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Teicholz, Nina. 2014. The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. New York: Simon & Schuster Excerpts Nina Teicholz is a journalist who has tracked the history of dietary recommendations in the United States of America and throws up some shocking findings. Her book draws from several references and tracks how power and money allowed some opinions to get hardened as facts while others were not give due attention. In her book she writes “The more I probed, the greater was my realization that all our dietary recommendations about fat—the ingredient about which our health authorities have obsessed most during the past sixty years—appeared to be not just slightly offtrack but completely wrong. Almost nothing that we commonly believe today about fats generally and saturated fat in particular appears, upon close examination, to be accurate” She says that the popular notion that the food industry drives diet related issues and is true on instances, but the real culprits were those who were trusted as scientists and experts from institutions that were expected to do due diligence. The crisis of heart related disease and the need to urgently do something overrode normal protocols and principles that underlie research. The hypothesis that dietary fat, especially saturated raised cholesterol and therefore directly contributed to heart disease was treated as an unquestionable dogma inspite of several indications that alternative points of view or evidence needed to be factored in. “This hypothesis became accepted as truth before it was properly tested. Public health bureaucracies adopted and enshrined this unproven dogma. The hypothesis became immortalized in the mammoth institutions of public health. And the normally self-correcting mechanism of science, which involves constantly challenging one’s own beliefs, was disabled. While good science should be ruled by skepticism and self-doubt, the field of nutrition has instead been shaped by passions verging on zealotry. And the whole system by which ideas are canonized as fact seems to have failed us.” “Researchers who persisted in their challenges found themselves cut off from grants, unable to rise in their professional societies, without invitations to serve on expert panels, and at a loss to find scientific journals that would publish their papers. Their influence was extinguished and their viewpoints lost. As a result, for many years the public has been presented with the appearance of a uniform scientific consensus on the subject of fat, especially saturated fat, but this outward unanimity was only made possible because opposing views were pushed aside.” Inspite of Americans diligently following the prescribed guidelines – since 1970s, the consumption of fruits and vegetables went up by 17%, grains by 29% and fats reduced from 43% of calories to 33% or less. Cutting down on fats has meant increased consumption of carbohydrates such as grains, rice, pasta and fruit. “A breakfast without eggs and bacon, for instance, is usually one of cereal or oatmeal; low-fat yogurt, a common breakfast choice, is higher in carbohydrates than the whole-fat version, because removing fat from foods nearly always requires adding carbohydrate-based “fat replacers” to make up for lost texture. Giving up animal fats has also meant shifting over to vegetable oils, and over the past century the share of these oils has grown from zero to almost 8 percent of all calories consumed by Americans, by far the biggest change in our eating patterns during that time.” However, in this same period, the health of Americans worsened. “When the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet was first officially recommended to the public by the American Heart Association (AHA) in 1961, roughly one in seven adult Americans was obese. Forty years later, that number was one in three”. “During these decades, we’ve also seen rates of diabetes rise drastically from less than 1 percent of the adult population to more than 11 percent, while heart disease remains the leading cause of death for both men and women”. Teicholz expresses shock that even 30 years after the official recommendation of a low fat diet, it has not been subjected to a large scale, formal scientific trial. The Women’s Health Initiative )WHI) which enrolled 49,000 women in 1993, showed that a low fat and meat diet with an increase in fruits, vegetables and grains neither helped to lose weight nor show a reduction in risk of either heart diseases or cancers. “What I found, incredibly, was not only that it was a mistake to restrict fat but also that our fear of the saturated fats in animal foods—butter, eggs, and meat—has never been based in solid science. A bias against these foods developed early on and became entrenched, but the evidence mustered in its support never amounted to a convincing case and has since crumbled away.” She categorically states that “our bodies are healthiest on a diet with ample amounts of fat and why this regime necessarily includes meat, eggs, butter, and other animal foods high in saturated fat.” “By 1950, elevated serum cholesterol was broadly viewed as a probable cause of heart disease, and many experts believed that it would be safer for anyone with high blood cholesterol to try to nudge it lower.” “One of the early ideas for how people might lower cholesterol was simply to consume less of it. The notion that cholesterol in the diet would translate directly into higher cholesterol in the blood just seemed intuitively reasonable, and was introduced by two biochemists from Columbia University in 1937. The assumption was that if we could avoid eating egg yolks and the like, we could prevent cholesterol from accumulating in the body. The idea is now lodged firmly in our minds………….In fact, eating two to three eggs a day over a long period of time has never been shown to have more than a minimal impact on serum cholesterol for the vast majority of people.” “In 1992, one of the most comprehensive analyses of this subject concluded that the vast majority of people will react to even a great deal of cholesterol in the diet by ratcheting down the amount of cholesterol the body itself produces. In other words, the body seeks to keep its internal conditions constant. ….Responding to this evidence, health authorities in Britain and most other European nations in recent years have rescinded their advisories to cap dietary cholesterol. The United States, however, has continued recommending a limit of 300 mg per day for healthy people (the equivalent of one and a half eggs). Moreover, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to allow food products to advertise themselves as “cholesterol-free,” In 1952, Keys introduced the diet heart hypothesis showing close correlation between fat intake and death rate from heart disease in six countries and that if the this curve was extended back down to zero fat intake then risk of heart disease would nearly disappear. This led to the mistrust of fat to which was attributing not just heart disease but also obesity, cancer, diabetes etc. Because fat contains a little more than 9 calories/gm, Keys thought that it made people fat in addition to causing atherosclerosis and that eating less fat meant consuming fewer calories. “Frustratingly for Keys, the data from the Seven Countries study showed that although a diet low in saturated fat appeared to be associated with fewer deaths from heart disease (within those countries, at least), that advantage did not extend to total mortality. People eating diets low in saturated fat had just as high a risk of dying as their fat-gorging counterparts. The animal food minimalists simply died of other causes. In the study, the people who survived the longest overall lived in Greece and the United States, and their longevity showed no relationship to the amounts of fat or saturated fat they ate, nor to the cholesterol levels in their blood.” “In 1999, when the Seven Countries study’s lead Italian researcher, Alessandro Menotti, went back twenty-five years later and looked at data from the study’s 12,770 subjects, he noticed an interesting fact: the category of foods that best correlated with coronary mortality was sweets. By “sweets,” he meant sugar products and pastries, which had a correlation coefficient with coronary mortality of 0.821 (a perfect correlation is 1.0). Possibly this number would have been higher had Menotti included chocolate, ice cream, and soft drinks in his “sweets” category, but those fell under a different category.” “By contrast, “animal food” (butter, meat, eggs, margarine, lard, milk, and cheese) had a correlation coefficient of 0.798, and this number likely would have been lower had Menotti excluded margarine. (Margarine is usually made from vegetable fats, but researchers at the time tended to lump it in with animal foods because it looked so much like butter.)” “In the absence of trial data, as we’ll see again and again over the last 50 years of nutrition history, epidemiological evidence has therefore been made to suffice. Even though it cannot, by its very nature, make claims about causation, it has repeatedly been employed in just this way. This practice of using epidemiological data as a basis for official dietary guidelines was pioneered by Keys himself. Keys aggressively drove home his study’s main “takeaway” point, that eating saturated fat leads to high cholesterol and that high cholesterol leads to heart disease.” “In 1961, the AHA committee brought out a report stating that “the best scientific evidence available at the present time” suggested that Americans could reduce their risk of heart attacks and strokes by cutting the saturated fat and cholesterol in their diets.The report also recommended the “reasonable substitution” of saturated fat with polyunsaturated fats such as corn or soybean oil......These guidelines are influential not only in the United States but around the world.” For the media and nutrition experts alike, the chain of causation that Keys had proposed seemed to make eminent sense: dietary fat caused cholesterol to rise, which would eventually harden arteries and lead to a heart attack. The logic was so simple as to seem self-evident. Yet even as the low-fat, prudent diet has spread far and wide, the evidence could not keep up, and never has. It turns out that every step in this chain of events has failed to be substantiated: saturated fat has not been shown to cause the most damaging kind of cholesterol to go up; total cholesterol has not been demonstrated to lead to an increased risk of heart attacks for the great majority of people, and even the narrowing of the arteries has not been shown to predict a heart attack. In the 1950s, Pete Ahrens set up the first gas liquid chromatography lab in the United States and examined various kinds of dietary fats. They are basically made up of chains of carbon atoms surrounded by hydrogen atoms. These chains can be of various lengths and also have different types of chemical bonds holding them together. It is the type of bond that makes a fatty acid saturated or unsaturated. A bond refers to the way that two atoms are linked together. A double bond is less stable and doesn’t lie neatly against its neighbours and this comprises oils. Single double bond makes it monounsaturated as seen with olive oil. More than one double bond makes polyunsaturated fat as seen with vegetable oils such as canola, safflower, sunflower, peanut, corn, cottonseed, soybean etc. Saturated fatty acids on the other hand, contain no double bonds, only single bonds. They are straight chain and pack together densely making them solid at room temperature such as lard, butter, suet and tallow. Ahrens’s own research had opened up another line of inquiry, suggesting that the carbohydrates found in cereals, grains, flour, and sugar might be contributing directly to if not actually causing obesity and disease. And he correctly predicted that a fat-reduced diet would only increase our consumption of these foods. While nearly everyone else was exclusively obsessed with serum cholesterol, Ahrens was instead interested in triglycerides, which are molecules made up of fatty acids circulating in the blood. With Margaret Albrink he found that high triglyceride levels were far more common than high cholesterol in coronary patients; so they posited that triglycerides, not total cholesterol, were a better indicator of heart disease. The probable cause that Albrink had identified was carbohydrates. According to the Ahrens model, carbohydrates, not fat, were the cause of heart disease. Ahrens was concerned that the low-fat diet being prescribed to the American public would worsen their triglyceride levels and thus exacerbate the problem of obesity and chronic disease. Another prominent scientist who made a public show of his skepticism of the diet heart hypothesis was George Mann, the Vanderbilt biochemist who had gone to Africa to study the Masai. He was one of the first scientists to raise the alarm about trans fats, in 1955, and he speculated that the sudden breaking off of plaque in the arteries must be a more important factor in heart attacks than the slow clogging-up of the arteries. He was proven correct, but not until decades later. However, thirty years later, in the Framingham follow-up study—when investigators had more data because a greater number of people had died—it turned out that the predictive power of total cholesterol was not nearly as strong as study leaders had originally thought. For men and women with cholesterol between 205 and 264 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), no relationship between these numbers and heart disease risk could be found. In fact, half of the people who had heart attacks had cholesterol levels below the “normal” level of 220 mg/dL. And for men aged forty-eight to fifty-seven, those with cholesterol in the midrange (183–222 mg/dL) had a greater risk of heart attack death than those with higher cholesterol (222–261 mg/dL). Total cholesterol turned out not to be a reliable predictor for heart disease after all. This data was not publicised very strongly. The Framingham data also failed to show that lowering one’s cholesterol over time was even remotely helpful. In the thirty-year follow-up report, the authors state, “For each 1% mg/dL drop of cholesterol there was an 11% increase in coronary and total mortality [italics added].” This is a shocking finding, the very opposite of the official line on cholesterol lowering. Yet this particular Framingham finding is never discussed in scientific reviews, even though many large trials have found similar results. It was also clear that saturated fat was not related to heart disease. Concerning the incidence of coronary heart disease and diet, the authors concluded, simply, “No relationship found.” Since 1900, Americans have switched from eating animal fats to vegetable oils. The change in consumption itself was astronomical: the oils went from being completely unknown before 1910 to representing somewhere around 7 percent or 8 percent of all calories consumed by Americans by 1999, according to two scholarly estimates. Vegetable oils were marketed in the 1970s for their polyunsaturated-fat content and ability to lower cholesterol, following the advice of the American Heart Association. Converting oil into a hard fat transformed it from a relatively useless culinary commodity into one of the most important and serviceable ingredients that the food industry has ever known. In the Framingham study, men with cholesterol levels below 190 mg/dL were three times more likely to get colon cancer than men with cholesterol greater than 220 mg/dL. In fact, ever since corn oil had been shown to double the rate of tumor growth in rats in 1968, there had been a baseline level of concern about vegetable oils and cancer.  on the ingredient list is usually partially hydrogenated oil. In the wake of the Dietary Guidelines, the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet spread far and wide in the 1980s, expanding from the original class of high-risk, middle-aged men to encompass all Americans, women and children alike. It became the diet of the entire nation. Setting strict cholesterol targets, the new NCEP guidelines were not only directed at more people, but they also extended their dietary reach. The proposed regime no longer required cutting back just on saturated fat and cholesterol but on fat overall. No studies had been done on whether a low-fat diet was better—or even safe—for infants, children, adolescents, pregnant or lactating women, or the elderly, yet the diet-heart hypothesis had taken hold to such a degree in the expert community that it was just considered a commonsense measure of prevention against heart disease for everyone at any stage of life over the age of two to start on this regime. The National Academy of Sciences, in its Toward Healthful Diets report, agreed, objecting that it was “scientifically unsound” for the government to include children in its low-fat recommendations. “The nutritional needs of the young, growing infant are distinctly different from those of the inactive octogenarian,” stated the academy. Even as experts at the NHLBI and the AHA pressed the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to prescribe the low-fat diet to all children, the AAP refused. In an editorial published in the AAP journal, Pediatrics, in 1986, the group’s nutrition committee said that any change toward a more restrictive diet in the first two decades of life should “await demonstration that such dietary restrictions are needed.” The editorial emphasized the differences in the nutritional needs of growing children, especially during the growth spurt of adolescence, compared to those of middle-aged men with high cholesterol. “The proposed changes would affect consumption of foods currently providing high quality protein, iron, calcium, and other minerals essential for growth,” stated the authors. The AAP had long considered high-quality proteins to come from meat, dairy products, and eggs, which would be restricted under the low-cholesterol, low-fat diet. “Dairy products provide 60 percent of dietary calcium; and meat is the best source of available iron,” the academy wrote. The AAP feared that rates of iron deficiency, which had not been a problem among children for decades in the United States, might rise if children started cutting back on meat. Not so many years earlier, meat, dairy, and eggs had been considered the best foods to promote growth. The expert who chaired the National Academy of Science’s controversial report had alluded to this point when he said the country should not abandon a diet that produced Americans who were healthy and tall. This belief was based on research conducted before the field of nutrition became absorbed by the study of heart disease. Nutrition experts in the 1920s and thirties were less interested in atherosclerosis, which was still emerging, and focused instead on what constituted an optimal diet for growth and reproduction. In the 1920s, when nutrition investigators started identifying some of the specific vitamins in “protective” foods, the focus of research turned away from these whole foods and toward the vitamins instead. An entire era of vitamin-based research took off. Ultimately, the idea of separating vitamins from their native foods would prove to have some unfortunate consequences, since Americans mistakenly came to believe that they could meet their nutritional needs simply by taking a supplement or eating fortified foods such as breakfast cereal. Yet a number of essential vitamins, including calcium and the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, K, and E, cannot be fully absorbed if eaten unaccompanied by fat. In the Bogalusa Heart Study on children aged eight to ten, for instance, those children eating less than 30 percent of calories as fat were found to have a significantly higher chance of failing to meet the RDAs for vitamins B1, B12, and E, as well as thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin, compared to the group eating more than 40 percent fat. When the authoritative Cochrane Collaboration, an international group that commissions experts to perform objective reviews of science, finally weighed in on the evidence in 2001, it concluded that avoiding fat couldn’t be shown to prevent heart disease in normal children. The data couldn’t even show that such a diet helped at-risk children with a genetic predisposition to heart disease. If a low-fat diet were the answer, Cochrane concluded, the evidence didn’t exist to make that claim. Moreover, the diet didn’t even appear to be effective in helping children lose weight. Diets with less than 30 percent of calories as fat started to get nutritionally worrisome, and at 22 percent, they were associated with growth faltering. Those numbers stood in stark contrast to the 40 percent–plus fat that healthy, growing children were reported eating in the wealthier countries of Germany and Spain. As far back as the 1950s, however, researchers had been warning that women responded differently to fat and cholesterol than did men and therefore needed to be studied separately. Atherosclerotic symptoms don’t occur in women until ten to twenty years later than men, for instance, and women generally do not suffer high rates of heart disease until after menopause. Where data existed examining the sexes separately, the disparities were fairly astonishing. In the Framingham Study, one of the few early studies that included women, for example, women over fifty years old showed no significant correlation between total serum cholesterol and coronary mortality. Because heart disease occurs only very rarely in women under fifty, this finding meant that the great majority of American women have been needlessly cutting back on saturated fats these past few decades, since the impact on their blood cholesterol is meaningless for their coronary risk. Yet this important finding was omitted from the study’s conclusions when they were published in 1971. In 1992, an NHLBI expert panel reviewed all the heart disease data on women and found that total mortality was actually higher for women with low cholesterol than it was for women with high cholesterol, regardless of age. Another widely held belief about women’s health that turned out not to be supported by the scientific evidence was the notion that dietary fat caused cancer. Since the 1980s, women have been advised by health authorities to reduce their consumption of fat in order to prevent breast cancer—which of course was part of the wider recommendations against dietary fat for all cancers and all people. Also listen to Nina Teicholz here Why Dietary Guidelines are Making us Fat As far back as 1987, the epidemiologist Walter Willett at the Harvard School of Public Health had found fat consumption not to be positively linked to breast cancer among the nearly ninety thousand nurses whom he had been following for five years in the Nurses’ Health Study. In fact, Willett found just the opposite to be true, namely, that the more fat the nurses ate, particularly the more saturated fat they ate, the less likely they were to get breast cancer. A review in 2008 of all studies of the low-fat diet by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization concluded that there is “no probable or convincing evidence” that a high level of fat in the diet causes heart disease or cancer. And in 2013 in Sweden, an expert health advisory group, after spending two years reviewing 16,000 studies, concluded that a diet low in fat was an ineffective strategy for tackling either obesity or diabetes. Therefore, the inescapable conclusion from numerous trials on this diet, altogether costing more than a billion dollars, can only be that this regime, which became our national diet before being properly tested, has almost certainly been a terrible mistake for American public health. The USDA and AHA have both quietly eliminated any specific percent fat targets from their most recent lists of dietary guidelines.

Following a proposal by the Government of India, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations (UN) had recognised 2023 as International Year of Millets or IYM2023 to ‘create awareness and increase the production and consumption of millets’ and for “harnessing the untapped potential of millets for food security, nutrition, and sustainable agriculture”. Image source: iStock About millets Millets are mostly hardy crops, better adapted to dry/shallow soil, high temperatures, short growing seasons, acidic or low fertile soils etc. While rice may require 120-140 com of rainfall, some millets require as little as 20 cm. Millets and nutrition There has been a large-scale push for millets in Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, the Mid-day Meal (MDM) Scheme, the Public Distribution Scheme (PDS) etc. on the premise that they are nutritious (especially for calcium and iron), beneficial to the millet farmers and also to the environment. These options have to be based on evidence rather than emotion or opinion, especially as they involve crucial feeding programs. Can millets meet nutritional requirements? The introduction of millets on a large scale into the ICDS and MDM may not impact as positively on nutritional outcomes as the addition of nutrient dense foods (meat, eggs, poultry, fish, dairy), pulses, legumes, fruits, vegetables etc into these schemes. The nutritional value of millets can be enhanced by some processes such as germination, fermentation, pressure cooking etc. but systems have to be set up for this in the schemes. Additionally if millets are pre-processed and packaged in large scale, costs can go up and the shelf life is not very long. Therefore storage and distribution facilities have to be also invested in. Processing of each kind of millet requires different technology and machinery. In conclusion, the serious concern of child/infant malnutrition cannot depend on millets as the one stop solution. While cereals and millets that are traditionally consumed can be a part of the diet, malnutrition itself can only be addressed by increasing the diversity of each meal, and children, especially those that are not used to eating millets should not be made guinea pigs of large food schemes in the country. Improving the diversity and nutrient density of food by the addition of adequate quantities of pulses, legumes, eggs, poultry, fish, red meat etc. will have have long reaching positive and sustainable impact. Table 1- Different types of millets Nutritional value of millets The protein, vitamin and mineral content and composition of millets varies due to genotype, and water availability, temperature, soil fertility and environmental conditions during grain development. The average carbohydrate content of millets ranges from 56 – 73 gm/100 gm which still makes it a high carbohydrate food irrespective of what the proponents of the grains may say. The least carbohydrate content is in barnyard millet. Image source: Pixabay Even in the best-case scenario, none of the millets contain all the essential amino acids (EAA). The only way to ensure that the diet supplies all the essential amino acids is to consume foods that contain all of them or eat different foods in proportions that ensure availability of all the EAA. For e.g., pearl millet which is low in lysine, tryptophan, threonine and sulfur-containing amino acids should be consumed with foods that contain these EAA. Before pushing for large scale mono-crop cultivation of one or the other millet, these factors have to be considered. Image source: Pixabay The body needs 20 different amino acids for its various functions and health. Of these, 9 are classified as essential because they have to be obtained from the diet. These are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Although your body can make nonessential amino acids, it cannot make essential amino acids, so you have to get them from your diet. After you eat protein, your body breaks it down into amino acids and then uses them for various processes, such as building muscle and regulating immune function. The amino acids are used for various functions in the body such as absorption, regeneration, growth, immunity, metabolism, neuro-transmission, detoxification, wound healing, hemoglobin production, sexual function etc. The need for these varies based on age, illness, infection, pregnancy, kind of activity etc. Animal source foods (meat, sea-food, poultry, eggs, dairy) can provide all the essential amino acids. There is no plant source that offers all the 9 essential amino acids from one food and therefore there is a need to combine these foods judiciously to ensure all the EAA requirements are met. For eg. instead of making a porridge with ragi, adding green gram, milk or a combination of millets and cereals will ensure that the deficiency in one food is made up by another. Unless this is ensured, the meal will not contain all the essential amino acids. Every other day we see announcements in the newspaper of millets being introduced into the mid-day meal scheme. This is celebrated and shared across different groups including activists, right to food and right to health activists. Let us, however, not forget that many of these foods have a very cultural context. While some Kannadigas would vouch that the chewy and sticky ragi mudde is a food to die for, a person unaccustomed to it would find that it sticks to their teeth and throat, making it a pretty unhappy experience. Similarly, one could empathise with those traveling out of North Karnataka craving for the hard jowar rotis, or the Tamilians craving for dosa/idli and the Punjabi craving for wheat rotis. In exactly the same way, children are accustomed to certain foods and unaccustomed to others. Pushing new concoctions on children because they are ‘healthy’ or economic or good for the climate shows a certain insensitivity. Would the middle class and elite of the country be as equanimous if similar items were delivered to our households and we were expected to feed them to our children because they are ‘healthy’ and good for our farmers? As a society, we have to stop othering and expecting poor children to put up with experiments, projects, trials, pilots, interventions and instead focus on foods that they are culturally used to, can be produced locally, are nutrient dense, hygienically prepared and tasty – coincidentally, things that most people would want for their own children. Because of difficulty in digestion, there is a possibility that new consumers of millets may develop acute or chronic health issues. It is telling that the Indian Childhood cirrhosis almost disappeared once millets disappeared from the diets of children (to check this) although this has not been formally documented, pediatricians have noticed the association. The absorption of heme iron present in meat containing food is around 25% while non-haem iron from plant-based foods has 2-10% absorption depending on the presence of inhibitors (such as phytates, polyphenols, calcium, phosphates etc.) and enhancers (such as Vitamin C) in the diet. It is also a fact that populations that consume millets as a staple are no more or less iron deficient than any other population that does not consume millets. Niacin is present in millets and its deficiency pellagra (dementia, dermatitis and diarrhoea) is rare on populations that consume millets traditionally. It can however be found in populations subsisting predominantly on Jowar or maize. Flavinoids in the bran of Pearl millets can contribute to goitre which occurs due to inhibition of conversion of thyroxine to tri-iodothyronine. Goiter is due to the inhibition of the normal conversion of thyroxin to triiodothyronine. Pearl millet, along with other grains, contains oxalic acid, which forms an insoluble complex with calcium, there by reducing biological availability of this mineral. Calcium concentration in pearl millet is quite low, and the presence of oxalate can exacerbate the deficiency. Although ragi has high concentration of 344 mg calcium/100 gm, this is not bioavailable unless processed appropriately. Pearl millet specifically contains oxalic acid which can form an insoluble complex with calcium, reducing bioavailability of this mineral. Digestibility and bio-availability of nutrients from millets Plants also contain lectins, phytates, tannins, phenolics, saponins, protease inhibitors, galacto-oligosaccharides, lectins, ureases, goitrogens, oxalic acid etc. which play are role in plant biology but can reduce the digestibility and absorption of nutrients essential for humans. These anti-nutritional factors can also affect the functioning of organs such as the pancreas, thyroid gland, liver etc. and can obstruct growth. Whereas the bitter taste of tannins protects the grain from being eaten by birds and insects, in humans, tannins inhibit enzyme activity, adversely influence protein digestibility and cellulose breakdown, inhibit protein absorption, decrease utilisation of minerals and also adversely affect growth. Phytic acid and/or phytates form complexes with essential dietary minerals such as calcium, zinc, iron and magnesium, thus making them biologically unavailable for absorption. While millets can provide some of the B vitamins, Vitamin B12 is not available in these foods. The B vitamins are present in the aleurone layer and germ of the millets so excess processing and refining causing decortication can lead to losses. Dried kernels do not contain Vitamin C. Removing the hull by decortication can reduce the levels of thiamine, riboflavin and niacin by upto 50%. Millets are considered to be ‘high-fibre’ of which 86.2% is insoluble and contributes to decreased transit time in the gastro-intestinal system. This fibre content is documented to be significantly higher than in rice and wheat. This is considered to make millets low glycemic foods and a good choice for diabetic patients. While the fibre content can contribute to feeling of fullness or satiety after a meal, the lowered transit time means that this feeling lasts for a longer period of time. In children, this can translate to children feeling less hungry and eating less frequenty. Is this desirable in children, especially as they have smaller stomachs and need nutrient (rather than fibre) packed meals at frequent intervals (upto 5-6 times a day) to meet their daily requirements for growth and functioning? Since children consume small quantities of food, it is critical that each 100 grams consumed is highly nutrient dense. So, if the child consumes millets and legumes which contain excess fibres and phytochemicals, because of the low digestibility, these foods can induce satiety, sometimes fairly quickly, so a child may eat a few mouthfuls and feel full. Because of lower digestibility the frequency of meals could also come down. For a child who needs adequate food, especially a malnourished one, it is important to ask whether the foods with low bioavailability and digestibility are the best foods of choice. Processing of millets It has to be remembered that millets cannot be grown and consumed directly if one expects them to meet some of the expectations around them. They have been traditionally consumed as thick or thin porridge, steam cooked products, fermented or unfermented breads, alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages and snacks. In all cultures traditionally depending on cereals, a range of treatments of the whole seed before milling and sifting has been applied. The treatments procedures are steeping, fermentation, malting, alkali or acid treatment, popping, roasting (dry or wet), parboiling, and drying. One of the aims of seed treatment is to remove the polyphenolic compounds from the seed. Others are to improve storage quality, or to make many kinds of snacks and other popular foods. The traditional art of food preparation is not standardized and routine procedures have been passed on to the women through generations. Source: Millet Advisor Processing of millets decreases the anti-nutritional factors in millets and improves the bio-accessibility of nutrients. Many processing methods have been used traditionally like roasting/popping, soaking, germination and fermentation. All these methods have been reported to have a significant impact on the nutritional value of the grain. Malting of millets improves access to nutrients and has been reported to increase the bio-accessibility of iron by 300% and of manganese by 17%. The anti-nutritional factors decreased significantly with an increase in germination time due to hydrolytic activity of the enzyme phytase that increases during germination. The phytate content of millets can be reduced by germination as during the germination the hydrolysis of phytate phosphorus into inositol monophosphate takes place which contributes to the decrease in phytic acid. The tannins are also leached during soaking and germination of grains, and hence it results in the reduction in tannins . Boiling and pressure cooking also result in reduction in tannins. Fermentation is known to reduce the anti-nutritional factors and hence improves the protein digestibility. If millets are being promoted, then there is a need for investment into processing – whether this will be done centrally, packaged and sold back to the community or local processing units will be set up suitable to the requirements of the millets produced in that area. The texture, size, hardness, moisture content etc. of the millets have to be factored into their respective geographic areas and some amount of research would be required to make the processes suitable for the different kinds of millets. In the absence of these, just powdering millets and making porridge, upma, biscuits, flat breads etc. will not have any nutritional value for the consumers. In children, pregnant women, elderly, the sick etc. this is of particular concern and the cost benefit analysis has to be done factoring in all of these. There are methods suggested to decrease the anti-nutritional factors in millets and improve their bio-accessibility. Many of these processes have evolved from communities themselves over a period of time in an effort to make these millets more digestible. These include roasting, popping, soaking, germinating, fermenting, boiling, pressure cooking.. irradiation, extrusion cooking or high temperature short time (HTST) processing etc. Malting of millets is suggested as a way of increasing the bio-accessibility of several essential nutrients. Malting and fermentation can increase the amount of B vitamins and their availability. The lipid content of millets, higher amounts of unsaturated fatty acids and high enzymatic hydrolytic activity makes them susceptible to development of odors and flavours after hulling or milling. Millet flour gets rancid quite rapidly. Because of their relatively higher fat content and in hot climates, wholemeal millet flour can keep only for short periods. Dehusking of millets need some technological interventions. Each millet needs a different kind of machine and the millets should not be crushed. Setting up these tailor made units across the country has to be considered in any plans to introduce millets on a large scale. Pearl millet develops bitterness by ten days and has low keeping quality (becomes rancid). Hydro-thermal and thermal near infrared treatments have been found to significantly decrease the enzyme activities of lipase, lipoxygenase, peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase, increasing rancidity free shelf life without altering the starch and protein digestibility properties. Promoting millets indiscriminately can create a Catch 22 situation where millets turn rancid if unprocessed and therefore have short shelf lives, but processing itself can be difficult, costly and dependent on corporates. Processing can remove the anti-nutritional factors but can also remove some of the nutrients. Traditional methods of processing have been found to improve nutritional quality of millets but are labour intensive and have short storage periods. One way forward is to encourage communities to consume those millets that they have been traditionally consuming, supporting traditional and local systems of processing while improving the diversity of food. Why can’t humans eat crops directly instead of going as feeds? One of the argument in favour of humans consuming millets and legumes is often that the nutrients in these, instead of being available to humans, are being fed to cattle which are then consumed by humans. This is seen as wasteful for those concerned about nurturing the environment, soil etc. For example, the United States apparently produces 70% of the world’s soya beans, but only 2% of it is directly consumed by humans while the rest is processed to feed poultry, swine and cattle. The argument then is why can’t humans consume these foods directly thus saving a cycle of consuming water, land and thus contributing to wasteful use of resources and climate change. To answer this one should consider the nutrient content of foods per 100 grams would be an important measure. Would 100 gm of millets or legumes provide equivalent nutrients as 100 gm of milk or meat? There is a reason why animal source foods are called nutrient dense while millets are not. In an effort to increase the amount of nutrients made available, people are encouraged to consume more quantities of cereals and millets. While this directly crosses the limit of recommended carbohydrate consumption, it is virtually impossible for many, particularly children and those with fragile gastro-intestinal conditions including Irritable bowel syndrome (Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis) etc. Livestock upscale many of the inedible shrubs and small plants that humans cannot consume. These plants often do on grow in arable areas but rather on rocky and uneven surfaces that may anyway not have access to a lot of water. In India, pastoralism is a traditional form of rearing domesticated animals specifically livestock that are sustainable and go well with the need to protect the environment. The manure of the cattle is important to replenish the soil and therefore all the crops. Erasing livestock from the discussion around food will have far reaching debilitating consequences on our nutritional status as well as our sustainable agriculture models. We need to challenge the hard marketing by corporates who see a market in millets and legumes because they create dependence which other more sustainable farming practices may not. Ultimately, there can be no real solution to addressing the nutritional crisis in the country other than broadening the foods consumed, specifically animal source foods. This requires political will and a social commitment. It requires prioritising sound nutritional science over and above anything else to determine and facilitate what foods go into our plates. Of course, if one wants to push some foods because they are beneficial to the farmer, because they are hardy and consume less water and because India happens to have been the push behind the International Year of the millets, then let us at least be clear about the reasons why we push millets and legumes indiscriminately especially onto children through school meal programs. The bigger question is, why are we so averse to giving children eggs, milk/dairy, poultry, fish, meat etc. which offer proteins of superior biological value, are digestible and also traditionally eaten in many cultures? Does the myth of India’s vegetarianism, being pushed under the garb of hyper-nationalism and by unethical caste-corporate nexus justify the large-scale erasure and denial of animal source foods in children’s diets? When will India declare the Year of the egg or milk or meat or fish? References György Füleky (2009) “Cultivated plants, primarily as food sources’ - – Vol. I, ©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) Patil, P. et al (2023) “Functional properties and health benefits of finger millet (Eleusine coracana L.): A review”, The Journal of Phytopharmacology 2023; 12(3):196-202 Kumar, A., Tomer, V., Kaur, A. et al. Millets: a solution to agrarian and nutritional challenges. Agric & Food Secur 7, 31 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-018-0183-3 Irén Léder “Cultivated Plants primarily as food sourcs – Sorghum and Millets”, ©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), UNESCO – EOLSS, Sample chapter Nutritional anemia, edited by Klaus Kraemer and Michael B Zimmermann, Sight and Life Press Goswami S., et al (2020) “Rancidity Matrix: Development of Biochemical Indicators for Analysing the Keeping Quality of Pearl Millet Flour” Food Analytical Methods. Vinutha T., et al (2022) “Thermal treatments reduce rancidity and modulate structural and digestive properties of starch in pearl millet flour”, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, Volume 195, 2022, Pages 207-216, Millet Advisor: Adding millets to your life https://milletadvisor.com/millets-name-in-different-languages/

Image source: Outlook Planet Infant and child feeding is not rocket science and many mothers and grandmothers have the knowledge on what foods the child needs. Often, the barriers to providing these foods are cultural, social and economic rather than lack of knowledge. Very often, removing these barriers can itself go a long way in ensuring better quality and quantity of food for children. Some of the main points to keep in mind with regard to feeding children under 5 years of age. Breast feeding should be exclusive up to the age of 6 months. Complementary foods are given in addition to breastfeeding up to 1-2 years. Complementary foods have to be prepared using ingredients that are normally consumed by the family rather than tinned or ready to use foods. Care has to be taken during preparation and storage to ensure that the food itself doesn’t become a source of infection eg. diarrheal diseases. Given that young children and infants have a small stomach capacity, it is important to understand that each meal should contain nutrient dense foods to meet their nutritional needs. Diluted, watery feeds fill the stomach but will not meet requirements. For the energy needs of the child, locally consumed cereals and millets can be provided. Some of these are more nutritious if soaked, sprouted/germinated and fermented to reduce the anti-nutritional factors found in them. Starchy roots and fruits such as banana, potato etc. can be introduced. However, it is important to remember that these foods alone cannot provided all the nutrients that a child needs and they have to be eaten with other foods. At least 40-50% of energy needs of the infant and 30% of the child’s needs should come from fats. Fats and oils are concentrated sources of energy, are important for proper growth and development and help absorption of fat soluble Vitamins (A,D,E,K). At least ½ a teaspoon should be added into each meal either during or after cooking. Too much of fats/oils can make the child full very quick and not able to eat the full meal. Fish, ghee, butter, full fat milk, other animal source foods are good sources of essential fatty acids. Sugar, jaggery and honey contribute to energy but do not contain many other nutrients. Sugary drinks, biscuits, sweets etc. have very little nutritional value and can also get the child too used to sugar, even addicted. Avoid giving tea and coffee to infants. Animal source foods such as meat, organ/offal, fish, whole fat milk, yoghurt, cheese, eggs etc. are rich sources of many nutrients. These can be introduce based on what is eaten by the family and available locally. These foods can be given every day as preparations that are easy for the child to eat, initially completely mashed into the food and later chopped into bite size pieces. Dry fish can be powdered and sieved to remove small bones. The presence of meat and organ meat in the meal also helps absorb nutrients such as iron from other non-haem foods such as legumes, pulses, vegetables and green leafy vegetables. By age one, the child should be eating all the foods consumed by the family. Vegetables and green leafy vegetables can initially be cooked well and mashed, later cut up into small pieces. By one year, the child should be able to chew and be comfortable with different tastes and textures. Introduce a variety of vegetables but these should be done one at a time to make sure that the child has adjusted well to it. Legumes and pulses in the ratio of 1:3 with cereals (khichdi) can also be introduced, preferably after soaking/sprouting and being well cooked. They offer proteins, vitamins and minerals. Roasted and powdered groundnuts can also be included into the porridge or mashed foods or as Chikki cooked with jaggery. Vitamin C rich foods are important as part of the meal (as it improves absorption of iron) or between meals. This includes orange, lemon, tomato, guava, mango, pineapple, papaya etc and should be given in an age-appropriate manner. Breast milk supplies a good amount of Vitamin A that the infant needs. Complementary and supplementary feeds that includes animal source foods, dark green leaves (spinach etc.) and yellow/orange fruits and vegetables (pumpkin, carrots, yellow sweet potato, papaya, mango etc.) are good sources of Vitamin A. Breast fed babies are usually adequately hydrated unless they have in illness. The management of ill babies is not covered here. Later, infants and children can be offered clean, potable water on demand when they are thirsty. It is important to give frequent meals (5-6 feeds) as the child consumes small quantities and also needs energy for daily activities as well as good quality proteins, vitamins, minerals and fats for growth and development. This table gives an overview of important points to keep in mind in the context of infant/child feeding as discussed earlier and whether millets can meet those requirements. Refer to the note of millets for further explanations and references. References Infant and young child feeding: Training module for ANMs. (2016). Mamidi, R. S., Kulkarni, B., Radhakrishna, K. V., & Shatrugna, V. (2010). Hospital based nutrition rehabilitation of severely undernourished children using energy dense local foods. Indian Pediatrics, 47(8). World Health Organization. (2021). Infant and young child feeding counselling: an integrated course. Trainer’s guide.

The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables by Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is a sequel to his book The Shudras: Who They Were and How They Came to Be the Fourth Varna of the Indo-Aryan Society. The Untouchables was first published in 1948 by Amrit Book Company, New Delhi. The text is included in Volume 7 of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches published by the Education Department, Government of Maharashtra in 1990. The Untouchables is dedicated to the three eminent saints, i.e., Nandnar, Ravidas, Chokhamela, who, despite being untouchables, had “by their piety and virtue won the esteem of all”. These are excerpts from the book. “Notwithstanding the attitude of the Brahmin scholars, I must pursue the task I have undertaken. For the origin of these classes is a subject which still awaits investigation. This book deals with one of these unfortunate classes namely, the Untouchables. The Untouchables are the most numerous of the three. Their existence is also the most unnatural. And yet there has so far been no investigation into their origin. That the Hindus should not have undertaken such an investigation is perfectly understandable.” “The old orthodox Hindu does not think that there is anything wrong in the observance of untouchability. To him it is a normal and natural thing. As such it neither calls for expiation nor explanation. The new modern Hindu realises the wrong. But he is ashamed to discuss it in public for fear of letting the foreigner know that Hindu Civilisation can be guilty of such a vicious and infamous system or social code as evidenced by Untouchability.” “Reduced to numbers it means that today there exist in India 50-60 millions of people whose mere touch causes pollution to the Hindus. Surely, the phenomenon of Untouchability among primitive and ancient society pales into insignificance before this phenomenon of hereditary Untouchability for so many millions of people, which we find in India. This type of Untouchability among Hindus stands in a class by itself. It has no parallel in the history of the world.” “The isolation prescribed by Non-Hindu societies as a safeguard against defilement, if it is not rational, is at least understandable. It is for specified reasons such as birth, marriage, death, etc.. But the isolation prescribed by Hindu society is apparently for no cause.” “Defilement as observed by the Primitive Society was of a temporary duration which arose during particular times such as the performance of natural functions, eating, drinking, etc. or a natural crisis in the life of the individual such as birth, death, menstruation, etc. After the period of defilement was over and after the purificatory ceremonies were performed the defilement vanished and the individual became pure and associable. But the impurity of the 50-60 millions of the Untouchables of India, quite unlike the impurity arising from birth, death, etc., is permanent. The Hindus who touch them and become polluted thereby can become pure by undergoing purificatory ceremonies. But there is nothing which can make the Untouchables pure. They are born impure, they are impure while they live, they die the death of the impure, and they give birth to children who are born with the stigma of Untouchability affixed to them. It is a case of permanent, hereditary stain which nothing can cleanse.” “However, untouchability among the Hindus involves the isolation of a class-a class which today numbers about 50 to 60 million people.” “Also Non-Hindu societies only isolated the affected individuals. They did not segregate them in separate quarters. The Hindu society insists on segregation of the Untouchables. The Hindu will not live in the quarters of the Untouchables and will not allow the Untouchables to live inside Hindu quarters. This is a fundamental feature of Untouchability as it is practised by the Hindus. It is not a case of social separation, a mere stoppage of social intercourse for a temporary period. It is a case of territorial segregation and of a cordon sanitaire putting the impure people inside a barbed wire into a sort of a cage. Every Hindu village has a ghettto. The Hindus live in the village and the Untouchables in the ghetto.” “The Census Returns show that the meat of the dead cow forms the chief item of food consumed by communities which are generally classified as untouchable communities.” “No Hindu community, however low, will touch cow's flesh. On the other hand, there is no community which is really an Untouchable community which has not something to do with the dead cow. Some eat her flesh, some remove the skin, some manufacture articles out of her skin and bones.” “From the survey of the Census Commissioner, it is well established that Untouchables eat beef. The question however is: Has beef-eating any relation to the origin of Untouchability? Or is it merely an incident in the economic life of the Untouchables?” “Can we say that the Broken Men came to be treated as Untouchables because they ate beef? There need be no hesitation in returning an affirmative answer to this question. No other answer is consistent with facts as we know them.” “In the first place, we have the fact that the Untouchables or the main communities which compose them eat the dead cow and those who eat the dead cow are tainted with untouchability and no others. The co-relation between untouchability and the use of the dead cow is so great and so close that the thesis that it is the root of untouchability seems to be incontrovertible. In the second place if there is anything that separates the Untouchables from the Hindus, it is beef-eating. Even a superficial view of the food taboos of the Hindus will show that there are two taboos regarding food which serve as dividing lines. There is one taboo against meat-eating. It divides Hindus into vegetarians and flesh eaters. There is another taboo which is against beef eating. It divides Hindus into those who eat cow's flesh and those who do not. From the point of view of untouchability the first dividing line is of no importance. But the second is. For it completely marks off the Touchables from the Untouchables. The Touchables whether they are vegetarians or flesh-eaters are united in their objection to eat cow's flesh. As against them stand the Untouchables who eat cow's flesh without compunction and as a matter of course and habit.” “In this context it is not far-fetched to suggest that those who have a nausea against beef-eating should treat those who eat beef as Untouchables.” “We may therefore conclude that the Broken Men were exposed to scorn and contempt on the ground that they were Buddhists the main cause of their Untouchability was beef-eating.” “That the Hindus at one time did kill cows and did eat beef is proved abundantly by the description of the Yajnas given in the Buddhist Sutras which relate to periods much later than the Vedas and the Brahmanas. The scale on which the slaughter of cows and animals took place was collosal. It is not possible to give a total of such slaughter on all accounts committed by the Brahmins in the name of religion. Some idea of the extent of this slaughter can however be had from references to it in the Buddhist literature. As an illustration reference may be made to the Kutadanta Sutta in which Buddha preached against the performance of animal sacrifices to Brahmin Kutadanta. Buddha, though speaking in a tone of sarcastic travesty, gives a good idea of the practices and rituals of the Vedic sacrifices when he said: "And further, O Brahmin, at that sacrifice neither were any oxen slain, neither goats, nor fowls, nor fatted pigs, nor were any kind of living creatures put to death. No trees were cut down to be used as posts, no Darbha grasses mown to stress around the sacrificial spot. And the slaves and messengers and workmen there employed were driven neither by rods nor fear, nor carried on their work weeping with tears upon their faces." Kutadanta on the other hand in thanking Buddha for his conversion gives an idea of the magnitude of the slaughter of animals which took place at such sacrifices when he says :- " I, even I betake myself to the venerable Gotama as my guide, to the Doctrine and the Order. May the venerable One accept me as a disciple, as one who, from this day forth, as long as life endures, has taken him as his guide. And I myself, 0, Gotama, will have the seven hundred bulls, and the seven hundred steers, and the seven hundred heifers, and the seven hundred goats, and the seven hundred rams set free. To them I grant their life. Let them eat grass and drink fresh water and may cool breezes waft around them." “The non-Brahmins have evidently undergone a revolution. From being beefeaters to have become non-beef-eaters was indeed a revolution. But if the non- Brahmins underwent one revolution, the Brahmins had undergone two. They gave up beef-eating which was one revolution. To have given up meat-eating altogether and become vegetarians was another revolution.” “That this was a revolution is beyond question. For as has been shown in the previous chapters there was a time when the Brahmins were the greatest beefeaters.” “Although the non-Brahmins did eat beef they could not have had it every day. The cow was a costly animal and the non-Brahmins could ill afford to slaughter it just for food. He only did it on special occasion when his religious duty or personal interest to propitiate a deity compelled him to do. But the case with the Brahmin was different. He was a priest. In a period overridden by ritualism there was hardly a day on which there was no cow sacrifice to which the Brahmin was not invited by some non-Brahmin. For the Brahmin every day was a beef-steak day. The Brahmins were therefore the greatest beef-eaters.” “The Yajna of the Brahmins was nothing but the killing of innocent animals carried on in the name of religion with pomp and ceremony with an attempt to enshroud it in mystery with a view to conceal their appetite for beef. Some idea of this mystery pomp and ceremony can be had from the directions contained in the Atreya Brahamana touching the killing of animals in a Yajna.” “According to Manu cow-killing was only a minor sin. It was reprehensible only if the cow was killed without good and sufficient reason. Even if it was otherwise, it was not heinous or inexplicable. The same was the attitude of Yajnavalkya.” “All this proves that for generations the Brahmins had been eating beef. Why did they give up beef-eating? Why did they, as an extreme step, give up meat eating altogether and become vegetarians? It is two revolutions rolled into one.” “As has been shown it has not been done as a result of the preachings of Manu, their Divine Law-maker. The revolution has taken place in spite of Manu and contrary to his directions. What made the Brahmins take this step? Was philosophy responsible for it? Or was it dictated by strategy?” “Two explanations are offered. One explanation is that this deification of the cow was a manifestation of the Advaita philosophy that one supreme entity pervaded the whole universe, that on that account all life human as well as animal was sacred. This explanation is obviously unsatisfactory. In the first place, it does not fit in with facts. The Vedanta Sutra which proclaims the doctrine of oneness of life does not prohibit the killing of animals for sacrificial purposes as is evident from 11.1.28. In the second place, if the transformation was due to the desire to realise the ideal of Advaita then there is no reason why it should have stopped with the cow. It should have extended to all other animals.” “Another explanation more ingenious than the first, is that this transformation in the life of the Brahmin was due to the rise of the doctrine of the Transmigration of the Soul. Even this explanation does not fit in with facts. The Brahadamyaka” “Upanishad upholds the doctrine of transmigration (vi.2) and yet recommends that if a man desires to have a learned son born to him he should prepare a mass of the flesh of the bull or ox or of other flesh with rice and ghee. Again, how is it that this doctrine which is propounded in the Upanishads did not have any effect on the Brahmins upto the time of the Manu Smriti, a period of at least 400 years. Obviously, this explanation is no explanation. Thirdly, if Brahmins became vegetarians by reason of the doctrine of transmigration of the soul how is it, it did not make the non-Brahmins take to vegetarianism?” “To my mind, it was strategy which made the Brahmins give up beef-eating and start worshipping the cow. The clue to the worship of the cow is to be found in the struggle between Buddhism and Brahmanism and the means adopted by Brahmanism to establish its supremacy over Buddhism. The strife between Buddhism and Brahmanism is a crucial fact in Indian history. Without the realisation of this fact, it is impossible to explain some of the features of Hinduism. Unfortunately students of Indian history have entirely missed the importance of this strife. They knew there was Brahmanism. But they seem to be entirely unaware of the struggle for supremacy in which these creeds were engaged and that their struggle, which extended for 400 years has left some indelible marks on religion, society and politics of India.” “ Buddhism was at one time the religion of the majority of the people of India. It continued to be the religion of the masses for hundreds of years. It attacked Brahmanism on all sides as no religion had done before.” “Brahmanism was on the wane and if not on the wane, it was certainly on the defensive. As a result of the spread of Buddhism, the Brahmins had lost all power and prestige at the Royal Court and among the people. They were smarting under the defeat they had suffered at the hands of Buddhism and were making all possible efforts to regain their power and prestige. Buddhism had made so deep an impression on the minds of the masses and had taken such a hold of them that it was absolutely impossible for the Brahmins to fight the Buddhists except by accepting their ways and means and practising the Buddhist creed in its extreme form. After the death of Buddha his followers started setting up the images of the Buddha and building stupas. The Brahmins followed it.” “They, in their turn, built temples and installed in them images of Shiva, Vishnu and Ram and Krishna etc.,-all with the object of drawing away the crowd that was attracted by the image worship of Buddha. That is how temples and images which had no place in Brahmanism came into Hinduism. The Buddhists rejected the Brahmanic religion which consisted of Yajna and animal sacrifice, particularly of the cow. The objection to the sacrifice of the cow had taken a strong hold of the minds of the masses especially as they were an agricultural population and the cow was a very useful animal. The Brahmins in all probability had come to be hated as the killer of cows in the same way as the guest had come to be hated as Gognha, the killer of the cow by the householder, because whenever he came a cow had to be killed in his honour. That being the case, the Brahmins could do nothing to improve their position against the Buddhists except by giving up the Yajna as a form of worship and the sacrifice of the cow.” “That the object of the Brahmins in giving up beef-eating was to snatch away from the Buddhist Bhikshus the supremacy they had acquired is evidenced by the adoption of vegetarianism by Brahmins. Why did the Brahmins become vegetarian? The answer is that without becoming vegetarian the Brahmins could not have recovered the ground they had lost to their rival namely Buddhism. In this connection it must be remembered that there was one aspect in which Brahmanism suffered in public esteem as compared to Buddhism. That was the practice of animal sacrifice which was the essence of Brahmanism and to which Buddhism was deadly opposed. That in an agricultural population there should be respect for Buddhism and revulsion against Brahmanism which involved slaughter of animals including cows and bullocks is only natural. What could the Brahmins do to recover the lost ground? To go one better than the Buddhist Bhikshus not only to give up meat-eating but to become vegetarians- which they did. That this was the object of the Brahmins in becoming vegetarians can be proved in various ways.” “As has been said, the Brahmins made the cow a sacred animal. They did not stop to make a difference between a living cow and a dead cow. The cow was sacred, living or dead. Beef-eating was not merely a crime. If it was only a crime it would have involved nothing more than punishment. Beef-eating was made a sacrilege. Anyone who treated the cow as profane was guilty of sin and unfit for association. The Broken Men who continued to eat beef became guilty of sacrilege.” “Once the cow became sacred and the Broken Men continued to eat beef, there was no other fate left for the Broken Men except to be treated unfit for association, i.e., as Untouchables.” Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji. “The Untouchables Who Were They And Why They Became Untouchables.” Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol.7, Dr. Ambedkar Foundation, 2014, pp. 233-382.

Ganapatye, Shruti. 2022. Who will bell the cow? Beef ban: Decoding its cultural, social and economical aspects in India. Notionpress.com. The author introduces the book with the attempt by the then BJP government to bring in an amendment to the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act 1976 in an effort to bring in a complete ban on the slaughter of cow progeny, i.e., bulls and bullocks. She highlights how Maharashtra never had a major problem with cattle slaughter and beef consumption with many restaurants serving the food. After the amendment was introduced in 2015 “For the first time, many restaurants and small slaughter shops displayed boards of No beef and the cheapest protein source for many poor, including some from the dalit and Hindu communities, was seized. This same year the first case of mob lynching took place on September 22, 2015 in Dadri, UP – the first of several. Violence in the name of the cow was witnessed in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand –“the headlines for the next five years were dominated by hate crimes targeting Muslims, dalit and other marginalised people and cow related violence”. She says “Narratives like Muslims are killing our cows for years, Hindus never ate beef, India is a vegetarian country etc. are accepted as facts.” She references DN Jha’s book (The myth of the holy cow) and Dr. Ambedkar’s (The Untouchables: Who were they and why they Became Untouchables) and many other historians on ancient India who have presented evidence on beef eating practices among Hindus.' She traces the roots of the cow protection movement to the mid of 19th century which was initially against the British but transferred to the Muslims. She challenges some of the pet beliefs of the Hindutva nationalist. She explains how this nationalism is not only destroying the rural economy and other livelihoods, but has in fact not helped the cattle population either, even threatening them with extinction. She gives examples of how “Muslims are the pre-decided culprits of cow killing” and “Muslim hatred is the basic qualification to become a gau rakshak and they spur Islamophobic instincts.” In the last week of April 2021, the Punjab and Haryana High court directed the Haryana State’s Additional Advocate General to address the court on the power/authority of vigilantes to raid the houses of the citizens. The Bench of Justice Sudhir Mittal also observed “Such actions are prima facie illegal and amount to taking law into their own hands by private individuals. This is contrary to the Rule of Law.” The court remarks came based on an FIR registered in Haryana’s Nuh area where a Gau Rakshak dal allegedly raided one Mubbi alias Mubin, the petitioner. These gau rakshaks have emerged as a parallel system to the police and receive support from the police and ruling party. In fact when a cattle trader Alimuddin Ansari was barbarically murdered on June 29th 2017 in Jharkhand, not only where the accused released on bail, but the eight men were felicitated by the former BJP Union minister Jayant Sinha. She documents the horrific murders under the pretext of cow protection with the attackers getting blanket immunity. Even women and children have not been spared from this brutality. She describes how these gau rakshaks are organised and are enabled by various wings of the BJP. They belong to the brahmin, Gujjar, Jat, Yadav, Bania, Agrawal, Thakur and Rajput communities. These men organise and plan attacks and have a good network on various apps including Whatsapps. Police and even Dalits act as informants for these violent pre-planned attacks. She says ‘The system has been developed in such a way that gau rakshaks end up doing work wihc only police are authorised to do. They act as extra-judicial body by punishing the traders and farmers in the name of instant justice. Therefore the attacks are never sudden but a planned conspiracy in connivance with the state players.” This blurring of boundaries between the state and anti-social elements is particularly concerning. As we see even now, the victims are often treated as the criminals and the criminals are treated as heros. These acts of violence expand to accommodate many other prejudices which is being played out even now across the country in many different forms. Because of these acts of terror, even a natural death of the animal has become stressful for farmers, particularly for Muslim farmers. There is also documentation of how the cattle population has dwindled following these violent attacks. “Gau shala has become a medium of land grab at many places in the absence of an audit. There is no accountability over funds raised and spent, there is no monitoring of the number of cattle residing in the gaushala, their condition if they get required fodder and health check up. Even various government schemes meant for gaushalas have not monitoring mechanism at all.” “After speaking with a few traders and slaughterhouse owners, it was confirmed that those cows and bulls in gaushala which are not used for milk or farming, are sold to slaughterhouses clandestinely. Gaurakshaks prevent traders and farmers from carrying the cattle and fine them. These seized animals are kept in gaushalas for some days and then, the fit ones are sold off to the slaughter houses through the back door. So, gaurakshaks end up making twice the money on the same cattle. The cattle are smuggled to neighbouring states like Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal and even Bangladesh for slaughtering.’ The author has also traced the historical context of the relationship between the cow and humans which is clearly much more nuanced and different from what is being projected by vested interests. Reading some of the historical context that the author has alluded to would be a good start for those who wish to have an alternate viewpoint to what the current government and its henchmen are projecting. Attributing beef eating and cow killing to Islamic invasion is not factual but the narrative has been used to vilify the community and mobilise the majoritarian community to rally under one homogenous umbrella of cow protector. Reading actual history would be very important. Shruti Gayapatye has also explored the way ahimsa has been perceived and implemented by Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. “A churning process within the Hindu religion had begun after Jainism and Buddhism challenged its core values. The patronage from wealthy communities and the ruling class to these new religions threatened the Sanatan Dharma. So the new religions were resisted at various levels. “ “There was huge resistance from the Hindu religion to the non-violence principle because it was a direct attack on the Yajna culture. Several attempts were made to show the futility of the non-violence principle by Hindu priests….it ultimately made a section of upper caste Hindu vegetarians to protect its dharma.” Although laws have been brought in for cow protection, there seems to be very little accurate and reliable data in the public domain and even through RTI (right to information) applications. This seems more by design rather than oversight and seems like a way of targeting Muslim and dalit community with the law being so friable that most cases fall through without any impediment to anti-social elements. The author has laid out how difficult it has been for her to access even minimum data around the cattle slaughter bans and their implementation. This is concerning and its adverse impact will only get worse as the government gains more power and impunity. The report “Cow Vigilantism: Crime, community and Livelihood January 2016 to march 2018,” by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) is a damning indictment of how this law has become the legal umbrella to target the Muslim community which seems to be the only consistent long term agenda of the current Government. A very grave finding of the report says “sexual violence against Muslim women has emerged as one of the forms of cow vigilantism aimed at teaching the community a lesson.” The author in Chapter 16 has a scathing criticism of the ‘cultural policing’ which is so strong that lakhs of people sleep on an empty stomach everyday while the political system is busy dictating what not to eat. “Currently food politics in India has a new dimension due to Hindu nationalism snatching a particular food from people’s plates and forcing vegetarianism down their throats. The food of upper castes is considered superior while others are inferior. There is no freedom left to choose your food. One needs to change food habits suited for ‘brahmanical vegetarian’ food norms.”

Image courtesy: Indianexpress.com Dr Veena Shatrugna, retired Deputy Director, National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) has written a two part series published in Infochange. This link no longer exists. The two articles are available on Ahara Namma Hakku blogsite. These articles are excerpted from ‘The Career of Hunger: Critical Reflections on the History of Nutrition Science and Policy’, by Veena Shatrugna, in Towards a Critical Medical Practice: Reflections on the Dilemmas of Medical Culture Today. Orient Blackswan; 2010. Reprinted with permission of the author and editors Part 1 - The career of hunger: Critical reflections on the history of nutrition science and policy In this part, Dr. Veena Shatrugna explains how nutrition research in 1920-30 ‘extracted’ about 10-15 nutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins etc.) out of nearly 900 foods. She says “By 1950, Indian scientists were estimating people’s requirements based on their own largely vegetarian diets, prioritising cost and recommending a diet of cereal for the nation and excluding animal protein. This exclusively cereal diet underlies the profile of malnutrition and disease today.” Because of rapid advances in analytical techniques in the late 19th and early 20th century, foods such as grains, milk, pulses, vegetables, meats, fish, nuts etc. began to be classified as rich in one or the other nutrient. By 1937, more than 300 foods had been analysed and categorised (Health Bulletin No 23, 1st edition). The lead author of this bulletin, Dr W R Aykroyd  is the director of Nutrition Research Laboratories, Coonoor, under the Nutrition Research Fund Association of the Government of India. The objective of this Bulletin was to summarise nutrition information that would help administrators, doctors and others to work with the concept of balanced diets and estimate nutrient requirements. However the focus was primarily on calories in relation to work – the relationship between food requirements of workers and the intensity of work. If the allowance for a sedentary worker is 2400 calories, then this can be met even with cheap energy foods like cereals. The Bulletin recognises that cereals provide bulk, provide satiety and are the staple diet of Indians, but it also recognises the importance of animal proteins and “expresses the doubt that perhaps no combination of vegetable proteins is adequate for healthy development”. The League of Nations report had already argued in favour of the higher biological value of animal protein. The Bulletin had asserted that growing children and pregnant and lactating mothers need more protein and that “calculations of cheap balanced diets must include adequate quantities of protein." This aspect was ignored in the following decades. The Bulletin, recognising that many poor people have ill-balanced diets because they cannot afford milk and other flesh foods, advocates milk for children, replacement of milled rice with parboiled rice and the addition of oil or ghee to the children’s diet. Based on these principles, an officially recommended diet was formulated stressing on “essential nutrition through the non-cereal portion of the diet” and recognising “the importance of proteins for growth in children, for mothers during pregnancy, and for the replacement of tissue wear-and-tear in adults” They specifically caution that “proteins derived from vegetable foods had less value for the body than proteins derived from animal foods.” This has of course been ignored as can be seen with most of the food related interventions. Eggs and milk protein were set as the standard of high biological value (BV) of over 90. The BV of pulses was around 60 and that of cereals falls between 60 and 70. The 1944 report also reiterated the importance of protein from animal sources.In order to ensure adequate protein intake, the group tried to include milk, fish, meat and eggs, in addition to vegetables and fruit. The crucial element in this report is an insistence on 10 oz (280 ml) of milk, hoping to double the recommendation to 20 oz as soon as possible. Reducing food to numbers and calculations divorced it from the daily lives of people. Since calories gained centre stage in these calculations, cheaper foods became the norm, irrespective of their other nutritional value. In the search for “low-cost vegetable sources of proteins that were nutritionally as useful as milk proteins, the biological values of a large number of foods were calculated.” “In the late-1930s, ’40s and ’50s, experiments were carried out on children from economically backward communities where one group was given milk powder (1 oz providing 10 gm of protein) and the control groups received an extra helping of the usual rice and vegetables. It was found that children given milk had significant increases in height and weight when compared to the control group (Aykroyd and Krishnan 1937; Someshwar Rao, 1961). A daily addition of 1 oz of skimmed milk powder proved to be a valuable supplement to cereal-based diets.” “Aykroyd and Krishnan (1937) too had investigated the value of cheaper foods like cooked soya beans, and found it inferior to skimmed milk. This failure of soya was ascribed to the low biological value of soya proteins, and all studies on soya were terminated. Meanwhile, with advances in technology, processed milk from various oilseeds, pulses and vegetable products was also tried.” “In 1955, a special report on milk substitutes of vegetable origin was published by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR, 1955). This report reviews all the studies using milk made from various vegetarian products such as soya, groundnut, pulses, from mixed plant products, and concludes that such processed milk should only be used in regions where it has been found difficult to rear mulch cattle, as in Assam and the Western Ghats. They however do not comment on the additional cost of such processing.” “By 1955 it was clear that whatever the sources of vegetable proteins, when they were compared to milk protein in trials feeding sick or undernourished children, it was obvious that milk protein was far superior.” These conclusive findings notwithstanding, the search for cheap, and preferably vegetarian, solutions to the country’s state of undernutrition continue. A paper titled ‘Treatment of Nutritional Oedema Syndrome (Kwashiorkor) With Vegetable Protein’ (Venkatachalam et al, 1956) argued that though skim milk protein may be unsurpassed in its biological value in treatment of Kwashiorkor, underdeveloped countries could not use it as a basis for large-scale solutions. It conducted an experiment comparing skim milk protein and other vegetarian substitutes. The results of this study clearly pointed to the superior efficacy of the skim milk protein when evaluated by the two biochemical criteria adopted for assessing satisfactory recovery: the rise in serum proteins and albumin. In spite of this, the authors concluded, “the ‘slight inferiority’ of vegetable proteins should not obscure the fact that remarkable clinical improvement almost as striking as with skim milk was noticeable in cases treated with these diets”. They further state that, “the real importance of this study would lie in that it has revealed such satisfactory therapeutic possibilities with cheap vegetable protein diet in this disease,” (Venkatachalam et al, 1956:544). “This was the first major attempt to wean the nutritionists away from advocating milk for poor, sick undernourished children, and justifying inferior quality foods, thus shrinking and redefining the range of foods for the children of the poor in India.” A revised and updated publication in 1968 confidently states: “In devising cheap well-balanced diets in India, economic considerations often preclude the inclusion of milk or other animal foods in adequate amounts… A judicious mixture of vegetable foods like cereals and pulses can be cheap and at the same time can provide nearly as good an amino acid pattern as that of the costly animal food,” (Gopalan, 1968:6-7). This balanced diet was separated for the vegetarian and non-vegetarian groups and the latter were given an allowance of 45 gm of pulses and 100 gm of milk with added 30 gm of meat or fish and 30 gm of eggs. Another committee to revise the recommended dietary allowances was set up in 1978 (ICMR, 1980). The preface states: “The most important change has been with regard to suggested balanced diets… (which) have been formulated using linear programming techniques to arrive at the least-cost formulations.” This diet is based on cereals as the major source of calories and proteins, with reduced milk and no separate diet provided for non-vegetarians. It does not recommend fruits, flesh foods, eggs, nuts and oilseeds… in the name of economy. Dr. Veena Shatrugna argues that “in hindsight, it is difficult not to be critical about this eradication of flesh foods from normative diets, in spite of their proven superior efficacy as proteins for the body. The entire debate on RDA is directed at finding the theoretically adequate but most economical solution to a difficult problem. However, the specific governmental solution arrived at clearly draws on a culture of vegetarianism common to the planners who thought on behalf of the nation. Food options and crucial dietary diversity for the majority of poor, dalits, BC, tribals, minorities, etc, in fact for 80-85% of the population, had been closed in the structure of plan thinking. Thus, it was enough to provide for distribution of cereals with little scientific consideration about what these cereals were eaten with.” In 1988, RDA was revised with specific focus on energy, fats and other trace elements and occupation was classified based on nature of work and intensity (ICMR, 1990). This least cost recommendation, devoid of flesh foods, fruits, nuts eggs etc. was opposed by trade unions, hostels etc. She says “The amount of milk recommended for children was not more than 300 ml, and as in the case of adults no recommendations were made for eggs, fish, flesh foods, oilseeds and fruits. The children were expected to eat an adult diet in quantities proportionate to their age. There was minimal allowance of milk (proteins) for their growth, though the actual consumption of milk in all the surveys is less than 100 ml. If children have managed to grow to their present heights, it is clear that they do so despite the RDA that the government has declared is adequate for them.” By advocating for vegetable proteins in the form of cereal to pulse ratios, the importance of animal/milk proteins was minimised, thus ‘endorsing vegetarianism for the poor’ and pushing the country into a ‘cereal trap’. In the late 60s, there was food shortage and famine like situation in India leading to pressure from the West to accept food aid, specially milk powder for starving children. In response, the Nutrition Research Laboratories published a report which concluded that pre-school children had a calorie deficit and that “if the children consume the same type of diets on which they have been subsisting, in amounts sufficient to satisfy their calorie needs, the problem of protein calorie malnutrition would be greatly minimised. It is clear by the same token that provisions of protein concentrates in the face of existing calorie deficiency would perhaps be a wasteful approach towards solving this problem in these children,” (Gopalan, 1970:36). They however suggest that supplements of Vitamin A and iron are essential. Calculating that each 100 gm of cereal contained 6-8% protein, a largely cereal based diet with inadequate or virtually no pulses, milk, eggs or meat was recommended. So to get the required 25-30 gm protein, children were expected to eat 300-400 gm of cereal !! The fact that children cannot consume such large amounts was ignored. 1 gm cooked cereal provides 0.5 -1 calorie whereas 1 gm fat provides 9 calories. “The giants of nutrition research who computed the most economic options could not see that at least 30-40% of children’s calorie requirement must be derived from fat.” Shatrugna Veena (2012) The career of hunger: Critical reflections on the history of nutrition science and policy-Part 1. Infochange. Republished in https://aharanammahakku.home.blog/2019/02/11/the-career-of-hunger-critical-reflections-on-the-history-of-nutrition-science-and-policy-part-1/ [Last accessed on 4th February 2024] ********************** Part 2 - The wider effects of nutrition research: History of nutrition science and policy Dr. Veena Shatrugna Dr. Veena Shatrugna explains in detail how the focus on cheap sources of calories was responsible for the “shamefully low poverty line, a minimum wage to meet these low dietary requirements, a public distribution system limited to cereals, and high-input monoculture to produce these cereals.” She attributes the ‘undernutrition and  catastrophic health profiles of Indians today’ to these policy decisions and that micronutrient programmes are the natural extension of this policy. The assumption that ‘adequate calories are the solution to the country’s food problem’ ‘despite the fact that the foods eaten across the length and breadth of India consisted of vegetables, fruit, greens, wild berries, roots, tubers and leaves, mushrooms, eggs, lamb, pork, beef, birds, insects, fish, frog, small jungle animals like rabbits, snails and tortoises and many such sources’ reflected on the fact that those who based their calculations in this had ‘no experience or understanding of the quality of life and culture among the marginalised.’ It affected the calculation of the poverty line, minimum wages etc. This emphasis of RDA based on cheap sources of calories fed into the large scale investment into the Green Revolution. Dr. Veena categorically states “It is my argument that this dietary monoculture that has been fostered and inculcated as the single and only choice by government policy has been instrumental in producing undernutrition and, as its consequence, the catastrophic health profiles we see today.” While scientists continued to argue that the main issue was calorie deficiency, the extent of malnutrition had reached unacceptable levels of 60-80% among the poor, and especially among children. “The Supplementary Nutrition Program (SNP) was originally designed to be a cereal, pulse, oil and sugar mixture for children, but very soon a cereal-based 300-calorie food which provided 10 gm of protein (100 gm of any cereal provides 6-10 gm of protein anyway) began to be provided in these programmes.” “While it may be argued that nobody was aware at the time of the possible molecular damage caused by excess cereals, it is difficult to evade the manner in which scientists thought of implementing solutions for the poor that they under no circumstance would have accepted for themselves or for their own kind.” “Subsisting on cereals was naturally associated with large-scale anaemia (incidence of anaemia: 90% in pregnancy, 60-70% in children, and 50-60% in non-pregnant non-lactating women; even men were anaemic). The vicious cycle of anaemia with undernutrition in children and even adults cannot be addressed with either iron-fortified foods or iron tablets, or even kilograms of green leafy vegetables. It is known that a small amount of meat protein can help solve the problem of anaemia in a large number of cases, because meat proteins help absorb food iron. Vegetarian foods have high phytates, which inhibit iron absorption. There is also obviously a need for foods other than cereals for the poor such as milk, meat, eggs and fish, which have by now become illegitimate desires in the governmental perspective. With characteristic tunnel vision, public health measures addressed anaemia, which is not just a result of iron deficiency, but also due to deficiency of other nutrients such as protein, folic acid, B12, copper and many other nutrients, with a programme to distribute iron and folic acid to semi-starved pregnant women (and giving a smaller dose to children) in 1970. Today, this tunnel vision manifests itself in proposals and strategies to fortify wheat and rice with iron.” “By the 1990s, scientists have ‘discovered’ newer micronutrient deficiencies because of the cereal overload and virtual absence of any protective food in the diets of the poor. Technologies are now in place for the fortification of cereals (rice or wheat) with a range of micronutrients by the food and drug industry. Studies are also in place to push for multiple micronutrient fortification which include iron, zinc, iodine, Vitamin A, riboflavin, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, etc.” She says “The nutrition and food policies of this country were set on this disastrous course in the ’50s and ’60s when ‘vegetarian sources of protein are adequate’ studies were followed by the ‘myth of the protein gap’ in the ’60s, and the 300 calories for children in the SNP. These steps were taken on the basis of strong and authoritative arguments by scientists of repute. The fixation of minimum wages, the shamefully low poverty line datum and the BPL and APL categories have remained unchallenged. The PDS/Green Revolution/food programmes further contributed to the problem because they dealt with only cereal. The molecular damage to the body when energy from cereals burns without the necessary nutrients such as vitamins and minerals is only now recognised. It is now known that excess cereal results in a particular kind of fat accumulation in Indians called triglyceride with abdominal obesity in men and women (Esmaillzadeh, Mirmiran, Azizi, 2005; Merchant et al, 2007). This is associated with early onset of diabetes or of what is called the metabolic syndrome. At even normal weights Indians have a higher fat content in their bodies especially around the abdomen. The only way of avoiding this is to increase muscle mass during childhood, and this means we must move away from the cereal trap.” “Many studies carried out in the ’40s and ’50s showed that children consuming milk grow tall as compared to children on rice diets. It is known that the only way to lay down more muscle mass is through consumption of milk or animal proteins such as flesh foods, meat extracts, eggs and perhaps some nuts in infancy and childhood (Rogers et al, 2006). Recent studies at the National Institute of Nutrition have confirmed the important role of milk proteins with abundant sources of nutrients like vitamins and minerals for increase in muscle mass, heights and weights of school children (Shatrugna et al, 2006).” “Diabetes, blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases in Indians have been produced in epidemic proportions with the overemphasis on cereals in the diets of the poor. When short, lean children without adequate muscle mass put on weight as adults it is known that their weight increase happens due to fat increase (Kurpad, 2005; James, 2005).' Shatrugna, Veena (2019) The wider effects of nutrition research: History of nutrition science and policy-Part 2. Infochange. Republished on https://aharanammahakku.home.blog/2019/02/11/the-wider-effects-of-nutrition-research-history-of-nutrition-science-and-policy-part-2/ [Accessed on 4th February 2024]

Price,Weston. 2006. Nutrition and Physical degeneration. Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. Dr Weston A. Price, was a dentist who, in the 1920s and 30s studied several populations such as Irish fishermen, tribal Africans, Pacific Islanders, Eskimos, North and South American Indians and Australian aborigines. Those groups that followed their traditional nature based diets had good health and vigor, while those who turned to ‘civilised diets’ of processed, sugar-laden foods soon developed misshapen bones and teeth, with the situation worsening with each generation. Price’s research proved conclusively that dental caries is caused primarily by nutritional deficiencies, and that those conditions that promote decay also promote disease. Price found 14 tribal diets that, although radically different, provided almost complete immunity to tooth decay and resistance to illness. Contact with civilisation, followed by adoption of what Price termed the ‘displacing foods of modern commerce’ was disastrous for all groups studied. Rampant dental caries was followed by progressive facial deformities in children born to parents consuming refined and devitalised foods. These changes consisted of narrowed facial structure and dental arches, along with crowded teeth, birth defects and increased susceptibility to infectious and chronic disease. Significantly, when natives returned to their traditional diets, open cavities ceased progressing and children now conceived and born once again had perfect dental arches and no tooth decay. The diets were diverse. Some were based on sea food, some on domesticated animals, some on game and some on dairy products. Some contained almost no plant foods while others contained a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. In some, mostly cooked foods were eaten, while in others many foods, including animal foods were eaten raw. None of the foods contained refined or devitalised foods such as white sugar and flour, canned foods, pasteurised or skimmed milk and refined and hydrogenated vegetable oils. All diets contained animal products of some sort and all included some salt. Preservation methods among primitive groups included drying, salting and fermenting, all of which preserve and increase nutrients in the food. All the foods contained at least four times the quantity of minerals and water-soluble vitamins of the American diet. And ten times the amount of fat-soluble vitamins found in animal fats including vitamin A/D and the Price fact or Activator X. Price considered these fat soluble vitamins to be the key component of healthy diets. He called these nutrients activators or catalysts on which the assimilation of all other nutrients - proteins, minerals and water-soluble vitamins depend. It is possible to starve for minerals that are abundant in the foods eaten because they cannot be utilised without and adequate quantity of fat-soluble activators. According to him, the amounts (of nutrients) utilised depend directly on the presence of other substances, particularly the fat soluble vitamins. It is at this point probably that the greatest breakdown in modern diet takes place, namely in the ingestion and utilisation of adequate amounts of the special activating substances including the vitamins needed for rendering the minerals in the food available to the human system. The foods that supply the vital fat-soluble activators include butterfat, marine oils, organ meats, fish, shellfish, eggs and animal tallow, most of which our modern pundits of diet and nutrition have unfairly condemned as unhealthy. The groups provided special foods to prospective parents both mother and father before conception and to women during pregnancy as well as growing children. They practiced spacing of children so that mothers could replenish nutrient stores for subsequent children. People must restore the soil to health through non-toxic and biological farming methods. The diets of studied by Price were diverse. Some were based on sea foods, some on domesticated animals, some on game and some on dairy products. Some contained almost no plant foods while others contained a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. In some mostly cooked foods were eaten while in others, many foods including animal foods, were eaten raw. However they shared several characteristics. None contained any refined or devitalised foods such as white sugar and flour, canned foods, pasteurised or skinned milk and refined or hydrogenated vegetable oils. Preservation methods include drying, salting and fermenting which preserve and even increase nutrients. All the diets studied contained at least four times the quantity of minerals and water-soluble vitamins of the American diet of the day. These diets contained at least ten times the amount of fat-soluble vitamins found in animal fats including vitamin A/D and the activator X or price factor. The foods that supply vital fat soluble activators include butter fat, marine oils, organ meats fish and shellfish, eggs and animal tallow - most now condemned as unhealthy. Price factor or activator X which is a catalyst to mineral absorption is found in liver and other organ meat, fish liver oils, fish eggs and butter from cows eating rapid growing grass from spring and fall pasturage. In the past 200 years, the natural fertility of soil has rapidly declined. At first when the crop failures settlers abandoned their farms and moved west to virgin areas. Later the application of manure composed of animal or crop residues and the rotation of crops were effective in maintaining fertility. More recently the increasing availability of artificial fertilisers of high nitrogen content had enabled the grower to harvest one crop after another without allowing the land to lie fallow - a custom which encouraged the multiplication of soil organisms that in turn would release soil nutrients as needed by plants. Often against his better judgement, the modern farmer has been forced to use monoculture, artificial fertilisation, pesticides, herbicides and mechanization in order to keep ahead of ruinous taxation, inflation and ever-increasing costs of production. The result has been production for quantity rather than quality and the gradual destruction of precious top soil and mineral reserves in or beneath the soil. The protein content of wheat and other grains has steadily declined and is a reliable index of soil fertility. Animal foods such as fowl and meat reflect similar changes. Fowl are usually raised in cramped quarters and their food limited to that prescribed by man. Both groups are frequently treated with antibiotics, anti-thyroid drugs and hormones which produce castration, myxedema . they are designed to stimulate more weight gain on less feed. Humans are also increasingly exposed to thousands of chemicals in air, food, water. They are also being dosed or dosing on several drugs. Chemical contacts include food additives, pesticides, herbicides, nitrates and effluents from modern industry. Many of these are coal tar products or their derivatives and other synthetic compounds. Long lasting chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides such as DDT have even penetrated our food chain. In some areas at least, herbicides such as 1.4-D and 2.4,5-T contaminated by the highly toxic and teratogenic 3,4,6,7-tetrachloro-p-dibenzodioxin - have entered our food and water supplies. This is also true of other chlorinated diphenyls which are products of modern industry. Residues of DDT and related chemicals are now found in most living creatures form the Arctic to the Antarctic, including phytoplankton which not only provide basic food for fish but much of the oxygen essential for our survival. Read the book for more information

3 January 2017 Catherine Shanahan M.D. Shanahan, Catherine and Shanahan Luke. 2016. Deep nutrition: Why your genes need traditional food. Flatiron books, New York. Catherine Shanahan believes that a comprehensive dietary education is a preventive intervention which has not received its due recognition by the healthcare system. Doctors are not trained to understand how diet can contribute to medical conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease. Adults benefit by improved mood, curbing of hunger, stronger joints, better skin and fertility, fewer infections, reduced risk of heart attacks and stroke, reduced risk of allergies and dementia. Children can have improved learning capacity, fewer tantrums and behaviour problems, improved jaw growth, reduced need for orthodontia, improved immunity, reduced allergies, increased heights and normal puberty. Sadly these are not things that we can take for granted but need to actively work towards. We have to push our policy makers, health systems and corporates to stop promoting foods that work against us. We have to instead encourage farmers, traditional communities, mothers and grandmothers to reclaim our traditional and cultural foods. Crucially she brings in the idea of epigenetics which moves beyond the idea of health of individuals to how the way individuals live and eat can affect subsequent generations. It also means that we can to a large extent determine the health of future generations. ‘One of the most important new concepts of Deep Nutrition is the idea that the foods parents eat can change the way their future children look.’ She describes foods that will unlock genetic potential and rebuild the body. ‘But before you can discover that potential, it is essential that you learn to recognize two toxic substances present in our food that are incompatible with normal genetic function: sugars and vegetable oils. These are not just toxic to people who have food sensitivities or certain medical conditions like leaky gut or prediabetes. They’re toxic to every living thing. By eliminating vegetable oil and reducing foods that raise blood sugar, you will make caloric space to accommodate the nutrition your body craves.’ According to the book, the concept of gene health is simple: genes work fine until disturbed. ‘External forces that disturb the normal ebb and 􀉻ow of genetic function can be broken into two broad categories: toxins and nutrient imbalances. Toxins are harmful compounds we may eat, drink, or breathe into our bodies, or even manufacture internally when we experience undue stress. Nutrient imbalances are usually due to de􀉹ciencies, missing vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, or other raw materials required to run our cells. You may not have control over the quality of the air you breathe or be able to quit your job in order to reduce stress. But you do have control over what may be the most powerful class of gene-regulating factors: food.’ The author recognises that across cultures, there is a collective wisdom about what it takes to have ‘designer babies’ given the available resources and how this knowledge was enshrined in the songs, prayers and cultural practices of different communities. She says ‘Contrary to the opinion of medical leaders today, saturated fat and cholesterol appeared to be bene􀉹cial nutrients. Fifty years of removing foods containing these nutrients from our diets—foods like eggs, fresh cream, and liver—to replace them with low-fat or outright arti􀉹cial chemicals —like trans-fat-rich margarine (trans-fat is an unnatural fat known to cause health problems)—has starved our genes of the chemical information on which they depend. Simply cutting eggs and sausage (originally made with lactic acid starter culture instead of nitrates, and containing chunks of white cartilage) from our breakfasts to replace them with cold cereals would mean that generations of children have been fed fewer fats, B vitamins, and collagenous proteins than required for optimal growth.’ She explains that the yolk of eggs are full of brain building fats, including lecithin, phospholipids, essential fatty acids and vitamins A and D. Low fat diets have apparently been shown to reduce intelligence in animals. She explains that artificial vitamins and powdered, encapsulated antioxidant products are not as effective as the real thing – not even close and even harmful and that a far better option would be to eat more nutritious food. This is important in the Indian context because there is a rush to replace single nutrients such as iron, Vitamin A etc. rather than approaching these deficiencies in a wholesome manner through food. Studies show that fortification do not have the intended benefits and can even be harmful. Ignoring this is to our own peril. She equates poor nutrition to ‘squandering of genetic wealth’ and that continuous poor nutrition over generations, lead to less and less healthy progeny. There is however hope that if we intervene immediately and re-evaluate our eating practices, we can regain this genetic wealth. She asserts that labelling cholesterol rich foods as ‘dangerous’ is medical misinformation which has changed eating habits drastically and with that our access to nutrients. She identifies four pillars of World Cuisine which can be eaten as often as we can, preferably daily. 1. Meat cooked on the bone 2. Organs and offal 3. Fresh (raw) plant and animal products 4. Fermented and sprouted foods—better than fresh! She says that different combinations of these are available across the world. Surely in India we have an array of these foods. Recognising and identifying them, documenting them (either through oral, video or written form) and then widely disseminating these should become an important part of our lives. We need to reclaim all those foods that are being lost under the onslaught of a hierarchical and monochromic narrative around food based on caste, culture, religion, ethnicity, geography etc. You may hear people with chronic diseases complaining that doctors and dieticians are constantly telling them what NOT to eat, while the foods that they can eat are dwindling. That is partly because we have become accustomed to a very narrow array of foods. Diversifying our food plates by exploring those foods are may not be available off a supermarket shelf has the additional benefit of giving us more variety and thus leading to better satiety and nutrition. Organ meats are considered the ‘original vitamin supplements’ and she attributes their disappearance from the plate to numerous health problems. Since organ meats and those foods with a strong smell such as dried fish and dried meat are an acquired taste, it is important that children are atleast exposed to these in various forms even from a young age. The culture of good eating is thus inculcated early. As far as reproduction and nutrition goes, she emphasises that the nutritional status of the mother before and during pregnancy can influence the development of the child and that eating sweets and vegetable oils during pregnancy can be as detrimental as smoking and drinking. The health of the men is also important to ensure good quality sperms. Unless the mother gives herself time to replenish her nutrient stores, the second and subsequent children may not be healthy. A woman who is not consuming adequate nutrients will not be able to provide for the needs of the baby. However major deficiencies are avoided to some extent by the body drawing these nutrients from the mother – this includes iron, folate, calcium, potassium, Vitamin D, Vitamin A and carotenoids, magnesium, iodine, omega-3, phosporus, zinc,DHA and other essential fatty acids, B12 and selenium. Mother’s brains can apparently shrink primarily in the hippocampal and temporal lobe areas which control short term memory and emotion. The drawing out of mothers nutrients can lead to her developing spine related issues, memory related issues and even could contribute to post partum depression. The sugar and vegetable oils can, in addition, disrupt maternal metabolism and lead to gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia and other pregnancy related complications. In the child, this could lead to diseases previously assumed to be due to mutation – cancer, diabetes, asthma, obesity etc. Low birth weight due to mother’s smoking or high blood pressure can put children at risk of low bone mass and relative obesity. Highlighting the importance of soil quality she says ‘When plants and animals are reared on mineral deficient soil, not only are they missing nutrients, they’re not as healthy. And their cells are, in turn, less able to manufacture the vitamins and other nutrients that would benefit us……..Without healthy soil to nourish them, plants are unable to use the energy from the sun to manufacture optimal levels of vitamins.’ Foods have been reduced to chemicals rather than the ingredient source and cooking tradition. Access to greater quantities of animal products have historically produced bigger and tougher bodies while access to nature is the real source of genetic wealth. She explains in detail the health benefits of healthy fats and fermented foods to help support a thriving microbiome, the benefits of bone stock. For those who exercise moderately, she recommends 100 gm of carbohydrate a day as an upper limit, with 30-70 gm on most days. The worst time to consume carbohydrates is at breakfast. It should be preferably had during dinner. The minimum average daily intake of protein is 50 gm for a woman and 70 gm for a man. The author explains in great detail how the cholesterol theory created a sickness epidemic. And that lipid scientists have been telling us for decades that saturated fats and cholesterol are not the problem. Oxidised polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) is dangerous because it is chemically unstable. The vilification of cholesterol and saturated fats was based on ‘sloppy statistical work’ by Ancel Keys who was considered the father of the ‘diet-heart hypothesis’. This gave rise to years of cheap processed foods claiming to be ‘low fat’, ‘low carb’ etc. – margarine, vegetable oils, ready to eat foods, ultra-processed foods replacing meat, butter, eggs and fresh foods from local farms. “Vegetable oils contain mostly heat-sensitive polyunsaturated fats. When heated, these fragile fats turn into toxic compounds including trans fat. The heat sensitivity issue means that all processed vegetable oils, and all products that contain vegetable oil, necessarily contain trans-fat.’ The good fats are the traditional fats that can handle the heat involved in processing or cooking – includes olive oil, peanut oil, butter, macademia nut oil, coconut oil, animal fat, palm oil and any artisanally produced unrefined oils. The bad fats, on the other hand are industrially produced and cannot handle the heat involved in processing or cooking and include canola oil, sunflower, soya, cottonseed, corn, grapeseed, safflower and non butter spreads. She explains that cholesterol profile contains total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglycerides. HDL should be > 45 in men and >50 in women and LDL less than 3 times the HDL value. This ratio together with triglycerides less than 150 implies that the person is within the healthy range. If triglycerides are above 150 and/or HDL is below 40, then it means the lipoprotein cycle is disrupted. Read the book for more detailed understanding.

Excerpts In Food Sovereignty and Spirituality, Agroecology December 2, 2023 An interview with dalit, adivasi and other members of the Food Sovereignty Alliance in India and  published in Agroecology is worth noting because it is not the usual ‘oppressor caste’ ‘experts’ giving gyan on food, but rather actual representatives from communities that have often been left on the sidelines before. This is an important shift and more and more decision making around food should be centred around what knowledge and traditional practices people have built over generations. Often mainstream politics and policies go against these wisdoms and traditions. Time to reclaim them !!! The members of the Food Sovereignty Alliance (FSA) share their fight against dominant, brahmanical, patriarchial ideology which they understand to the root of the caste system. Landless people from the dalit community, indigeneous adivasi communities, marginal and small farmers, animal rearers as well as non food producing citizens in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh  have come together to reject the injustice of the caste system, insist that food sovereignty is about living in harmony with nature and other fellow human beings as well as building solidarity, reciprocity and collective thinking around food and food justice. “Based on these principles, they are reasserting their own ancestral spiritual practices, including the right to consume beef as part of their cultural heritage and identity. They are also working for the right of oppressed people to liberate themselves and to restore gender equity in farming”. The Alliance is engaged in countering the dominant narrative that India is vegetarian and recognise that food is not just about cereals, millets and pulses but meat and milk as being very critical for various communities. Sagari Ramdas says “As an alliance, we have created a space for these kinds of dialogues. Even amongst the social and food movements within India, there is a deep reluctance to acknowledge that meat, and beef in particular, is a critical part of our cultural identity as well our food history and current diets”. Murugamma,  leader from the Savitri Bai Phule Dalit Mahila Sangham, which is the collective of Dalit women in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh draws attention to the fact that food is a key area where untouchability is practiced. She says ‘ We have multiple relationships with animals, and we eat the meat  of our animals, including beef. Our animals are a source of food, of energy, of dung and manure, and a source of money for us. Brahmanism is telling us that the cattle  we are eating is our God. This animal is placed in the temple and worshipped, and we Dalits are  kept ‘outside’ of that temple’. Marsakola Kamala , adivasi leader from the Jai Jangubai  Adivasi Mahila Sangham, in Telangana asserts that adivasis are not a part of the caste system but experiencing the effects of Brahminism. “We have a long tradition where all our festivals have been about establishing and sustaining our relationship with our lands, our forests, our crops, our animals and nowhere have we ever had a celebration saying we don’t eat beef. It is not as evident as in caste society, but this colonisation by Brahmanism is happening day by day. We are countering this by reasserting all those amazing diverse spiritual practises of ours”. Chundru Nooka Raju, leader organising for food sovereignty in Adivasi areas of the Eastern ghats since the early 1990s, particularly in East Godavari district says that there has been a massive invasion of Adivasi lands and territories by corporations for commodity crops like cotton, tobacco, cashew, tapioca etc. He says that “the entire cycle of food from preparing the land till we consume the food, begins and ends with celebration; it’s a coming together because food is a collective community action”. He says that spirituality and God for them is the relationship they have directly with nature “we look after nature and in turn nature looks after us; there’s godliness in us and we need to look after ourselves; and there’s godliness in nature, and it is this relationship which defines our spirituality. Where crops are alienated from humans, humans are alienated from nature, and  in turn this means godliness/ spirituality  is alienated from humans. In Adivasi culture, spirituality is connected to our food which comes from our crops and forests, which is connected to our land, and territory.” “We have reached a point today, where a strong kind of Brahmanical religion is trying to take control of Adivasi life. Brahmanism coupled with corporatization is destroying this relationship, the interconnectedness, the links between one and the deepening alienation…I am very worried about this because what will be there for future generations? We are actively organising to reaffirm who we are, what is our form of spirituality, otherwise we will no longer be Adivasi and that is my fear that we lose our Adivasiness.” Read the full discussion here Agroecology Now.  (2023). “The food sovereignty movement must be anti-caste”: An Interview with Dalit, Adivasi and other members of the Food Sovereignty Alliance in India. https://www.agroecologynow.com/food-sovereignty-movement-must-be-anti-caste/ (Accessed 31 January 2024). Additional Resources Ramdas, S. 2021. Towards Food Sovereignty: Dismantling the Capitalist Brahmanic Patriarchal Food Farming Regime. Development (64: 276-281). Ramdas, S. 2022. Disruptive Technologies: The Case of Indigenous Territories of Andhra Pradesh, India. Heinrich Boell Stiftung Hong Kong.