Monday, March 9, 2009

Talking of tradition

Let us talk breakfast tradition. For me breakfast was something mom cooked everyday - things such as whole wheat breads with locally-grown fresh vegetables, cracked wheat or chivda cooked pilaf style.

When I visit India now, kids often seem more interested in, and their moms happy to feed them, highly processed and sugar-loaded industrial breakfasts such as Kellog's Chocos, Ramen-noodle type things or pancakes made from store-bought mixes which are nothing more than white flour. Relatives ask me to bring some fancier 'pancake mixes' from the US so that they can feed their kids healthier things. This new breakfast tradition has been fueled by ads comprising of smiling moms and kids, placed in urban middle class settings, proclaiming the benefits of vitamins and minerals in these new breakfast products. Ads also teach kids how to be 'healthy', thus associating their product with health in little minds and shaping a generation of junk-food eaters.

It is worth noting that it is not the convenience factor of cereal that is the attraction here. Busy middle class moms, the kind pictured in the ads, have servants.

I don’t know if anybody has even noticed this slow erosion of healthy traditions. but, hey, if few women ever enter a pub, watch for the culture police to descend in full force!