Daily Bread

In an 8 x 8 aluminum hut on a construction site outside Mumbai, Anchal Sahni 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 eat out. In Mumbai, a medium Dominoes pizza runs 13 bucks – about 3 times what Anchal’s father earns a day.

Sensing a sea change in Western attitudes about diet and the effects of junk food, fast food companies have begun investing heavily in foreign markets where public awareness isn’t as keen – and Big Macs aren’t junk – they’re a status symbol.

As globalization alters our relationship to food, I’m making my way around the world, asking kids to keep a journal of everything they eat in a week. Once the week is up, I make a portrait of the child with the food arranged around them. I’m focusing 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.

There’s an old adage, “The hand that stirs the pot rules the world.” When the hand stirring the pot is more interested in profit than in our well-being, it’s time we insist on healthier options and whenever possible, stir our own pots! I’ve been encouraged to find regions and communities 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 and stews. 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.

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