Food is an essential part of life. As Virginia Woolf has rightly said ‘one cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.’ But are all the food that we are eating healthy?
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s 2023 global food security report, an estimated 74 percent of the Indian population cannot afford a healthy diet. It is also important to highlight that food prices have continued to rise in India since 2019, and in July 2023, they were more than 11 percent higher than the year before, the highest inflation rate in a decade.
A healthy diet, as per government guidelines, usually consists of a variety of foods to ensure a balanced diet. It is noteworthy that the consumption of junk food is one of the major reasons behind the increasing incidences of non-communicable diseases in young adults and children. The 2023 ICMR-INDIAB study shows, there are 100 million cases of diabetes and one in every four individuals is either suffering from diabetes or is pre-diabetic or obese.
Last month, a group of public health experts, consumers, lawyers, and patient groups urged the government to check the increasing consumption of junk food in the country. Earlier this year, a study by World Health Organisation in collaboration with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), the pandemic has changed dietary habits for the worse in India with the consumption of food rich in fats, sugar and salt rising faster in the country since 2020.
However, health experts have raised concerns over the consumption of food products that are sold as “healthy alternatives” in the market. On Thursday, Poorna Satya, a platform dedicated to improving nutritional literacy and food safety, launched its website that aims at educating and providing customers with insights that help them make well-informed nutritional value decisions.
The platform was unveiled in the presence of Pawan Agarwal, former FSSAI CEO, Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (2020), and Revant Himatsingka, a health and wellness influencer with 1 million followers, along with other influential names in the food and health safety bodies of the country.
The 31-year-old author and influencer popularly known through his social media profile as ‘Foodpharmer’ has taken the internet by storm through videos revealing eye-opening details about various food products that are assumed to be healthy. Since April this year, Revant has flagged many food products. His battle began with Bournvita, made by confectionary maker Mondelez, and through his now-viral video, he pointed out that the popular children’s drink has excessive use of sugar. Ever since then, he faced a lot of heat, but he never stopped making videos and continued to raise awareness about these products.
In an interview with Financial Express.com, Himatsingka said that he wants to make people “nutritionally literate.”
“I saw people drinking sports drinks in the gym and they think it good for them…the point is I saw a lot of people having these sugary drinks…people giving these products to their children products thinking it will make them taller…and refined oil companies marketing themselves as being heart healthy…digestive biscuits companies claiming their products are healthy…all these instances got me into thinking that there is this whole spectrum of things where people are lying openly. So, I felt if I make people aware of packaged food…and make them understand the mislabelling going around…we can solve one of the most important issues in life. People are so educated now but they are not nutritionally literate. I want make people nutritionally literate,” he said.
He also emphasised that knowing how to read food labels and understanding them is an extremely important life skill.
“So, I can make people nutritionally literate, I can help a lot of people…so that’s the idea. I speak a lot about food labels, according to me learning how to read a food label is an even more important skill than coding. This is because most of what we are eating today is packaged food and that is very different from what our grandparents ate when they grew up,” he told Financial Express.com.
He also shared he knows its extremely difficult to change consumer behaviour, however, teaching young parents about these aspects can make a lot of difference.
“It’s very difficult to change the behaviour of consumers because most habits are formed in our childhood and stay for the rest of our lives. But it can happen by educating parents…for instance, I made a video on Cerelac…we can get addicted to sugar as a baby…and then they grow and have drinks like Bournvita which can have a similar effect. But if you educate parents about what is right for the child and what is not…it can make a lot of difference,” he maintained.
He also stressed the need to inculcate food and nutritional values in the school curriculum to encourage eating healthy among children.
“Another thing is, we study subjects like trigonometry and on the same lines it is also important to study food. If we learn the basics about healthy food…it will again make a lot of difference. I make my videos in a very easy-to-understand way so that even children can watch and understand them. It’s not an easy task but I have seen the impact like children not eating certain products…I have got e-mails from parents saying their children are not eating chips like they used to,” Revant told Financial Express.com.
On making a difference by giving incentives to these companies for healthier products, he maintained it can make an impact.
“It’s a very grey area…but yes if there are some type of incentives for companies to make healthy products and kind of fine for unhealthy food…it can make a huge impact. For example, there are some countries that have sugar tax. So, if a company is making a product that has high sugar content…they have to give some additional tax. So, if the government disincentivises junk food…in terms of taxing it more and subsidises healthier food…of course it have a major impact,” Himatsingka told Financial Express.com.
On the impact of social media and the increasing number of health and wellness influencers, he emphasised that consumers has put effort to understand what is right for their body.
“This is absolutely true. Some say eat more protein, some say eat less protein…there is also a diverse opinion. For instance, one doctor will say meat is the best thing in the world and another doctor will say it is not. Of course, this confuses consumers. Nutrition is such a complex topic as there are extremely complex views. It is easy to criticise but hard to solve. The consumer needs to understand, research and decide accordingly,” he said.
He also said that the consumers need to start reading food labels and understand the ingredients present and mentioned in the packets.
“I think for consumers anything coming from the government would be easy to trust rather than individual opinions. But I would emphasise again, that the first consumer should focus is learning how to read food labels. They need to understand what is calorie, what protein is, what is no added sugar, etc. People are willing to spend lacs of rupees on their children’s tuition but would they pay for learning food basics and labels? So, we need to put some kind of effort in this direction,” he added.
Himatsingka also shared some quick tips for consumers to follow while buying food products:
- Always turn around the food packet and read the details carefully.
- If people turn around the packet, they usually only check the cost and expiry date and they assume the longer the expiry date is, the better it is. However, in most cases, it is not. Longer expiry date means more preservatives are present in the product which is not good for health. But there are also some products that actually last long like honey.
- Read the ingredient list properly. The ingredients are listed in the order of weight. So, if ingredients like sugar, palm oil, or maida are among the first five, the product should be avoided.
