mostly gathered, not hunted. Because hunting was risky but berries were not.
No human civilisation throughout history has ever consumed as much meat as modern Westerners, who now try to rationalise it by claiming its “essential”.
It’s not, and treating it as such, is already disastrous but is going to become catastrophic if pushed to countries like India and China (which you’re already succeeding at, so congrats I guess).
It was to show that you don’t need meat to live. People in India, before colonialism, lived just as well as people anywhere else without consuming huge amounts of meat.
I think there probably was a lot of malnutrition in India, as well as every other country, before the introduction of greater caloric and nutrient intake from modern farming. Yes humans can live without those but it significantly raises child and infant mortality, women’s death rate, and generally unpleasant life. Meat and egg consumption did solve those problems to an extent, although it may not be sustainable. Regardless, I don’t think we can just go back to that diet. A new one is needed.
