THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE FOOD: WHY TRADITIONAL FOODS VARIED ACROSS INDIA — AND WHY IT MATTERS NOW MORE THAN EVER

“When a family returns to its kitchen with hands, stories, and season — the land enters their bodies again, and healing begins, not through medicine, but through memory.”

PART 1: GEOGRAPHY, CLIMATE & HOMEOSTASIS — WHY FOOD VARIED SO MUCH

Our human body is an intelligent, adaptive system.

Its one goal? Homeostasis — the ability to maintain stable internal conditions (temperature, hydration, energy balance) regardless of the outside world.

And geography plays the biggest role in challenging this balance.

Whether you live in:

A cold mountainous region (like Ladakh)

A wet, humid tropical zone (like Kerala)

A dry, hot desert (like Rajasthan)

A forested plateau (like Bastar)

A coastal salt-rich environment (like Gujarat)

— your body is constantly working to stabilize:

Internal temperature

Water and salt levels

Digestion and metabolism

Blood sugar and energy

Mineral usage

Sweating and excretion patterns

And that is exactly why traditional Indian food varied so dramatically across regions.

The food was not based on taste, but on what the body needed to adapt to that climate.

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Some examples:

In the tropics (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, coastal Andhra):

Foods are cooling, water-rich, high in electrolytes

Coconut water, fermented rice, buttermilk, tender jackfruit

Spices like curry leaves and pepper promote circulation and detox

In cold climates (Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal):

High-calorie, warming foods: ghee, nuts, animal fats, fermented roots

Bone broths, barley, dried fruits, cooked greens

Spices like saffron, cinnamon to warm from within

In dry hot zones (Rajasthan, Kutch, Marathwada):

Salt-preserved foods, bajra rotis, ker sangri, buttermilk, garlic chutney

Minimizing water loss, supporting digestion during dry heat

In flooded or forest regions (Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha):

Wild greens, bamboo shoots, smoked foods to prevent spoilage

A variety of tubers, millet mixes, and fermented fish or rice

In tribal belts and plateaus:

Seasonal rotation of forest produce

Rice-bean-lentil-pumpkin meals with hand-pounded spices

Oil-free cooking, pestle-ground chutneys, solar drying

These aren’t just culinary traditions.

They are climate-responsive medical systems.

They allowed the body to breathe with the land, to remain balanced and disease-resistant.

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PART 2: HOW FOOD DIVERSITY IS BEING DESTROYED

In just two generations, this astonishing diversity has collapsed.

Why?

a. Urban migration and uniform packaging

People moved to cities, and with it came supermarkets and mall shelves.

Everyone eats the same: bread, biscuits, milk, white rice, potatoes, chicken, paneer.

b. Industrial agriculture and seed control

Monoculture farming = only wheat, rice, and sugarcane thrive.

Traditional crops like ragi, amaranth, kodo, bamboo rice, and native vegetables vanished.

c. Media and marketing manipulation

Ads made "modern" food look superior.

Ghee was labeled cholesterol. Millets became poor people’s food. Fermentation became “smelly.”

d. Standardization of school, wedding, temple food

Every child in Bengaluru eats idli-dosa-noodles-pasta.

Every function serves paneer butter masala + naan + gulab jamun.

No one knows what their own geography demands anymore.

e. Collapse of oral transmission

Grandmothers who remembered 100+ combinations of seasonal chutneys, pickles, decoctions and laddus — were silenced.

Nobody asked. Nobody preserved.

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PART 3: THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS COLLAPSE

This is not just about nostalgia.

This is about survival — physical, emotional, economic, and cultural.

a. Lifestyle diseases

Foods no longer regulate homeostasis.

Uniform diets cause mismatch with local climate = acidity, inflammation, poor digestion, constipation, heat exhaustion, weight gain.

Rise of diseases like diabetes, hypertension, IBS, thyroid, and PCOD.

b. Behavioral & emotional imbalance

Wrong foods = wrong gut bacteria = wrong neurotransmitters.

Anxiety, mood swings, emotional dullness, hyperactivity in kids.

Especially visible in Bengaluru’s high-screen, low-fiber children.

c. Collapse of rural economy

Nobody buys traditional grains or forest produce.

Farmers grow sugarcane instead of millets.

Herbal wisdom is lost. Seasonal farming disappears.

d. Psychological confusion and loss of identity

Children no longer know the name of even 5 native vegetables.

Teens associate “roots” with shame.

Food becomes an identity crisis — not a source of grounding.

e. Environmental destruction

Mono-cropping = soil depletion, water misuse

Local food ecosystems like soppus, mushrooms, tubers disappear

Packaged food = plastic waste + food miles

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PART 4: HOW TO REVIVE TRADITIONAL FOOD IN A MODERN BENGALURU HOME

You don’t need a farm.

You don’t need a grandmother.

You don’t need 10 hours a day.

You only need intention + 15 minutes daily.

Step 1: Identify your root geography

Were your ancestors from North Karnataka? Andhra coast? Kodagu forest? Tamil highlands?

What did they eat during:

Summer? Monsoon? Winter?

Illness? Menstruation? Exams?

Step 2: Local, seasonal, and whole

Buy millets, nati rice, hand-pounded oil

Use jaggery, rock salt, tamarind, dried mango powder

Avoid frozen, uniform, non-seasonal veggies

Step 3: One traditional recipe per week

Ragi ambli, bajra khichdi, rice kanji, raw banana curry, drumstick leaves poriyal

Use stone grinders or hand pounding for chutneys once a week

Step 4: Fermentation and pickling revival

Start with simple curd, dosa batter, lemon pickle, sun-dried papad

Let children participate — connect them with time, texture, taste

Step 5: Involve elders and ask questions

What did they eat in childhood?

What food was served in fever, wedding, summer heat?

Write it down. Make it. Taste history.

Step 6: Grow one food plant at home

Tulsi, curry leaf, drumstick, coriander, ridge gourd, soppu

Even a balcony pot builds intimacy with soil and season

Step 7: Respect food rituals

Sit together

Eat with hand

Don’t multitask

Thank the land mentally

Fast occasionally — seasonally

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CONCLUSION: GEOGRAPHY IS NOT A PLACE — IT’S A PATTERN

Your body still thinks you live in your ancestral land.

Even if your GPS says "Koramangala" or "Indiranagar,"

your cells remember Tandur, Kodagu, Thanjavur, Bastar.

To ignore geography is to fight your body every single day.

Let’s bring back food that speaks our climate.

That nourishes us for real.

That doesn’t come with a barcode.

That was grown for your lungs, your bones, your blood — not just your tongue.

And it begins with one step:

Eat where you are, how you were made.

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HEALING DIALOGUE

"MY CHILD EATS EVERYTHING — EXCEPT OUR ROOTS"

A family from Bengaluru visits Madhukar the Hermit after realizing their home-cooked meals aren’t really feeding anyone anymore.

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RAGHU (Father, 41):

We eat at home.

We don’t eat outside food much.

Still, my son has constant acidity, low energy, and frequent mood swings.

We’ve done all tests. Nothing shows up.

Is it mental?

MADHUKAR:

What does your home-cooked meal contain?

RAGHU:

Rice, dal, roti, paneer, sometimes noodles.

We use cold-pressed oils, ghee…

We’ve tried oats, quinoa, everything.

He doesn’t eat pickles or traditional stuff though. Says it smells.

NEHA (Mother, 38):

I stopped making all that. Too much work.

My MIL used to make millet rotis, amla chutney, moringa dal, but kids don’t touch it.

They find it “weird.”

I’ve kept it simple — pressure cook, mix, serve.

MADHUKAR:

Simple for whom?

For you?

For their digestion?

For their instincts?

Or for their rebellion?

NEHA (confused):

What do you mean?

MADHUKAR:

Your child doesn’t eat his roots — not just in food, but in identity.

He eats what the world sells — not what the land offers.

His gut is not broken.

His relationship with food is broken.

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RAGHU:

But how can we go back?

This is Bengaluru.

We’re busy.

Markets are modern.

The kids don’t even know the names of those old vegetables.

MADHUKAR:

That’s not the problem.

The problem is — you never told them the names.

Your grandmother whispered recipes in the kitchen.

Your mother passed on herbs in your fever.

But you outsourced all of it to YouTube and Zomato.

Now your children eat pasta during pitta season,

drink cold shakes in vata season,

snack on chips before exams —

and you wonder why their body protests.

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NEHA (softly):

But they won’t eat drumstick leaves.

They hate bitter things.

They want butter toast and ketchup.

MADHUKAR:

Yes. Because they were never taught hunger.

Only fullness.

Never taught reverence.

Only reward.

Feed them truth — not convenience.

Start small:

One traditional recipe a week

Sit together without TV

Explain what the spice does

Tell them why ragi cools the body

Let them grow one herb

Children don’t resist tradition.

They resist tasteless imitation.

Bring flavor back. Bring soil back.

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RAGHU:

Will it really help?

Is food enough?

MADHUKAR:

Food is not enough.

But it’s the beginning.

Of gut healing.

Of memory revival.

Of emotional grounding.

Of inner stillness.

What the mother stirs into the pot becomes the child’s first wisdom.

You’ve kept them fed.

Now start keeping them whole.

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CHARLES BUKOWSKI-STYLE POEM

“YOU ATE THE LAND, THEN CALLED IT POOR”

you took

ragi,

bajra,

red rice,

tamarind,

drumstick,

and you threw them

into the dustbin

because some man on a billboard

told you that

cornflakes were “complete nutrition.”

you poured oil

into a pan

but couldn’t remember

why your grandmother always started with cumin and asafoetida.

you said

“we don’t have time for that.”

but had two hours for youtube chefs

and thirty minutes for salads

that made your stomach feel

like an empty drum

full of alphabets.

you stopped fermenting.

you stopped pickling.

you stopped listening.

your gut stopped trusting you.

you wrapped tradition in foil

and tossed it into the microwave.

then you wondered

why your child

got allergies

from summer wind

and cried during monsoon nights

without reason.

you imported quinoa

when kodo millet was dying in the next district.

you paid 400 rupees

for almond milk

when a buffalo stood

outside your lane.

you made your children

learn formulas

but forgot to teach them

what jackfruit smells like in May.

how to chew raw mango

with black salt.

how to sit

on the floor

and be grateful

for turmeric in the dal.

you said

“our foods are too oily.”

so you removed oil.

then fiber.

then soul.

and you served

white rice

with shame.

they call it progress.

you call it comfort.

but your body

still remembers the land.

and it misses the way

your ancestors ate

with hands

wet with sweat

and love

and season.

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