Understanding household and food system determinants of chicken and egg consumption in India.

Poultry is one of the fastest-growing agricultural sectors in India and its demand is said to be rising. There is a perception that higher incomes, growing population, urbanisation, and increased productivity in the industry have influenced Indian poultry consumption. However, consumer surveys have shown that the average poultry consumption in India has remained low. With this in mind, the paper analysed household determinants of chicken and egg consumption within the Indian population, using two rounds of National Sample Survey data (1993-1994 and 2011-2012). By conducting a spatiotemporal analysis of household consumption and expenditure survey and by using truncated Double Hurdle and Unconditional Quantile regressions (UQR) models, this study explored socio-economic and food system determinants of chicken and egg consumption in India. Key results highlight that while consumption has increased marginally over twenty years, supply-side determinants, such as price and poultry production concentration, influenced heterogenous consumption patterns in India. We also find evidence that historically marginalised groups consumed more chicken and eggs in comparison to non-marginalised groups and preliminary evidence suggests how household gender dynamics influence different consumption patterns. Adequate consumption of poultry is important to improve nutrient-deficient diets of vulnerable groups in India. Our findings on demand side determinants of poultry products are crucial to support consumer tailored actions to improve nutritional outcomes along with the Indian poultry sector policy planning.

Processed foods purchase profiles in urban India in 2013 and 2016: a cluster and multivariate analysis.

OBJECTIVES: Sales of ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) and beverages are rising in low-income and middle-income countries. Such foods are often linked with weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes and hypertension-diseases that are on the rise in India. This paper analysed patterns in purchases of processed and UPF by urban Indian households. SETTING: Panel data from Kantar -Worldpanel Division, India for 2013 and 2016. PARTICIPANTS: 58 878 urban Indian households. METHODS: We used K-mean partition clustering and multivariate regression to analyse patterns in processed food (PF) and UPF purchase for urban India. RESULTS: Three-quarters of urban Indian households purchased over ten PF groups. Mean per person annual PF purchase was 150 kg. UPF purchase was low at 6.4 kg in 2016 but had grown by 6% since 2013. Cluster analysis identified three patterns of consumption, characterised by low (54% of the households in 2016), medium (36%) and high (10%) PF purchase quantities. High cluster households purchased over three times as much PFs and UPF as the low cluster households. Notably, salt purchases were persistently high across clusters in both years (>3.3 kg), while sweet snack and ready-to-eat food purchases grew consistently in all clusters between 2013 and 2016. A positive and significant association was found between household purchases of UPF and their socioeconomic status as well as ownership of durables, such as refrigerator, colour television and washing machine (all p<0.001). Spatial characteristics including size of town (p<0.05) in which the household is located were also positively associated with the purchase of UPF. CONCLUSION: Results suggest the need for tailored regional and city level interventions to curb the low but growing purchase of UPF. New data on obesity and rise of non-communicable diseases, the results are concerning given the links between lifestyle changes and the speed of urbanisation in Indian cities.

Exploring why animal health practices are (not) adopted among smallholders in low and middle-income countries: a realist framework and scoping review protocol.

Background: Improving livestock health is considered critical to address poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Modifications of livestock management practices is also increasingly recognized as an important strategy to mitigate global threats such as climate change and novel disease emergence. Smallholders are, however, under various constraints which prohibit them from altering health practices for livestock and little is known about how the adoption of these practices may be promoted. The proposed scoping review aims to systematically map evidence around "what practices are (not) adopted by smallholders under what circumstances, how and why?." Method and analysis: We conducted initial scoping searches to broadly define types of animal health practices relevant for smallholders in LMICs and formulated search terms. A scoping review protocol was designed and registered. A systematic literature search will be conducted using electronic databases including CAB Abstract, Scopus, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Web of Science Core Collection. Gray literature will be searched from AGRIS and Standards for Supporting Agricultural Livelihoods in Emergencies. Articles in English, pertaining to the animal health practices considered highly relevant will be considered eligible for inclusion. Articles will be screened at two stages by two independent reviewers; screening of titles, abstracts, and keywords, followed by full-article screening. The first reviewer will review 100% of the articles at both stages. The second reviewer will review a random sample of 20% of the articles at both stages. Any disagreements will be resolved using inputs from the third reviewer. A thematic analysis will be conducted to catalog contexts and mechanisms for adoption and discussed under a realist framework. Discussion: Understanding of the mechanisms underlying the adoption of animal health practices by livestock smallholders in LMICs is crucial for successful implementation of interventions including those which are based on a One Health approach. This review will identify the extent of this knowledge across disciplines and inform future research priorities for the design of effective and feasible interventions which can contribute toward Sustainable Development Goal 2. Registration: This protocol is registered within the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/FUQAX).

Caste-Based Inequality in Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in India.

OBJECTIVE: Fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption is of central importance to many diet-related health outcomes. In India, caste is a major basis of socioeconomic inequality. Recent analysis shows that more disadvantaged "lower" castes consume less F&V than the rest. This article explores whether this consumption gap arises due to differential distribution of drivers of consumption such as income and education across castes, or whether behavioral differences or discrimination may be at play. DESIGN: The Oaxaca-Blinder regression decomposition is applied to explain the gap in F&V consumption between "upper" castes and "lower" castes, using data from the 68th (2011-2012) round of the National Sample Survey Organization household survey. RESULTS: Differences in the distribution of F&V drivers account for all of the 50 grams/person/day consumption gap between upper and lower castes. In particular, much of the gap is explained by income differential across castes. CONCLUSIONS: In the long run, India's positive discrimination policies in education and employment that seek to equalize income across castes are also likely to help close the F&V consumption gap, leading to health benefits. In the medium run, interventions acting to boost lower caste income, such as cash transfers targeting lower castes, may be effective.

What underlies inadequate and unequal fruit and vegetable consumption in India? An exploratory analysis.

Adequate consumption of fruit and vegetables is key to improved diet-related health in India. We analyse fruit and vegetable consumption in the Indian population using National Sample Survey data. A series of regressions is estimated to characterise the distribution of household fruit and vegetable consumption and explore key socio-economic and food system drivers of consumption. Household income and price are important correlates, but consumption is also higher where households are headed by females, are rural, or involve agricultural livelihoods. Caste is an important source of inequality, particularly amongst those with low consumption, with Scheduled Tribes consuming less F&V than others. We also find preliminary evidence that formal agricultural market infrastructure is positively associated with fruit and vegetable consumption in India.

Dietary Transition in India: Temporal and Regional Trends, 1993 to 2012.

BACKGROUND: Rapid economic growth, urbanization, and globalization have resulted in dietary transformation in India. Triple burden of malnutrition remains a significant concern, with high prevalence of undernutrition, widespread micronutrient deficiencies, and rising obesity. OBJECTIVE: This article reviews the dietary transition in India by analyzing trends in food consumption across time and space. METHODS: Household consumption survey data from 1993 to 2012 are analyzed to examine both national- and state-level trends to investigate how diets have changed and vary across the country. Typical Indian diets are characterized using k-mean cluster analysis and associated with socioeconomic and geographical aspects. RESULTS: The article finds that on average Indian household diets have diversified slowly but steadily since the 90s. Indians diets have shifted away from cereals to higher consumption of milk. However, progress on micronutrient-rich food groups such as fruits, vegetables, meat, and egg has been worryingly slow. Even by 2012, about a fifth of rural Indian households did not consume fruits or milk, while more than half of both urban and rural households did not consume any meat, fish, or eggs. Five predominant dietary types are identified. Sections of the Indian households do consume reasonably balanced diets, but large percentages consume cereal-focused, dairy-focused, or processed food heavy diets with high processed food content. CONCLUSIONS: Diets in India have not transformed sufficiently to overcome major gaps in intakes of micronutrient-rich foods. Large regional heterogeneities in diets call for regionally differentiated strategies to improve diets.

Comparison of food consumption in Indian adults between national and sub-national dietary data sources.

Accurate data on dietary intake are important for public health, nutrition and agricultural policy. The National Sample Survey is widely used by policymakers in India to estimate nutritional outcomes in the country, but has not been compared with other dietary data sources. To assess relative differences across available Indian dietary data sources, we compare intake of food groups across six national and sub-national surveys between 2004 and 2012, representing various dietary intake estimation methodologies, including Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES), FFQ, food balance sheets (FBS), and 24-h recall (24HR) surveys. We matched data for relevant years, regions and economic groups, for ages 16-59. One set of national HCES and the 24HR showed a decline in food intake in India between 2004-2005 and 2011-2012, whereas another HCES and FBS showed an increase. Differences in intake were smallest between the two HCES (1 % relative difference). Relative to these, FFQ and FBS had higher intake (13 and 35 %), and the 24HR lower intake (-9 %). Cereal consumption had high agreement across comparisons (average 5 % difference), whereas fruit and nuts, eggs, meat and fish and sugar had the least (120, 119, 56 and 50 % average differences, respectively). Spearman's coefficients showed high correlation of ranked food group intake across surveys. The underlying methods of the compared data highlight possible sources of under- or over-estimation, and influence their relevance for addressing various research questions and programmatic needs.