‘If there is right food, there is no need for medicine:’ millets, modernity and meaning in Karnataka, India

ABSTRACT

The interconnections between food and medicine have long been a subject of interdisciplinary scholarship. Medical anthropologists, sociologists, and historians hold that an analysis of traditional and non-Western societies’ foodways can offer important insights into the social construction of illness and healing strategies. Yet, scholars also note that these linkages between food and medicine are dynamic, made and remade in the context of national liberation struggles, urbanization, and globalization. This article explores the contemporary promulgation of millets as ayurvedic medicine in the south Indian state of Karnataka. Drawing upon data gathered from key informant interviews and focal follows during six months of fieldwork between 2017–2020, it argues that millets are being prescribed as a pathway to an alternative modernity. Millets have become a site in which conceptualizations of authentic foodways and nutritionism are brought together to help reimagine both the definitions, and messy intersections, of food, medicine, illness and wellbeing.

KEYWORDS:

• Millet
• alternative modernity
• nutritionism
• food as medicine
• India

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I have chosen not to use a pseudonym for Dr. Khadar, as this was his preference, and the details of his work, in addition to his domestic and international standing, would make him readily identifiable.

2. Millets are a broad grouping of grains that can be separated into two groups: major and minor millets (Chandi and Anoor 2016). Major millets are not only physically larger than minor millets, but contribute more substantially to regional and global diets.

3. At the time of the research, millet prices at local stores were Rs 100/kilo in comparison with Rs 50/kilo for rice. However, the prices are roughly equivalent Khadar argues, in that a kilo of rice can yield ten meals, whereas a kilo of rice produces only 5, resulting in a broadly equivalent meal provision. Additionally, as Khadar noted, the cost of rice is structured to be artificially low, as it is supported by governmental subsidies and tax incentives, in comparison with millets, which do not receive extensive governmental support.

4. Prior to commencing research, the University of Oregon’s Research Compliance Services approved the research design, methodology, and participant safeguards to be in line with its ethical standards (Protocol # 06172019.027).

5. For examples of synergistic results in disparate south Indian contexts, see (Finnis 2008), Chera 2017, and Hazareesingh 2020.