Maneka Gandhi is mistaken, food packets replacing mid-day meals won't ensure nutrition
Maneka Gandhi has rekindled the debate around the quality of Anganwadi mid-day meals by pitching for the replacement of hot meals with ready-to-consume food packets. While she is right in her assertion that children are being fed low-calorie, bad quality food, which does not combat the staggering levels of child malnourishment in the country, her "solution" needs to be analysed to understand why it will not work in a geographically-diverse nation like India.
Gandhi opined that corruption is prevalent in the mid-day meal project: "Anganwadi workers are underpaid. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that food rations meant for children keep disappearing." She has also suggested that these food packets be distributed directly to the beneficiaries by corporates and NGOs to combat large-scale siphoning off of food items by Anganwadi workers. However, this has raised concerns about the commercialisation of basic food distribution in India, which is not a great alternative, as many case studies from across the world would tell us. Additionally, as activist Harsh Mander rightly pointed out, since the hot meals are prepared by the school staff, there is scope for parents to intervene because the process is local; once the distribution of food is centralised, no one will be directly accountable to the parents.
The fact that mid-day meals are not adequate in their calorie content may be true, and this is a cause for concern. However, replacing them with ready-to-consume, calorie-dense foods is not a solution if we analyse this idea at the level of human nutrition and physiology.
Foods that have a high density of calories cannot be consumed universally, because they release intense amounts of heat during digestion.
That is the reason dry fruits are best avoided during summers, and preferred in winters. A close look at local cuisines would endorse this argument, because cuisines are the product of centuries of human research on food and nutrition.
Therefore, lunch items consumed in hot regions would be very different from those preferred in cooler areas. Gandhi said that her ideas have been corroborated by a pilot project in Uttarakhand, where hot meals were successfully replaced by food packets, and it was found that this reduced malnourishment sizeably. It would be, however, erroneous to extend the results of this study to suggest that the entire country should follow suit: what worked in the hill state of Uttarakhand may not work in the desert of Rajasthan!
If we look at the available high-density, ready-to-consume foods available in India, the options would be varieties of powdered grains with nuts/dry fruits like almonds, cashew nuts, figs, and dates, to name a few.
All these food items are high in fibre content, and hence use a lot of water in the process of digestion. Feeding this to a school-going child, who is out in the brutal heat of Indian summer, can even result in a heat stroke due to dehydration.
Food is deeply ingrained in human culture - it is a spiritual ritual, not just an act of feeding your body edible items. Before it is tasted, food is touched, seen and its aroma taken in; therefore, a freshly prepared hot meal, which is also a product of local food preferences, is a complete experience.
For many children who are currently benefitting from the scheme, the meals provided in schools are the only "real" food they get to eat throughout the day. Food packets - an amazing idea for nutritional supplementation - cannot replace a freshly cooked lunch. They should be distributed along with the meals, if at all the state budget allows for it.
Rather than scraping the existing system of mid-day hot meals - which has its loopholes, but is also working fine for many regions - the effort should be to involve parents, or local auditors, in the process of quality control.
There should be adequate knowledge sharing among the schools so that they can discuss possible solutions and learn from one another's experiences. The solution lies in giving the reigns to the local community, rather than centralising the effort.