DAILY BREAD

In an 8 x 8 aluminum hut on a construction site on the outskirts of Mumbai, Anchal Sahni, 10, sits down to dinner with her family: homemade aloo bhindo and chapati with a side of lentils. Anchal has a healthier diet than many middle-class kids in India, who can afford to buy their meals ready made. If your kid is eating at a Dominoes in Mumbai, you’re making decent money: a medium pizza runs 13 bucks – about 3 times what Anchal’s father earns a day!

It isn’t just in India where the middle-class is flocking to Dominoes, KFC and McDonalds. Sensing a sea change in attitude about diet and the effects of junk food, fast food companies have invested heavily in foreign markets where public awareness isn’t as keen – and Big Macs aren’t junk – they’re a status symbol.

In 2015, Cambridge University conducted an exhaustive study, identifying countries with the healthiest diets in the world. 9 of the top 10 countries are in Africa – where whole foods (vegetables, fruit, nuts, legumes, grains) are the staple and meals are homemade. Processed, packaged foods either aren’t available or affordable. 

With globalization challenging traditional regional diets, I made my way around the world, asking kids to keep a journal of everything they ate in a week. Once the week was up, I made portraits of the children with the food arranged around them. I focused on kids because eating habits, which form when we’re young, last a lifetime and often pave the way to chronic health problems like diabetes, heart disease, and colon cancer.

Despite growing awareness here in the US about the harm of eating processed foods, awareness hasn’t yet led to widespread change. Obesity rates are still soaring. 40 years ago, 1 out of 40 kids were obese. Today, 10 in 40 are. Since corn syrup came along, the incidence of diabetes has tripled. For the first time in many generations, life expectancy in America is declining and the main culprit is empty calories.

I’ve been encouraged to find regions and communities around the world where slow food will never be displaced by junk food, where home cooked meals are the bedrock of family and culture, where love and pride are sensed in the aromas of broths, stews, and curries. When the hand that stirs the pot is mom or dad, grandma or grandma, kids are healthier. The deeper goal of Daily Bread is to be a catalyst for change and link to a growing, grassroots community that is moving the needle on diet.