Junk Food is a dangerous “normal”. It has to go! - Day #18 (11 April 2020) 21 day #Covid19 Lock down

Day #18 ( 11 April 2020)

Junk Food is a dangerous “normal”. It has to go!

I was reading some very foodie things! The virus is an all-round celebrity! It has got a lot of people to even write foodie things with it! Now, don’t get me wrong, I was not talking about eating the virus! Don’t be surprised, nowadays, you talk about any animal, even cockroaches, and some one in the crowd will come up with stories on how such-and-such a nation eats cockroaches and that they have a factory producing it, and so on. By the way, they could be right, and again, you guessed the nation right!

Stories related to food and the virus, or the lock down following the Covid19, were initially about how people rush to groceries and pick up ( ransack!) essential food items to stock for a long haul. It was quickly followed with all sorts of experts prescribing what kind of food is good and what is bad during a Covid attack; what the young, the old and the normal people should eat; what women should eat, so on and so forth. Then there was a series of articles and messages on how one can boost their immunity to defend against the virus with nutritional supplements, certain vitamin intake, and even detailed suggestions of vegetables, fruits, herbs and exercises, like yoga, that can help. And there was this weeks of discussion on immunity - herd immunity to be specific, that the British believed is their approach, but were shocked by the estimates of deaths that this can cause. But, for our case, yes, immunity was also discussed!

So, that brings us to the question – are we as a species, strong enough, bodily, to resist the Covid19 virus? Meaning, even if the virus infects us, will we survive by our strength or immunity? With the number of affected people in 210 nations and territories reaching 18,46, 833 and the number of deaths 1,13,883, inspite of all the medical systems overworking, we can never be sure!

We could always say that this virus is highly infectious and that there is a certain set of vulnerable population that is at a higher risk. That is the point I wish to make. This vulnerable population is a very very large number, one that we worked hard to create, over a century, perhaps. Let me explain.

WHO says that as on 2017, 1.9 billion adults were overweight and 650 million obese, globally. An estimated 41 million children preschool were overweight. High blood pressure, heart diseases, diabetes and certain types of cancers are attributed to overweight and obesity. Increased consumption of junk food – primarily high energy carbohydrate, fat, salt and sugar rich diets are the cause for most of them. ( https://www.who.int/features/factfiles/obesity/en/ ).

UNICEF in its 2019 report finds that around 200 million children under-five are either undernourished or overweight, while one-in-three globally - and almost two-thirds of children between the fragile ages of six months to two years - are not fed food that nurtures proper development. (https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1049261 )

This is the “normal” that we have been living in for a very very long time. To bring us to this “normal” Governments, food technologists, the chemical and food industry, the large retail chains and consumers(we!) have invested billions of dollars, and today we have a few billion people in the vulnerable or high risk category with a health condition that may not resist the onslaught of a Covid19 like disease.

We have not only been “trained” to consume the junk that is produced but also been “trained” to bring up a generation specifically on this kind of food. One just needs to look back into your homes! So many of our young now do not know what natural, healthy food befitting human consumption actually is. The crisis is also that we have also been “trained” not to know or respond to the fact that while we consume this food, the industry that produces this may have impoverished large communities and denuded forests and natural ecosystems to produce the ingredients that go into the junk food – for instance soya, meat and palm oil. There could be many others. So, this “normal” of ours is about too much of the dirty, unhealthy kind of food for one large side of the population, and deprivation of adequate nutritious food for the other side of the population. Together taken, both the have’s and the have-not’s now form nearly half the world’s population, vulnerable, immunity compromised and waiting for a virus!

I believe we will come out of the Covid19 crisis in a few months time. The sufferings have been huge and costly. Economically we may take a long time to recover. Meanwhile, will we ever do anything with the learning?

In this case, it is about a simple, fundamental and the most essential act of Eating – and the fact that we must eat better than we did before we got into the Covid crisis.

The act and hence the policy around eating, that is about the individual, family and the society and eventually the nation and the world, should mean that we have enough for all of us. Equity is the word, and there must be Food justice – an assurance that nobody goes hungry. The policy should also be that such food is healthy, natural, safe and locally specific to the culture and the ecology of the region. This is one fundamental need that has been hugely compromised with food becoming standardised, manipulated to make it homogeneous, universally available and available all through the year, everywhere, industrially produced and globalised for all populations. Food has also been dangerously infused with chemicals, including pesticides used at various stages of its production.

And lastly, food is one of the biggest economic drivers. Starting from the farmers to a chain of other enterprises that bring the produce from the farm to the plate, in processed or raw form is a massive chain. But today, the farming community globally is facing a crisis of survival, unprecedented in history. This has also to change. The hands that feed the world cannot be let to die. Infact, they should be in the first line of people who will have to prosper in a changed world.

If we are to look at the collapse of the health of the world, then the industrial food production system is the No.1 culprit, and that has to go. It has to be replaced with a large shift to Community Food systems, large and small, bringing together the individual, the private and the public, that can cater to the real needs of a “post-normal” world.

Here it is interesting to note that even within states, we have different sects of people in different levels of a compromised immunity status. One needs to go beyond conventional reasons to look at,for instance, why the Blacks and the Hispanic populations across various Covid19 hit states in the US are having higher rates of deaths than the whites. In Chicago, more than 70% of the deaths related to the coronavirus were among black residents, though black residents make up only a third of the city’s population. In Michigan, black residents make up just 14% of the population, but over 40 percent of the Covid-19 deaths. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/opinion/coronavirus-poor-black-latino.html )

I am not directly attributing this to only junk food, but the fact that this population is addicted to junk food, and that this is cheaper and hence preferred is also matters that need further exploration. Similarly, in nations that still have some community food systems intact, have held on to the virus attack, inspite of poverty and lack of resources. The fact remains that in such populations, like in India, the local food systems are not as disrupted as in the cities of developed nations. Even in the major cities of India, we can see people having healthier diets. For example,green leafy vegetables are a daily staple among most of the residents of the Chennai city. But this is also changing with a changing preference among the youth.

Rajesh Krishnan, a bio-technologist turned organic paddy farmer and entrepreneur has an interesting take on this. He says, “We were always a foraging species. When the lock down hit us, I picked up a book that had compiled information about the herbs and edible green leafy vegetables found in our gardens and homesteads. I wanted to see which of them I can find around my home. I could identify and pick so many of them. Our elder farmers here know all of them by name, use, properties and the way to consume them. We are so rich in the diversity of our freely growing food and the knowledge of it as well.” A friend, Priyanka, had earlier helped us compile information about edible leafy vegetables that grow in paddy fields. She found more than 80 of them. Most of them are still consumed by the tribals and villagers in Wyanad, Kerala, making it a free, easy available source of nutrition. This could largely be true of most country side in India. This is the kind of food and knowledge that needs to be integrated into the present food basket. This is the kind that will give local food security and resilience, both at the society as well as at the individual level, even as we conserve our ecosystems.

With the sagacity that comes with farming, Rajesh added, “but modern man still forages; look at how he goes from supermarket to supermarket to pick up all that junk food, and today, we are foraging using the mobile and an app!”. Agreed, it’s the same fingers and hands, but are we making sure it is healthy food!

One thing is very clear, this “normal” into which the economic world will simply go back post-Covid is is too dangerous for humanity! Thousands of very sustainable models are growing up all over the world, that is demonstrating the possibility of a sustainable, resilient food system! The Community Food systems approach has a future and it just needs us now. We need not wait for the next virus or a disaster to adopt them into our homes and the society.

The first things after the lock down! - Day #16 (9 April 2020) 21 day #Covid19 Lock down

Day #16 ( 9 April 2020)

The first things after the lock down!

What is the first thing you would want to do when the lock down is lifted?

Now that the lock down has gone through two weeks, and although the number of new Covid cases and deaths are not very assuring, there is quite a lot of discussions in the mainstream media, about whether the lock down would be lifted, or partially lifted or in a bad case situation, extended. It does looks like some regions will get a little relief, but most states, where the situation is grim will have to go through the tough time for some more weeks.

But, my question got quite some interesting responses.

“Go out, and eat food!” Many responded on this craving. “Aren’t you getting enough of it now?” “Yes, We are, different tasty things every day, but we still miss the restaurants!” Some earnest mothers frown! But the kids are especially desperate. They want to have their choice of things. Like this 16-year old who “has McDonald visit on top of the agenda!”, and this young man who wants a “Biriyani, dum style”. Some elders need that special thing! “KF Ultra may not be a bad choice”, replies a batch mate, an extreme case, possibly!

I heard from a number of women that they want to go out and eat, because they are tired making food everyday, in some cases three times, and keep it diverse so the family isn’t bored! A friend said that she would love to “sleep enough even during daytime...since the maid will be back to work.” Many women who began the lock down enthusiastically, cleaning up the homes, pulling out old stuff and disposing them, experimenting on diverse menu every day, even having menu-based challenges on social media, have got tired doing this. Many men and sometimes even the kids, have been helping, but it does remain a fact that the women felt overworked, especially when they were dependent on a maid or cook during normal times. But others who never preferred a maid, seem to be happy they got a lot of time. For the non working women, they are very happy, the family is all with them.

But the men seem to have a different idea of the freedom. Many of them want to just get out of the house. Some want to take a long drive, some miss the movies and so would see the first film that opens; the more nature loving, wants to go to the beach, or the park; they miss the weekly family walk in the Museum compound in Trivandrum and so on. Many parents want to take the family for an outing.

But there are also those cautious characters. They actually prefer to “continue to stay home, unless it’s urgent”. They would prefer to “allow the mad rush to settle”. Well justified, I suppose. It’s going to be worse than a mad rush, when the sluice gates open!

Then there are those families, where a daughter or a son or an elder member of the family is away and in some solitary state during the lock down. “I would visit my father in Delhi, I haven’t met him for a while. He is managing, without his helper”, the more worried say. Then there is this mother who wants to visit her daughter, and the one whose son is away, and have to get him back to town, and so on.

Children are surely missing a lot, as these are vacations, and they have been locked down inside. What would they plan? The first choice seems to be “Go out and eat!”, and the next in line is playing. Some of them have formal game schedules, which they are missing, and some are not able to go to their native homes, meet cousins, and play.

“We miss our friends and relatives”, many of my friends say. Some miss their colleagues in office, and one good friend said, “I miss my office; it’s only when we are denied this, do we realise the value of the office and the community that was”. She is happy staying at home, but wants to get back to office.

Meanwhile this Malayalee, living in an insecure Delhi, goes nostalgic and cries out “I want to come home!”. Then, there is this objective father, “My daughter would go to her college. My wife would probably go to her friend or her sister’s house. I would start my pending works”. Does it sound boring? No, he is being real!

Atleast two of my friends would actually go with a status quo. “I like this lock down. I don't feel like I am missing anything that much”, says this working lady, who could do a Work from Home. And there is also this one who says, “I think nothing much..now a days everyone is used to this life style”

We even had the pious one; She would “Make a thanks giving prayer to God”.

But a few are preparing for the change. “We should be prepared for the new normal”, they say. One of my batch mates shared a picture of the book he is reading. “The Minimalist Home” by Joshua Becker, which has a description like this “A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, refocussed Life”. The friend adds, “the process of lock down and this book will teach me how to live in future!”. Minimalism is definitely an idea we all should take a serious look at!

Now, what about those who have been worst hit by the lock down - the traders, the small enterprise, the farmers, workshop owners, workers, people in the construction sector and so on? I could only talk to a couple of them and they all seem to have just one answer “Get back to work!”. It’s nearly dark days for some of their families.

Now this one, I kept for the last.

The friend in Thrissur, who lives with her family – what would be the first thing she would do?

“Go to the Vadakkunnathan temple, spend time looking out on the Thekkinkaadu grounds. We are missing the routine visit”, she said. She, like most of the people in Thrissur, is missing the Thrissur Pooram, which has been cancelled this year. That for them is like losing something dear to their lives.

“One more thing”, she says, “Many women have also not been able to do facials, and they miss their beautician”. That is something I had no clue about, at all. She says, “I miss my eyebrow threading”. News to me! I also heard from one other good friend, that many do have the same issue, but have learnt some self-beautification tricks from the internet and so would probably come out of the lock down looking much better that when they got in!

In the end, the question turned to me. What’s the first thing I would like to do? One look at my face, and the answer is written there in more white than black!

“Visit the barber shop!”

Now, where do I get my food ! - Day #6 (30 March 2020) - 21 day #Covid19 Lock down

Day #6 (30 March 2020)

Now, where do I get my food !

The Covid19 has hit us with the lock down. Now, where do I get my food ? Or, I had rather ask, have I secured my food ?

That’s a good question to ask especially when most of the shops in town are shut, and it’s only those shops that sell the most essential of food – vegetables, fruits, grocery, milk, egg, meat and fish is allowed to open, that too, for a restricted time. It’s a national lock down. Most states have closed borders, trains have completely stopped, airlines have all been grounded. This is not about people moving, this is also about things – food, moving. Even the shops that are allowed to open, have shortage of essentials like vegetables, fruits and fish. And there is serious uncertainty looming large, atleast in Kerala, where we are dependent on the neighbouring states for most of our essentials. Today we did hear the good news that vegetables from the neighbouring state were allowed to cross border and so it’s available in town. But milk supply is badly hit, with milk production affected by both the summer and now the lock down.

This is not a doomsday thought, but will there ever be a situation when we could face a food scarcity. One can surely not be certain with an answer, but some parts of the country, even in major cities, and many parts of the world are facing food scarcity, especially when production gets hit, the workers are sent off, and transportation gets restricted. Food scarcity is an imminent reality. Whatever is available will then get rationed, meaning, the most ‘needy’, the rich, could get it first and the rest of us later, and the poor below, never ! Now, this is not doomsday thinking, it’s there in history. It’s just a reminder of not just about food as an insecure commodity, but also the society itself as an unequal entity.

I was discussing the Covid19 lock down with a colleague of mine. Almost always, the only things that we discuss apart from organisational matters is climate matters, and environmental matters. What’s wrong with us ? That I promise is a full blog answer, later.

She said “I actually don’t fear the virus, nor other disasters as much as I would fear the possibility of food unavailability, or rather the scary thought that one day I would face hunger !”. With an atypical unease, she added, rather decisively, “I have to buy that small paddy land near my home village, soon as this pandemic gets over.” Her paternal family is already into vegetable cultivation and have quite a number of fruit trees in their undivided land, which she shares with her brother and cousins. Their land is literally a food forest, with many fruiting trees. Food insecurity would surely be a non-issue to such families. I tend to see Kerala as a land of homesteads and wells ! The traditional homes in Kerala is surrounded by a homestead that grew vegetables, trees, medicinal plants and trees, some cattle and poultry, and was a food forest in its real sense. And every house had a well, which was its nearest and most secure source of water. Even in the cities, this used to be the culture, till modernity engulfed it and created cement structures out of it.

A classmate’s mother in Trivandrum has a pragmatic way of looking at food security. Her family is into intensive kitchen garden, produces lots of vegetables and fruits through out the year, consumes them and what remains, they store in a small family-size deep freezer that she has at home. This ensures that those seasonal food, like the drumsticks or even fruits like mango and jackfruit, are stored and is used off-season as well. She even supplies them to her relatives and is a highly resourceful person. Traditionally, many of the seasonal fruits were dried or pickled for use through out the year in most households in Kerala. The mother that I am talking about is not living in a village with lots of knowledge and opportunity for doing this. She lives right in the heart of the city. That’s probably why she got a little modern and pragmatic about it. She is surely a way-to-go.

But then there are others. Soon, as the pandemic is announced and they get to understand that the lock down could come, they drive out their vehicles, with shopping bags, and sometimes sacks, rush to the grocery, and buy out as much as would be needed for a long haul. This is just normal behaviour, one can argue. This is securing food, as far as they are concerned. It begins when they know that the scarcity is coming, and then ends when the Government tells them that it’s all over. I have no commentary on them; such ones always exist. It’s only that we don’t call this securing one’s food, we call this hoarding.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN is right when they say that “globally there is enough food for everyone”. Experts, like Devinder Sharma also reiterate this for the World and India. . But the FAO also says that “Border closures, quarantines, and market, supply chain and trade disruptions could restrict people’s access to sufficient/diverse and nutritious sources of food, especially in countries hit hard by the virus or already affected by high levels of food insecurity.”

What should we be doing ? Simple, start dreaming of your own food forest, however small. Start building a community of them. And keep building them till we have a food village or even a food city. A resilient community is not a hoarding community, it’s a conserving cultivating one!

Future is in "Love for Farming" - Day #4 (28 March 2020) - 21 day #Covid19 Lock down

Day #4 (28 March 2020)

Future is in “Love for farming”

Three years ago we moved from the city to a village. Valiyavila in Karakulam is a peri-urban village, near to Trivandrum, and retains a lot of characters of a midland hilly Kerala village. But affluence is also here, mainly due to people migrating for work to the Gulf, bringing back money and investing on that sole gratifying act – building a mansion for their rather small family to live. One of the first things we noticed when we brought the 21 cents of land, four years back, was the land people in our neighbourhood lived in. Each family had a house, anything between 25 cents to an acre or more and it was rubber trees all over. Here and there, negligently, a jackfruit, a wild jack, coconut and mahogany trees could be seen. Even Mango trees were missing. The seasonal - Plantains, Banana and Tapioca were the only food crops a few of them were seen to cultivate, some were consumed; most were sold to the local shops. The hilly terrain - laterite and granite, and rubber plantations, small but very decisive ones overrode everything else.

Inspite of such a lot of land with the local community, we missed seeing anybody growing vegetables for their household needs, not even a papaya tree could be found in most homesteads. Most of the families were dependent on the markets and shops for vegetables. It has always intrigued me as to why people do not use their available land for cultivation. The probable reason is that they never felt like doing so. After all, money must be coming in from some hard working people at home or from the middle-east, and whatever was needed was available in shops.

When we started living here, we were cultivating vegetables, plantains, banana, tapioca, various yams and so on. We also planted a number of trees including mango, jackfruit, pomegranate, gooseberry, java apple, papaya, neem, drumsticks, coconut and many other flowering plants and trees. We even have two large vines of passion fruit. We called our home Vasantham. Most of the trees are very young and nowhere near flowering or fruiting, but we live with the hope of seeing them soon.

The Covid19, and the subsequent lock down of the country, has pressed the panic button in most households now. It is only 4 days into the lock down, and we are already seeing the scurry for buying and stocking vegetables and grocery. Shops open for reduced timings, and its a rush at these times. Kerala is surely managing the crisis much better than the rest of the country, but even here the heat is beginning to be felt. As the crisis intensifies, as has happened in most nations ( and I pray it doesn’t !), food supply would be affected and this will be the first priority that families, communities and the State would have to address on a war footing. Are we, as a people, ready for the long haul ? Can we not kick start an intensive drive to begin cultivation of whatever food crops we can and prepare for the worst ?

Two questions that I am always on the look out for answers is - How much land do we need to produce enough vegetables and fruits for our own consumption, and Why are most of us doing nothing with the land we have ?

Bindu and Bejoy are a wonderful couple and great friends of ours. Bindu studied with me in college. They are both Scientists(Engineer) at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, and are right now leading a voluntarily retired life, after nearly three decades of active employment. They have two children, both grown up. They live in the city in a medium size house on an 8 cent plot. Bejoy has always been very passionate about farming, and maintains a well cared kitchen garden in his 500 sq ft roof-top. He produces most of the local vegetables, and some exotics as well. From their garden, they get varieties of brinjal, ladiesfinger, tomato, chillies, bittergourd, palak, spinach, cluster beans, clove beans, ash gourd and many more.

In the first week of March, the unforeseen happened to them. Their family had to go into a self-quarantine at home, owing to their son who returned from Japan. Fortunately for them, they are all safe and healthy. The best part of this story is described by Bindu in a comment she shared with all our classmates. “...it was all so fast that we could not even visit a shop and prepare for quarantine... So the first thing was consuming all we had in store..even now we are able to survive on that...also our terrace garden was in the peak production and self reliance in vegetables is achieved... except for onion and chilly... also potato. Also two jackfruit trees yielding more than I can handle...”. This was two weeks through the quarantine. Today, when we were talking over the phone, Bejoy answered my query - this 500 sq ft roof-top garden, if well taken care, could easily produce all their local vegetable needs, except those onions and potatoes, for most part of the year. With some little more care and luck, they could drag through the rainy months as well.

This was a very inspiring story to all of us. Many of us regularly talk about the resilience that families must have at the way things are unfolding in our world now. And one of the most important part of the new learning is the “Art of Farming”, farming for our own food. This is not only for self-reliance, but for the joy of it. To see ones own land tended, ones own plants yielding the fruits of nurturing, and the joy of eating what one produces. For many, this is also money saved.

Sini is a farmer in Kovalam, who is a regular supplier of certified local organic vegetables to the Organic Bazaar in Jawahar Nagar, a social enterprise run by the voluntary group Thanal, which I am associated with. Sini lives in just 3 cents of land, and her house has a nearly 750 sq ft roof top. She is an intensive vegetable farmer, and uses that little space to cultivate enough vegetables for their need and to earn anything between Rs 4000 to 10,000 every month.

If you think Bindu’s and Bejoy’s joy in their kitchen garden is simply an exercise in love for farming, then Sini’s is an exercise in livelihood, and both carry the essentials of the future, that no Covid19 can take away from us.