Understanding Hunger-II

Food I ate on Independence Day 2012 in village Jarangloi, Odisha

[This is part of series of posts on the issue of hunger in India. The previous post analyzed what is hunger and how to feed the hungry and you can read it here. This post looks at the importance for cooking fuels and cooking space to thwart hunger]

We often think of hunger as lack of food. But sometimes, hunger is because of lack of kitchen or lack of gas.

Have you ever tried to eat exclusively outside? How does it compare in terms of cost to when you cook at home? How does it compare in terms of quality of food? How does it compare in terms of mental satisfaction—the right amount of spices, herbs, the vegetables that you like, or the way you like your meat, the dish that gives you joy, the food that your mother cooked! Think.

Photo Courtesy: Firoze Shakir (See more of his photos here)

Why has the dabbawala system in Mumbai—its reliability and timeliness-- been significant to the Mumbai workers? Forget about the excellent management system and the other praiseworthy features of the system. Let us get to the core of the issue—why warm home-cooked food instead of cafe dinner? Think.

What happens when there is a LPG company workers go on strike? What happens when LPG is delivered late like it happened earlier this year in various parts of India? Why the brouhaha over limiting subsidizing LPG cylinder to 6 per annum? Can a household manage on one cylinder in 2 months? Why the anger over the price hike over non-subsidized LPG cylinders? So what if the price for such cylinders is more than Rs900/month? Think.

Besides identity proof and ration card (which are by themselves difficult proofs to secure for new urban immigrants), what else do you need to get a LPG connection? Regulator, hose pipe, hot plate! How many can afford them? Think.

In cities, there are many LPG distributors and still we face problems in receiving prompt delivery. Imagine the situation in remote areas—what do you think is the delivery cycle for LPG cylinders in villages? In my visits, I hardly found the use of LPG cylinders even in comparatively better-off households. Why? What is the implication? Think.

Photo Courtesy: Magic Eye (Find more of his photos here)

In India, majority of low-income urban households depend on kerosene. Kerosene, in terms of monthly cost as well as start-up costs, is lesser than LPG but cooking takes time and poses health challenges. Kerosene consumption is 9,377,000 tonnes (2005 figures), one of the highest in the world. Now, have you seen queues to procure kerosene outside ration shops in cities? What is implication of kerosene shortage to low-income urban families? Think.

Cooks cooking Independence Day meal at village Jarangloi, Odisha

In rural areas, the use of kerosene is only 2% of the population for they rely on firewood, animal dung and other forms of biofuels. But firewood availability is seasonal and with tree cover rapidly vanishing, access to fuel is decreasing. Think.

But even if you have access to various fuels whether LPG and Kerosene in urban areas or biofuels in rural areas, you cannot cook unless you have a kitchen—a place to cook! In overburdened cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi, low-income immigrants are lucky to find a shelter to sleep for the night. For the pavement dwellers, always under the threat of evacuation or threat of the weather, cooking is not-a-taken for granted possibility. Homelessness and hunger goes hand-in-hand! Think.

Yes, in all such cases, there are small businesses that cater to food needs for low-income folks, but quality of food is very poor—more rice and potatoes (carbohydrates), very patla (sparse) dal (protein dish), and inadequate vegetables. After all, hunger is not merely filling the stomach—it is nourishing the body! Think.

Solutions:

1.       Community kitchen: managed and run by local residents. However, cooks and residents need to be educated about good nutrition!

Biogas at Karrupur. Photo courtesy: Pasu Raghavan (you can watch his video here)

Hot plate working on biogas

2.       Biogas: Those who have the space can construct low cost biogas units. Biogas runs on both animal dung as well as food wastes. The model above is very basic and costs less than Rs5000 to build. This allows a person to shrug off the dependence on Government-controlled fuels.

3.       Respect what you have and cook responsibly. Use cooking methods which decrease cooking time. Also remember excessive cooking depletes nutrition content of the foods. Read a lovely article on building a minimalistic kitchen by Subhorup Dasgupta here.

4.       Finally, if you do not know cooking, please learn it. Cooking or slow food movement preserves cultural traditions around food, returns connection between people and their food, develops community, and gets you off the control of packaged-food industry.

5.       Finally, women who consider cooking as an unfeminist stance—please reconsider. It is our pride, our role and control over the most crucial aspect of human society—Hunger! I spent a quarter of my life protesting demands of cooking and then spent decades afterwards learning and teaching it. Cooking has lovely women’s stories intertwined with it. But those stories, another time, another post.