A shift to wheat, millets and maize from polished rice, to chicken and
legumes from beef and eggs, along with leafy vegetables and coconut could
reduce India’s micronutrient deficiencies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
a study titled ‘Healthy, affordable and climate-friendly diets in India’
suggests. It was published recently in the journal Global Environmental
Change.
A team of researchers from
Austria, the U.S. and India, headed by Narasimha D. Rao from the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria, used the National Sample
Survey of Consumption Expenditure in India (2011-12) and the National Nutrition
Monitoring Bureau to examine Indian diets. They found that while nearly three-quarters of Indians consume
less than the ideal number of calories a day, and more than half have protein deficiency, the deficiencies of micronutrients
were more prevalent: nearly nine in 10
Indians are iron-deficient, 85% do
not meet the required intake of vitamin A, and two-thirds have zinc deficiency.
Cost was clearly a concern as deficiencies were found to decrease as
household incomes increased. Surprisingly though, urban households had increased deficiencies compared to their rural
counterparts (apart from Vitamin A), which the researchers attribute to greater diversity of cereals in rural areas.
Having identified 32 representational diets each for north, south, east and
west India, the researchers found that the rice-based
diets of south and east India make the people in these areas more vulnerable to
micronutrient deficiencies than people elsewhere.
The researchers found that while
those above the poverty line can make up for this nutritional inadequacy
without their food budgets being affected much, nearly 160 million people below
the poverty line cannot without exceeding their food budgets. The researchers
try to address these concerns while proposing solutions.
They suggest that the required micronutrients can be met by
reducing the intake of rice (from 61% to around 40% of calorie share) and meat (expensive and with high greenhouse gas emissions) and replacing them with coarse cereals such as
bajra and ragi, along with legumes, dark, leafy vegetables, and coconut.
These dietary changes could also reduce
agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in India by up to 25%, the study
shows.
Credit: The Hindu Opinion
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