Aspirational value of processed food

Amazed at how many processed foods a migrant was thinking of at the time, I went into lecture mode

Often when we talk of changing food habits in the country, especially amongst the upwardly mobile lower middle class, we forget to take into account one important aspect: Aspiration. The more people like us are becoming aware about avoiding trans fats, sugar, sodium and pretty much everything else in our food, the more this upwardly mobile segment is starting to consume these very things. This was brought home to me when I saw the preparations that Seema, a migrant from Jharkhand, was making for her one-year-old, for their two-and-a-half-day train journey back home. “I’ll need at least Rs 500 to