The Malaysian Insider :: Food
The Malaysian Insider :: Food |
| India’s changing appetite throws up meaty issues Posted: 05 Feb 2013 08:21 PM PST MUMBA, Feb 6 — With German sausages, French duck breasts and homegrown chicken, Francis Menezes is cashing in on the growing appetite for meat among Indians — even in one of Mumbai's most strictly vegetarian areas. In the upmarket neighbourhood of Malabar Hill, numerous shops, restaurants and even some apartment blocks remain meat-free. But Menezes, co-manager of the Cafe Ridge food store, says he does a brisk trade in "non-veg", especially with those who have studied abroad. "Things like Thanksgiving, which was never celebrated over here in Mumbai, is now being celebrated every year. The new generation are cool with eating anything," he said. India's booming middle-class is driving the demand for meat in a country with a traditionally low intake. A survey in 2006 showed that 40 per cent of the population were vegetarian. Fish and meat have long been part of the diet of other Indians, but for many they used to be a rarity, said Arvind Singhal, chairman of the consumer consultancy group Technopak Advisors. "With rising disposable incomes, meat consumption is increasing," he told AFP. "Before meat would have been seen as for a special occasion." Members of the Jain faith and some groups within India's majority Hindu religion hold vegetarianism as an ideal. Father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi espoused a meat-free diet as part of his non-violent philosophy. But fewer of the younger generation appear to feel the same.  It's "progress": Traditional values no longer hold, as chickens hanging from a grill in this restaurant in Mumbai bear testimony. — AFP pic "It's just to do with the country progressing. The mindset is changing and no one really sticks to traditional values anymore," she said, although she admitted her mother dislikes her love of beef, a taboo to Hindus. A 'chicken revolution' There are no recent figures on overall meat consumption, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2007 put India's per capita intake at 5.0 to 5.5kg — the country's highest since records began, with further increases expected. With chicken a favourite meat, the rapid rise of the domestic poultry market is a good indication of changing diets. Now worth an estimated US$9 billion (RM27.8 billion), it is growing at an annual rate of 20 per cent, driven by broiler meat, according to Technopak. Farm manager Vijay Sakhrani turned to the broiler business back in 1982 with 2,000 chickens. He now rears more than 800,000 a year as a contract farmer for Indian poultry giant Venky's. "You have self-employment, you require a small space. In a small space you can do a lot of business," he told AFP in Koregaon Mul village, 30 km from western Pune city, where he said numerous other farmers had followed his foray into poultry. Venky's general manager Vijay Tijare described a "chicken revolution" going on, one, he believes, that can supply the need for economical protein among the nation's 1.2 billion people. The company's thriving fortunes enabled it to fund the takeover of English football club Blackburn Rovers three years ago. With a median age of 26.5, India's calorie needs are set to grow faster than the population, but the domestic supply of vegetable proteins has not kept up with demand and India is now the biggest importer of pulses. Others see mass-produced meat as only doing damage to middle-class diets, especially when cooked at the growing number of fast-food joints. While malnutrition is wide-scale among India's poor, an estimated 63 million in the country had diabetes in 2012. "Industrial meat is adding to the crisis in health," said food security analyst Sangita Sharma. "Consumers are oblivious as to what is going on their plates." Competition for resources Changing consumption patterns also threaten to exacerbate the country's environmental pressures. India is the world's top exporter of buffalo meat, despite the taboo on beef, and the leading emitter of greenhouse gas methane from livestock, according to a report last year from the New York-based think tank Brighter Green. Citing water scarcity and intense strains on land, the group said it was crucial for India to promote plant-based diets and prioritise less resource-intensive industries than livestock. "With 500 million cows, buffalo, goats, sheep, camels, pigs, and billions of chickens, 600 million farmers and 1.2 billion people, the competition is on in India for natural resources," Brighter Green said in its report. Singhal too expressed concerns, especially the challenge thrown up in diverting grains to animal feed, which critics say takes food from the poorest members of society. He said one way to ease the pressures was to think beyond India's traditional desire for self-sufficiency. He criticised a ban on poultry imports from the United States, despite chicken legs being popular in India but often went to waste in America. The ban is purportedly to prevent bird flu but has been challenged by Washington as disguised trade restrictions. Per capita meat consumption in India for now remains well below that of the Asian average, but with its population due to become the world's largest in coming years, analysts are calling for greater attention to how its food is produced. "India needs to realise it is not a vegetarian country," Singhal said. — AFP/Relaxnews |
| UK celebrity chef Delia Smith hangs up her TV apron Posted: 05 Feb 2013 06:31 PM PST  Smith as she presents herself on Facebook: Going online at 71. Smith, 71, the UK's best-selling cookery author with more than 21 million copies sold, told fans at a trade show that she was leaving TV after about 40 years to focus on a new venture, the Delia Online Cookery School. Smith said she was still passionate about teaching people how to cook in a no-nonsense style but she wanted to work online with her followers who have coined the phrase "doing a Delia" to refer to preparing one of her recipes. "This is the future for me and the population," Smith was quoted by the Telegraph newspaper as telling a question and answer session at a trade show in Birmingham to promote her bakeware range. "It's miles ahead. If you do a TV programme now, it's got to entertain." Melanie Grocott, a spokeswoman for Smith, confirmed that the chef had announced she would not be doing any more TV shows and was concentrating on her online cookery school. Smith's retirement will come as a disappointment to her many fans who opt for her practical, fail-safe recipes as opposed to some of the more flamboyant styles of newer celebrity chefs. Her cookbooks are a staple in many UK kitchens. Smith's departure from TV will also be a blow to some British supermarkets who report the "Delia effect" — a term listed in the Collins English Dictionary in 2001 to describe a rush for a certain ingredient or item used by Smith in a recipe. Smith in her online biography said she quit school at 16 and worked as a hairdresser, in a shop and in a travel agency before starting to cook, wondering why British food was so awful and French food so good. After working in a restaurant and as a magazine cookery writer, she wrote her first cookbook in 1971 but she made her name with her first TV show "Family Fare" in the mid-1970s. She realised her aim was to educate people, taking them back to basics to cover classic techniques, and this mission has been reflected in her list of more than 20 cookbooks and almost 20 TV series since then. Her show "Delia's How to Cook" in 1998 reportedly drove a 10 per cent rise in egg sales in Britain. Her latest TV series, "Delia Through the Decades", ran for five weeks in 2010 before she signed up to appear in a series of TV commercials for supermarket Waitrose with experimental chef Heston Blumenthal, who is known for snail porridge and bacon ice-cream. She recently left this campaign. This is not the first time that Smith has announced plans to quit TV. Smith said she was quitting in 2003 to spend more time as a director of Norwich City Football Club but returned to TV in 2008. Smith, who also runs a catering and restaurant company, was estimated in 2011 to be worth £23 million (RM111.5 million) and ranked 10th in a list of the UK's Top 10 female entrepreneurs. — Reuters |
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Dalam kenyataan media hari ini, IDEAS mendedahkan penemuan dalam projek kajian "Suara Golongan Miskin" mendapati kanak-kanak yang berada dalam kumpulan berpendapatan rendah berhadapan kualiti pendidikan yang buruk.
