Food and Nutrition as a Subtle Questionable Agenda on Social Media

In the past one-decade cultural imposition on people's food habits got intensely intertwined with religious sentiments and politics over public morality. Laws banning Beef in some states and certain municipal regulations temporarily restricting sale and public consumption of non-vegetarian food during certain religious festivals has been in the headlines from time to time. However, food is way more political than simply restricting and regulating public consumption and sale. Food and nutrition are also political through narratives and counter-narratives, in ways that at times there is a huge room for deconstructing the hidden agendas and discursive motives with which information on and understanding of food operates in the public domain. This information, understanding, notions and ideas propagating a certain kind of food philosophy have always been there but are now even more vocalised because of the uprise in all kinds of content on the social media platforms which very much includes both trained and as well as self-proclaimed food experts and nutritionists. I would like to lay down few debateable social media discourses which one rather should not take on their face value just because a popular influencer wants us to believe so and must be scientifically rebutted and also be inquired on the lines of gender politics, or if they facilitate populist appeasement politics, etc. 

First, there is a plethora of content within India and outside that promotes vegetarian and vegan eating habits by providing an array of alternate or make-believe meat recipes or recipes with substitutes for animal products. Highly complicated and time-consuming recipes are displayed to make them “as good as” their non vegetarian or non-vegan counter parts. While being a vegetarian or vegan is a complete personal choice, it could be argued that meat, poultry, dairy and eggs are easiest, common and one of the healthiest sources of protein. Many have pointed out that a typical India plate of meals is usually more carbohydrates and less protein. The vegetarian source of protein like dal don’t help in meeting the daily protein needs of the human body. Further, some myths surround meat and non-vegetarian food of not being hygienic or good for health- but vegetables, fruits or anything else can be as unhygienic as long as it isn’t cleaned well.  Moreover, the vegan products industry and market are huge and are they very sustainable, is a moot question as for producing vegan milk, cheese, butter etc. expensive farming and resources like water are put to work.

Second, the whole idea of “eat local, eat healthy” is not as simple and apolitical as it may sound. With the current promotion of Indian grown varieties of millet as opposed to the “foreign” wheat, there is growing influence on social media too that gluten is always bad. Here, a historical or a cultural anthropological intervention could verify if millets sufficiently and efficiently can replace wheat and if gluten is always bad and unhealthy despite there being no specific allergy. Is wheat really foreign to India? Eating local is a great idea, however, not with a seasoning of hyper-nationalism. Some narratives by food nutritionist over-glorify “eat local”, especially, “eat the way our grandmother and great grandmothers used to eat”- or every ancestorial food habit is worth continuing now approach- but it is also to be noted that many women had lesser life expectancies and huge issue of female malnutrition existed in older times. One factor was also the gendered food habits. On the cover of every brand, every enterprise in the sale of home-made style pickles, chutneys or snacks will always have a mother or a grandmother.

Third, some food vloggers and influencers through their “tradwife” styled accounts, through their love for the “food made from scratch”, “freshness of food”, “cooking like the older times”, etc. promote gendered stereotypes that women of the house must put up the best cooking every day for sustaining their husbands and children. Many of these vloggers also depict certain food habits as “community” culture under the subtle garb of upper caste glorification, while also appropriating various recipes and food habits from the marginalized communities.

Food is a tool of control for the state as well as the transnational capitalist class and we must read between the lines. In a 2025 editorial piece published by the Indian Express, by Soumya Swaminathan, Vartika Singh and Sowmya Subramaniam- it was reflected that Indians today are eating unhealthily and more carbohydrates and less proteins- as food companies, government, etc. aren’t spending enough on healthier options. While food choice is personal its stories, philosophies and narratives will continue to be sites of contestations of ideas.