Our transition from food & hunger to health & nutrition

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To the world of postage stamps, sixties was a time of global omnibuses. First such occasion was the year 1960 itself, when many countries of the world issued postage stamps on refugees(previous blog). In 1962 we created a malaria omnibus (previous malaria blog). Both these initiatives raised awareness as well as funds for their cause. The next year, 1963 was yet another occasion for a ‘freedom from hunger‘ omnibus. This was an initiative by UN agency, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to enhance global food supply. A total of 140 countries issued freedom from hunger (FFH) postage stamps, some actively and others reluctantly. I have some of these FFH stamps, in the following panel.

Freedom from hunger (FFH) campaign

On 21st March 1963, various countries issued FFH postage stamps. All the postage stamps had a common logo – a row of three heads of wheat plant, a symbol for food.

These three heads of wheat plant, were also a part of FFH campaign logo, that in-fact had five heads. This campaign was conceived five year earlier. In 1958, Binay Ranjan Sen, and India civil servant, was director general of FAO. He was a witness to the travesty of Bengal famine of 1943-45, and was then its relief commissioner. This experience, must have led Binay Sen to campaign for hunger and food adequacy.

The campaign was originally planned for a period of five years (1960-65). FFH campaign started an unprecedented wave of cooperation between governments, non-government agencies, and UN to focus on the food-problem. This campaign also changed the role of FAO for ever. The organisation itself transformed from being an advisor to an activist for food security.

FFH campaign was also a beginning of some new changes. First one was FAO logo, and second was launch of food-programs in various countries. Green revolution, that was launched globally and also in India in 1966 was one of such food-adequacy programs.

Let there be bread

On 1st July 1964, FAO had its new logo. This logo has a head of wheat plant, with addition of a slogan “Fiat panis” or let there be bread. Born in 1945, today the organisation has 197 members.

In its first two decades of existence, FAO had conducted three food surveys, agriculture censuses, and had launched global seed and fertilizer programs. Subsequently, the organisation pioneered for increase in food-production, famine mitigation, and spearheaded global campaigns on food and nutrition. Since 1966, Right to food is enshrined as a basic human right, that must be ensured despite natural or human-made disasters.

The story behind our first known Vitamins

While quest for food is eternal, importance of nutrients in food is fairly recent. In 1747, James Lind was a surgeon’s assistant in British Navy. In one of his documented experiments, sailors who were down with scurvy were cured when given lemon juice. Despite all debates about the disease and its cure, lemons and oranges did become an essential food item aboard a ship. No one knew for next 150 years that these food items had a vital substance, to be later named as “Vitamins”.

Eijkman, Beriberi and Thiamine

Christiaan Eijkman was a Dutch doctor, who in 1883 was sent to Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). He found many soldiers becoming weak, with swollen legs – a condition then known in Europe as polyneuritis endemica perniciosa. Locals called it Beriberi, a Sinhalese word for extreme weakness. Eijkman was initially convinced that this illness is a bacterial infection, and carried blood samples to Robert Koch’s Lab, and could even grew some micrococci (a bacteria) from them. However, same bacteria when inoculated, failed to replicate the disease. In 1895, Eijkman returned to East Indies, and along with his assistant discovered that chicken who are fed polished rice die, while those who get the normal barn feed donot. He initially thought that polished rice had a toxin, that leads to beriberi.

In 1897, Adolf Vorderman was an inspector general of public health in Dutch East Indies. Enthused by Eijkman’s findings, he banned polished rice from prison-meals. When replaced by unpolished, or red-rice, instances of beriberi amongst prison inmates faded away. Quest for the protective substance, that was missing from the polished rice grew.

Gerrit Grijns was Eijkman’s assistant, who extracted a substance from barn, and by 1904 proved that its deficiency actually led to Beriberi. In 1912 Fredrick Gowland Hopkins, an English scientist started a more systematic work on dietary deficiencies. In the same year, Casimir Funk a Polish biochemist originally coined the term “vitamine”. Later, in 1926 vitamin that prevented Beriberi, was isolated. This was named Thiamin, and was isolated by Dutch biochemists Barend Jansen and Willem Donath. However, ignoring many others others, Eijkman and Hopkins received 1929 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovery of Vitamins.

Our Vitamin alphabets: A, B, C, D, E…….

All Vitamins have a story behind their discovery. Concept of Vitamin A came in 1918, and the substance was isolated in 1937. Similarly, concept of vitamin C came from James Lind in 1747, but we discovered the actual substance in 1930. Albert Imre Szent-Györgyi, a Hungarian biochemist who discovered vitamin C. He was awarded a Nobel in 1937. While rickets, a bone-disease related to lack of sunlight was known since 1600s, we knew about Vitamin D only in 1930s. Other vitamins we know as B2 (Niacin), B6 (Pyridoxine), B12 (Cobalamin), Vitamin E and K followed suit in next decade. Till date, Vitamins alone have led to more than a dozen Nobel Prizes.

Thus, by 1963 when FAO launched FFH campaign, we knew about food-grains, carbohydrates, proteins and fats (large or macronutrients) as well as vitamins and minerals (small or micronutrients). However, the initial focus was on food adequacy. Micronutrients in global public health were still about a decade away.

This shift from food or feeding to health and nutrition was gradual. In 1980s the focus had shifted to a more comprehensive dietary planning – a mix of energy, protein and fats and selected micronutrients.

By the turn of the century, the concept of malnutrition included both food adequacy and food excess. Previous malnutrition was now under-nutrition.

Indian Nutrition and health story

Two initiatives in India have revolutionised food and health scenario. First were the food sufficiency initiatives – Green revolution of 1968, followed by the White revolution in 1970. Second were the food-distribution and supply initiatives – Mid day meal schemes that were started in 1954, and later expanded in 2001, Public distribution system (or PDS) started in 1939, and revamped in 1992, in addition to various other nutrition linked programs (such as for anemia, and thyroid diseases).

Sufficiency initiatives

MS Swaminathan, was a plant biologist, trained in cytogenetics from US. When he returned back to India in 1954 after his post-doc, he joined Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) as an assistant scientist. He was a key architect of Green revolution in India, and he introduced newer wheat varieties, that by 1968 had increased grain production by over ten times.

Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union Limited(KDCMPUL), Anand was formally registered on December 14, 1946. Dr Verghese Kurien, then an engineer trained in Madras and Michigan joined KDCMPUL, and created a Brand Amul. This was precursor of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) that was set up in 1965. In 1970 NDDB launched operation flood – that changed milk production, distribution and sale across the country. We know this change as white revolution.

Distribution initiatives

As a child, I realised that one of the important documents to have was a “ration-card”. Every family had one, and as we relocated from one place to another, we would have a new one. Getting a “ration-card” was an achievement. This system of food-rations for civilians in India, stared with the second world war in 1939 in Mumbai. It had expanded to 770+ towns by 1946. Every family was entitled to a fixed amount of cereals. This Public distribution system (PDS) was relaunched in 1950. Six commodities were rationed – rice, wheat, sugar, edible oil, soft coke and kerosene oil.

PDS ensured a minimum supply, but was not adequate to meet all the needs. Mid-day meal scheme was first started in a few schools in Madras in 1920s. In 1954, then state government of Tamil Nadu relaunched it as a state wide scheme. While initial purpose was to improve enrolment in schools, by 1991, the scheme had expanded to 12 states. Currently, the scheme is renamed as PM-POSHAN scheme, and operates across the country.

Credit for expansion of school meal scheme as well as the program for Iodine fortification in salt rests with Coluthar Gopalan. A medical doctor, from Madras medical college, he returned back to India after completing his PhD from London. In 1961 he went on to become director of National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, and later director of Indian Council of Medical Research.

Changing perceptions

Today, word “health” is synonymous with certain “foods”. Current food choices are often dichotomised into healthy and non-healthy. Fruits and vegetables top popular lists healthy foods. Same is true of postage stamps, where slogan for fruit-based foods is “fresh & healthy)

As we desire to avoid chronic diseases, shift of perception has also affected our postage stamps. Fruits, that were once considered expensive have moved up the food ladder.

Above 1981 first day cover and stamp-set on “Exports from Spain” depicts fruits, spirits and automobiles. On the cover fruits overshadow the other two. Similarly Indian post has issued a 12-stamp set on Geographical indication Agricultural goods. There are a total of 158 agricultural products in this list. Yet, the postage stamp set is dominated by colourful, local fruits. Postage stamps not only carry the perception, but also make one.

In 1963, focus of FAO was on cereals. Sixty years later, in 2023 FAO announced “International year of the millets“. Millets are a “healthy food”, have a lower potential for weight gain. Last year many global countries rediscovered their millets, and are trying how to bring them back to our plates and palates.