The food we eat (and don't)
During the last month (October, 2026), in Bookworm’s Reading Circle, we discussed Dr Sylvia Karpagam’s The Meat of The Matter: How the Politics of Food Shapes Our Health.
The book highlights the politics behind food - how caste dominates food, how government influences what comes to our plate, how science and business join hands to decide our diet, and how amidst all these, it is the have-nots who suffer the most. It gets into the well-known irony of India being referred to as a vegetarian country when 3/4ths of the population consumes meat and also into the lesser-known nuances - like how demolition in an urban area can derail the nutrition intake of the affected families for days. It also does not shy away from talking about horrendous actions like that of humans beating other fellow humans for eating a particular meat, beef in this case.
I am glad I read the book, was a part of the Reading Circle, and that Bookworm lent a physical copy of the book. However, the book - and the discussions - also left me thinking.
Industry is driven by profits. There is little to believe that the ‘grain / vegetable’ industry is bad while the ‘meat / egg’ industry is not.
Science is a human endeavour and carries all our baggage. Science supporting the ‘meat / egg’ industry too needs to be questioned like we question science supporting the ‘grain / vegetable’ industry.
Freedom to be able to decide what to eat, when to eat and where to eat is the crux. It could be meat / egg or grain / vegetable.
Veganism is a fad, that in all probability, does more harm than good to the environment but meat consumption in the US has surely impacted forests in South Americas over the years, and this needs to be taken into account.
Some of the numbers (23% of our children (1 - 4) have a folate deficiency) had me wonder which parts of our country the data was collected from? When? (However, this quality of data is a larger issue and we can leave this for now ~ )
Food is complex. All vegetable / grain eaters may not be healthy nor are all the meat / egg eaters, vegetable / grain may work for some, meat / egg for others, and these may also be affected by changes in the environment, weather, our lifestyles, and such. Also, some of us consume meat once in a week or few weeks - are we in the same boat as those consuming meat daily? How many consume meat daily? Even during my days in Saiha I had noticed, contrary to the common perception, it was only the elite who got to eat meat daily.
The focus perhaps was more on the blacks and the whites, the extreme positions. I missed the greys, and the agreement to disagree. We risk increasing the ‘othering’ when many a time in criticizing one extreme we end up at the other. As someone wiser has pointed out - the truth usually lies between the two extremes.
How can we know more about what we are eating? How can we get the least harmful (to us and earth) vegetable / grain / meat / egg? For, we know so little.
Has the significant rise in prices of grain / oil or the rise in affluence in some societies led to an increase in meat consumption?
In the final week of October a court in Gujarat delivered a judgement that left me stunned / dumbed / silenced!
Earlier posts on the Reading Circle and the previous book.
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