Zoya Naaz Rehman explores whether the Mid Day Meals in different states consider the everyday dietary habits of the students they cater to.
With its nearly three decades of experience, India’s Mid Day Meal (MDM) programme took on the role of mentor this year. An Indonesian delegation was in the country to take notes on a set of guidelines it could replicate at home under the stewardship of President-elect Prabowo Subianto.
As the world’s largest school lunch programme, India’s Mid Day Meal Programme has, over the years, built and broken governments, enraged activists and seers alike, assuaged concerns of parents, and staved off pangs of hunger gnawing at the bellies of school-going children, even if only once a day. All this and more, because of its singular and undisguised undertaking—of performing the radical and strangely polarising act of feeding children. The underlying, seemingly unaddressed question is: what is the programme putting on these children’s plates?
The history of the school lunch initiative in India can be traced back to 1925 when the Madras Corporation Council approved a proposal for providing a tiffin to the students of a corporation school in the erstwhile Madras Presidency. In 1995, the Supreme Court of India nationalised the efforts of statewide school lunch initiatives in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, and so India’s Mid Day Meal programme was born. Ever since, it has been transparent with its goals—drawing students, especially girls, from disadvantaged backgrounds into the classroom, along with keeping their hunger at bay. Renamed PM-POSHAN in 2021, the programme is mammoth, one of a kind in scale, with nearly 120 million children hailing from 28 states and eight union territories depending on it for lunch almost year-round.
In 2006 and 2007, the Supreme Court laid down the guidelines that shaped the programme into what it is today—every lunch plate must provide no less than 450 kilocalories and 12 grams of protein for younger students (grades 1-5) and 700 kilocalories and 20 grams of protein for older ones (grades 6-8). Costs are split between the central government and the respective state governments, with the former funding the purchase of wheat or rice and the latter, everything else needed for a full square meal. State governments are also at liberty to individually decide the quotidian details of the food, so the onus of curating their school lunch menu lies on them.
Despite this autonomy, most lunch plates in much of the country are annexed by sweeping generalisations of Indian food, with both local culture and agriculture being sidelined. Meals frequently consist of nothing more than a central carbohydrate, usually rice or roti, and an often-vague dal or bean accompaniment. Sightings of vegetables, especially leafy greens, are considered strokes of good fortune, and even then, they come buried under a heap of quality issues.
Anil Uppalapati, Program Officer at Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN), who has worked closely with schools offering the Mid Day Meal in Telangana, paints a bleak picture of the food prepared on most days. “In most centres and most schools, it is a thin dal. […] It almost looks like a sambar,” he says. “They cook vegetable curry as well. But the quality is the issue. […] In order to keep it within the budget [allocated by the government] they cook very little curry. And to make it appear that they’re giving a substantial quantity, they’ll water it down further.”
The absence of local ingredients in the Mid Day Meals can only be described as a lost opportunity. In a country where food is intimately connected to the land, there is no greater injustice than to overlook the regional nuances of its culinary topography. This injustice perhaps turns into a crime since harnessing those very regional nuances can potentially herald in “cascading positive impacts on food security”, as scientists Kofi Britwum and Matty Demont mention in their research.
According to Britwum and Demont, cultural heritage in food systems can determine nearly every stage of the act of eating, entailing “where people purchase and consume food (food environments), when they consume it (eating occasions), what they consume (dishes, food items, beverages), how they consume it (using utensils or by hand), and why (ingredient attributes and pairings, convenience, consumer attitudes towards food).” Aligning public welfare efforts of food provision with communities’ food preferences allows cultural heritage in food to further enhance food security.
"Meals frequently consist of nothing more than a central carbohydrate, usually rice or roti, and an often-vague dal or bean accompaniment."
Little explanation is warranted as to why every ripple towards better food security matters in a country like India, where nearly six million children under the age of five are affected by severe wasting—a globally-accepted indicator of malnutrition. As part of efforts to alleviate such staggering levels of food insecurity, it is imperative for the Mid Day Meal programme to harmonise the food on its menu with everyday dietary habits and nutritional needs of students in each region.
The simplest and most effective way to do this is to use seasonal vegetables grown regionally, as pointed out by culinary chronicler Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal. “Every vegetable is cost-effective at some point, when it’s in season. It’s just about being diligent enough to include them,” she says. Impressing the need for leafy greens dense in nutrients, she highlights regional options—both cultivated and foraged—abundant across the county, some of which have been neglected over time. For instance, chane ke patte (chickpea leaves) are greatly valued in Central India, while spinach, amaranth, and mooli ke patte (radish greens) are affordable and available in different parts of the country. While guidelines from experts aren’t acted upon in most regions, lunches in some parts are benefiting from the much-needed extra effort.
In February 2024, an announcement from Karnataka detailed a new inclusion in their lunch—a ragi (finger millet) malt drink. Karnataka is no stranger to ragi; more land is dedicated to its cultivation here than in any other part of India. Ragi’s many iterations form the body of diets in places like Mysuru and Mandya. This announcement comes not long after the state’s decision in 2021 to rustle up a vegetable side dish once a week with hyacinth beans, or avarekalu, a local crop so abundant during the winter, that its characteristic sogadu scent is inescapable.
In February 2024, an announcement from Karnataka detailed a new inclusion in their lunch—a ragi (finger millet) malt drink.
Fortunately, Karnataka is neither new to nor alone in its efforts to be more cognisant of local food culture. In 2020, Rajasthan was reportedly in the process of developing recipes for dishes using locally-grown grains like maize and bajra. Among these was a summer favourite in the desert—makki ka dhokla. In the same year, Uttarakhand went a step further with the creation of a booklet containing 30 recipes involving local ingredients for use in the lunch programme.
However, the consideration of cultural heritage and local ways of eating in the country falters as soon as the topic of meat and egg consumption is broached. When it comes to the humble boiled egg, India’s lunch programme is mired in a tug-of-war between religious sentiments and public health. India is not a nation where the majority of the populace abstains from meat-eating, but historically, vegetarianism is proclaimed to be the de facto Indian diet.
Public health physician and epidemiologist Dr C Sathyamala, in her paper Meat-eating in India: Whose food, whose politics, and whose rights?, traces this supremacy of vegetarianism to the British colonial era. A combination of exoticism by the British, who contrasted it with their own flesh-forward diet, and Gandhi’s attraction to it as a political ideology, elevated it to a position of the authentic Indian diet. Sathyamala explains, “Gandhi’s rejection of flesh foods in his formulation of a ‘swadeshi’ diet was to be seen as a part of his wider struggle against Western dominance, for Gandhi, it was a spiritual quest as well.
The embodying of vegetarian food with moral values like these birthed a legacy—one of othering meat-eating communities in India, particularly in contexts like the national school lunch programme—that lingers even today. In January 2024, the Maharashtra government amended an executive order instructing schools involved in the programme to offer eggs to consenting students once a week. Following the flak from the Shree Mumbai Jain Sangh Sangathan (SMJSS), an organisation representing the city’s Jain community, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spiritual cell, schools were to exclude eggs from their menus entirely if a mere 40 per cent of students declined them.
This move, which hands the minority veto power over the majority, especially in Maharashtra, a state where—according to the last National Family and Health Survey—roughly half the population between the ages of 15 and 49 consumes eggs at least once a week, is brazen in its dismissal of one’s right to choose what to eat.
Such instances violate a key tenet that the Mid Day Meal is based on, one where decision-makers are expected to create space for the preferences of children the programme caters to. The exclusion of the egg, not only in Maharashtra and parts of Karnataka, but also in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh among other parts of the country, does more than make a lunch of dal-chawal bland. It deprives wanting children of unparalleled nutrient-dense food. As archeologist and culinary anthropologist Dr Kurush F Dalal points out, “Nothing else packs protein the way a boiled egg does. All you need is one stove and one handi.”
Aside from being easy to cook, eggs offer a host of advantages over other protein-rich foods: they are economical, have a long shelf-life, and can’t be adulterated. Meanwhile, along with being a valuable source of protein, meat adds flavour to much of the country’s plates. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz hypothesised that old agrarian societies structure their meals so that they are composed of three elements—the starchy core, the legume, and the flavourful fringe. Day-to-day food consumed in India fits neatly into Mintz’s framework; two of three boxes—the starchy core and the legume—are habitually checked off by the Mid Day Meal. In a series of rather unappetising decisions, the programme passes over the fringe element, inadvertently nudging taste and palatability right off the plate.
A meat-centred dispute has been brewing in the islands of Lakshadweep too. Since 2021, the people and their administration have been embroiled in a legal dispute regarding the omission of poultry and meat from the school lunch, even though they are key elements of the islanders’ diet. After some back and forth, both the Kerala High Court—in 2021—under whose jurisdiction the archipelago falls, and the Supreme Court of India—in 2023—dismissed the Public Interest Litigation opposing this menu change.
As it stands, lunch at a school in the archipelago included fish and eggs, but not poultry and meat. The latter, the administration contends, features regularly in the students’ meals at home, making them ideal to swap with fruits and dry fruits on the plate, which the children apparently eat less of. Essential as fruits and nuts are as micronutrients, it remains to be seen whether the administration comes through on its promise to include them, or shortchanges students in a classic case of bait-and-switch that would betray both taste and nutrition at once.
But the boundaries of the fringe element go far beyond meat. It is anything that elevates the starchy core—in this case, rice or roti. As Mintz points out, “[…] anyone who has tried, even when very hungry, to eat a whole plateful of potatoes, pasta, or kasha without any accompanying flavour—such as oil, salt, garlic, pepper, cheese, olives, mushrooms, mustard, salad greens, cured fish, or anything else—will understand immediately what the fringe does to make the core more appetising.”
Seemingly, the Punjab government realises this. During an average week, one might come away from lunch at a school affiliated with the Mid Day Meal with both elements—the core (roti, rice), and the legume (dal, black chana, rajma, kadhi)—of the meal fulfilled, according to their most updated menu from 2023. Among the revisions to the menu was the weekly appearance of Frooti, a packaged mango juice. Although an unconventional choice, the drink could very well be considered a fringe element to the meal. Novel and exciting for children, it is sure to make them receptive to their lunch on the day, achieving the goal of a good fringe element—increasing the meal’s palatability.
However, it’s not all peaches and cream. Dr Krishnendu Ray, Director of the Food Studies PhD Programme at New York University (NYU), cautions against industrialised products in this context. “I’m skeptical if this is a Trojan horse—trying to get more processed food into the school lunch programme. Then it will be a disaster like it is in the United States. […] A couple of instances of packaged juice is okay, as long as this doesn’t become the thin end of the wedge to replace cooked food with tetra-packed food, which we know is environmentally, public health-wise, a disaster for kids and for the locality,” he says.
Among the revisions to the menu was the weekly appearance of Frooti, a packaged mango juice.
So far, things are looking optimistic in Punjab, where the inclusion of the industrial product was accompanied by that of a local, seasonal fruit. While the initial choice was bananas, the government eventually heeded the calls of citrus farmers in the state’s Abohar region, and included kinnow oranges in the meals. However, this inclusion wasn’t an overnight occurrence. When local MDM authorities announced their decision to use fruit in the lunch programme, Abohar’s kinnow farmers—who had to choose between selling their harvest at a loss, or letting it rot—fought an uphill battle with the administration to include their oranges in the meals.
After the Fazilka district deputy commissioner’s office was faced with a generous bounty of kinnows outside the premises one day—a bold move by the farmers designed to make a point—the Punjab government acceded. Around 1,000 tonnes of the fruit were bought for the lunch programme, and they were one of the fruits of choice until March this year, when the season began to wind down. As the year progresses, it is anticipated that guava, mango, lychee, and ber will be sourced from local farmers too, boosting the region’s economy while adding nourishment to the lunch plate.
However, oranges aside, this is the state of Punjab, known for its dairy production and its thriving orchards of mangoes, among other fruits. This begs the question that if Frooti can make the core of a meal more enticing once a week, why can’t aam panna, lassi, or chaas do the same when presented regularly?
In Odisha, the GI-tagged red ant chutney has similar potential. But there’s a caveat—there couldn’t, and shouldn’t, be a flat-out application of this across Odisha’s schools. As Dr Ray explains, red ant chutney would be of immense value—not only for flavour but also as a source of protein—in the dry, interior region or the highlands, talking about his mother’s home state. However, in the coastal region, a tomato chutney would be more appropriate.
This insight draws attention to the cultural appropriateness of food, urging us to reflect on what is lost from the plate when we look at whole states as monoliths. What would happen if the school lunch were to conflate the vastly diverse Punjabi identity with a glass of lassi, or the complex Odia identity with a single chutney? And then comes the practical perspective. Realistically, for a programme of its size, can the MDM programme be cognisant of culinary diversity within states, cities, and districts when planning its menu?
This, however, doesn’t mean that in considerations of scalability, the nuances of local and regional food should be forgone. It simply means that the programme has a responsibility to reconcile the two. According to Dr Ray, this invariably calls for a trade-off, but isn’t impossible. “It is a challenge. It’s not easy, but I think India has the administrative structure at the district level,” he explains. “There will always be a trade-off between scale and locality.”
What would happen if the school lunch were to conflate the vastly diverse Punjabi identity with a glass of lassi, or the complex Odia identity with a single chutney?
Meanwhile, in Maharashtra, lunches in Mumbai and Nagpur presented a strange dichotomy in October 2023. On one hand, at a number of Mumbai schools, the lunch consisted of a feeble khichdi or rice with dal, on the other hand, within the same state, schools in Nagpur were pilot-testing desserts, millet-based recipes, and paneer dishes for permanent positions on the menu.
It is natural to question the driver of these differences; on the surface, it seemed like the kitchen set-ups were driving them. Many of the Mumbai schools reportedly had decentralised kitchens where government-appointed cooks prepared food on-site. In Nagpur, new dishes were being pilot-tested at centralised kitchens away from the schools’ premises. These kitchens were run by Annamrita Foundation, a non-profit engaged in the programme by the government.
Mid Day meals are largely prepared within the kitchens on the premises of schools across India. However, state governments and non-profit organisations often form public-private partnerships to run centralised kitchens that especially provide food to schools located in remote villages or in urban areas where kitchen space is inadequate. As of 2019, 70 non-profit organisations were involved in the programme across 13 states. Of these, the largest operation is run by Akshaya Patra in nearly 70 locations across 15 states and two union territories, the vast majority of which are centralised kitchens.
That the food cooked in the two kinds of kitchens may vary is almost an intuitive inference. On-site kitchens employ local cooks and operate on funds supplied by the government—funds that sometimes run out long before they’re replaced, thereby compromising the quality of the food. With their private funding and regulated kitchens, one might imagine that the standard of food in centralised kitchens is immune to the kinds of fluctuations that decentralised kitchens are vulnerable to.
Saanil K. Bhaskaran, COO at Akshaya Patra, which is associated with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and provides the mid day meal lunch, lends an insight into the functioning of centralised kitchens. “The Foundation’s centralised kitchens help make this [preparation of diverse, culturally-appropriate dishes] possible by fostering innovation in the context of technology as well as recipes,” he says. At Akshaya Patra’s centralised kitchens, industrialised roti-making machines rapidly stack up rotis, and recipes are standardised for ingredient measures and cooking methods.
But the maxim holds true and the scientists were right: association does not imply causation. Happenings in Maharashtra fit nicely into this theory, but a few months later, student sentiments in Jharkhand muddled things. In Singhbhum, where, like in Nagpur, food is supplied to schools from centralised kitchens run by Annamrita Foundation, students reportedly began discarding their lunch or abandoning large portions of it, prompting a survey in 42 schools on its likability. Matter-of-fact results indicated that a majority of students simply did not enjoy their food.
A 13-year-old student receiving the Mid Day Meal at GKHPS SR Nagar, a local school in Bengaluru, who chose to remain anonymous, puts things into perspective by sharing that the kind of kitchen her food was cooked in didn’t matter to her. “The food needs to taste good and should be freshly prepared to retain the nutrients,” she says. In an average week, Akshaya Patra supplies her school with a range of dals, curries made with vegetables and leafy greens, and rice dishes like bisi bele bath and pulyogare along with a banana everyday. The students are also provided an egg twice a week. While she would like for meat to be part of her meals more often—ideally, once a day—to her, this food is fresh, tastes good, and is filling. There’s no reason to believe that if Mumbai’s decentralised kitchens spiced up their food, it wouldn’t be savoured as well.
Despite its shortcomings, the Mid Day Meal is certainly providing food to school children that fills their stomachs. Politically speaking, the programme is a success—its longevity is commendable. Where it lacks, however, is in thinking about the difference between feeding and nourishing. Nourishment is greater than the mere absence of hunger; it is consistent and transformative nutrition, it is satisfaction, and yes, it is taste. Between feeding and nourishing, there’s a chasm, but crossing over isn’t all that daunting. In fact, it is as simple as better food, tastier food, more local food, nourishing food. While the programme is here and running, there must now be a focus on its quality on-ground with the clear purpose of feeding children what they deserve to eat.
Zoya Naaz Rehman (she/her) is a student and food scholar whose worldview is informed by her feminist, Muslim, and Indian identities. For her thoughts on food, public health, and everything in between, follow her on Instagram @kohl.lined.perspectives
Thanks to Manjunath B G for sharing his observations from schools in Karnataka.
Thanks to People’s Archive of Rural India for sharing their images with us.
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