On November 14, we celebrated World Diabetes Day. As a nation, we need to be particularly involved with the subject of diabetes as we are home to a large percentage of the world’s diabetic population.
There are many reasons for an alarmingly high number of diabetics in our country. Faulty dietary habits and poor levels of physical activity are the major ones.
The lack of adequate fibre in the diet is of great significance when decoding the incidence of diabetes. The reality is that our diets have changed over time to become smoother, which is an indication of low fibre content. We have also taken to consuming large amounts of highly processed foods, which lack fibre and many essential nutrients. The rise in the number of diabetic patients can be pinned down to our diet that lacks nutritional diversity. It is well-established that lack of diet diversity is one of the major reasons for the prevailing malnutrition in our country as well as globally. In the last few decades, only two cereals have been the mainstay of the Indian diet – rice and wheat – and both have overshadowed all other cereal grains.
As I mentioned last week, the inclusion of millets in our diet is not just good for the planet and our farmers, but also a great way to enhance the nutritional and culinary diversity of what we eat. But we also know that bringing about any change is no easy task, and changing our eating behaviour seems to be the most challenging of them all.
It is heartening to know that the government is already working along these lines. As a part of the Poshan Abhiyaan, the Women and Child Development Ministry is in the process of developing India’s first Poshan Atlas.
This will be a repository of diverse crops grown across India’s agro-climatic zones. The development of the Atlas, called the Bhartiya Poshan Krishi Kosh, will go a long way in reducing the patterns of mono-cropping and lack of crop diversity – an issue with long-term health consequences. Once the information is made available, culturally relevant practices, such as folk songs, dance and art forms, will become the tools to disseminate knowledge to all stakeholders – farmers, consumers and nutritionists. This is one way of creating a demand for more nutritious grains.
At a more niche level, there are celebrity chefs showcasing recipes using millets, food bloggers writing on the subject, and microbreweries.