Processed food vs doctors in India

This is a very long story (meaning, I am really sad angry and i need to be grumpy about it) but I will try my best to restrict myself to a few lines. Here is the problem. Processed food and doctors don't go along. Not at all. I think this is very sad and I blame the industry for this.

Think about consumption in India vs the world. The supermarket shelves are remarkably different. Let me give you few examples how Indians like to complicate their life. Not a single country in the world eats Roti, but we do. There are multiple excruciating steps in making this thing - which in my opinion should be put in luxury items rather than a must have.

Curd can be one big topic of discussion too. I once worked on a project of market researching for a new flavored curd launch. We visited a few house wives and tried to understand their methods with curd. I could not believe how serious in life they were about it. They go lengths and breadth to set curd right. I was so sad to see how much they cared when it was easily available in market at very affordable prices.

I think when these items can be factory made, they are major enablers for the women of India. There are thousands of items which fall in this category. With Ketchup and Maggi, how much our life has been better. Bread and cornflakes are great lifesaver breakfasts. Evening biscuits, cookies, namkeen and hundreds of products are made in factory and add convenience in our daily lives.

However, if you ask a doctor about any of them - they object. They would tell you that these items are not good for consumption. They have even protested against fruit juices in Market, including cold pressed juices. If you ask them about the options, they would advice making juice at home. I think this is ludicrous suggestion. Imagine in a family of 4-6 people drinking fresh drawn juice. Lot of Indian families don't use electric juicers and handmade juicer is A BIG PROJECT, again burdening the cook, mostly women with this work. But they care the least.

So what do we resolve to - unhygienic choices available.  The wife of the house kills herself without these aids. But doctors refuse to acknowledge the reality of life. They refuse any luxury for the women. Women donkeys will make rotis, curd, juices, cakes everything at home and be tired 100% of time and die in their head ling before they are actually gone.

Only Indian doctors do this. Imagine an American doctor suggesting don't consume tetra packed juice. Life is full of processed food everywhere while Indian still lag behind miles in being open minded about consuming processed food.

Doctors need serious education and information sharing. They need to be apprised of what kind of effort goes into making these products both from a factory and r&d point of views. I know this because I have touched this industry many times in my career. Bio Tech is a serious education and people do serious work on nutrients, enzymes, bacteria, additives and packaging technologies. Please can we respect each other's education? Lot of effort is needed to explain people about how we can help make our farmers do better, how we can increase shelf life of our produce and about how we need to get old norms to adapt to our new lives. Most of all, how we can stop treating the women in the house so miserably.