Being a medical professional, I often get friends dropping at home for advice on different health issues. Once a friend – Sharmila – came for advice on how to reduce weight. I told her that I would tell her the tricks after a small snack and prepared tea and a few chapattis from a mixture of millet and buckwheat flour. As soon as she saw that, her nose wrinkled and she told me that only dogs ate that at her home. A bit offended, I told her that her dog ate healthy food while she ate junk fast food, thus leading to obesity. Then I told her that that was my remedy to her problem in addition to doing a series of exercises.
With globalization affecting all corners of the world and aggressive marketing tactics, many people are lured by expensive and well-packaged foods that are sold in the markets. These people usually do not realize that they are paying more money for unhealthy food and inviting all sorts of health problems.
In fact, it is important to point out that aside from the common people who have developed the habit of purchasing unhealthy food, several national and international organizations are promoting bad eating habits and creating a wrong perception of healthy food.
Here, I feel it is important to raise the issue of food security in Karnali and far-western region of Nepal. I have read news of people starving, children suffering from malnutrition and pregnant women giving birth to babies with low birth weight because ‘there was no food for them’ to eat. On the contrary, I am aware that this region produces highly nutritious foods like millet, buckwheat, potato, barley, etc. But international organizations like the UN World Food Program and our government organizations like the National Planning Commission (NPC) do not consider these locally grown produce as nutritious and healthy. They try to send rice to those local places and when the supply they send finishes, the rumor of lack of food is spread. Instead of encouraging people to consume local food with more nutrition, which is easily available in their area, these big organizations create hype about food shortage.
I find it very difficult to believe that these big organizations with their own research teams do not know about the nutritional value of locally grown food. I often wonder: “Does this happen because of lack of knowledge or because some people benefit through commissions by sending rice to those places?”
Samita Pradahn, who had worked in Mugu for some time, recalls that the local people now do not want to work in the fields as they wait for ‘white rice’ to come from the government. They think that it is more nutritious and prestigious. Potato is also not considered a good food and so instead of working in the fields, people are increasingly dependent on food aid. There was a time when millet and buckwheat used to be grown in surplus in Mugu. However, now, it is difficult to see these food items there as people are not motivated to grow it as they prefer to wait for the rice sent from other parts of the country.
At this point, I must point out an irony: These days, rich people in Kathmandu are buying millet and buckwheat at expensive rates. The same food, which is grown in Karnali and people can use it as staple diet, has been neglected and replaced by rice. Isn’t this paradoxical?
So where does the problem of food insecurity come from? Actually it stems from the government policy, which does not want to understand that people do not need to eat rice in every part of the country. It is also hyped by the NPC. One would expect such big organizations to have knowledge that millet and buckwheat have more calories than rice and local food is much better and far less expensive than that exported from Nepalgunj or Kathmandu.
Let me end by comparing the nutritional value of rice with buckwheat and finger millet. While grain contains 7.5 grams of protein per 100 grams, buckwheat contains 10.3 grams and finger millet 12.3 grams. Similarly, if rice contains just 23 milligrams of calcium per 100 grams, buckwheat contains 64 milligrams while finger millet contains 344 milligrams. Similarly, the two items are also richer in iron compared to rice. Therefore, we should have a policy to encourage the local produce which will not only help in solving the food shortages, but also have enormous health benefits.
arunauprety@yahoo.ca
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