How tricolour meal in Jharkhand is helping fight malnutrition

Saffron, green and white, the three colours in our national flag, seem to have travelled to the interiors of a village in Jharkhand where they are helping tribals fight malnutrition.

For residents of Kasudih village in Deoghar, 243 kilometres from Ranchi, the tricolour doesn't just represent our national flag, but signifies nutrition and good health.

The villagers focus on consuming tricolour meals, where the saffron comes from lentils, green from leafy vegetables and white from rice and milk. This is a drastic shift from their usual diet of just rice and potato, the staple food of many people in the region. The wave of change came after a local NGO, Centre for World Solidarity (CWS), made them aware of how their diet was one of the key factors behind high incidents of infant deaths in the district.

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In 2013, the district reported a high number of infant deaths, drawing the attention of CWS to the prevalence of malnutrition there. A hunger-mapping exercise by the CWS in 50 villages of the district, which houses over 14 lakh people, revealed that 14.6 percent of the population reported to be chronically ill, 20.5 percent was malnourished and 64.9 percent had some kind of disease.

An analysis of their diet revealed that 90 percent of households mainly ate starchy foods while the protein consumption was low in 60 percent of the population. Even though leafy vegetables were easily available in the area, the majority of the produce was sent off to the markets to be sold.

“The reality was that people were not aware of the need to have an adequate and balanced diet. When we conducted a study on nutrition security in rural Jharkhand, what came to our notice was that people just liked to eat rice and potato,” Rajesh Jha of the CWS is quoted as saying in a report by The Better India.

The findings helped activists and nutritionists of the CWS to educate villagers about a balanced diet and to introduce them to tricolour meals that would help boost their immunity and fight malnutrition.