Lack of access to sufficient food may be damaging Indian children's ability to learn

There has been an impressive expansion in school enrolment in India since the early 2000s. Despite this, India is in the midst of a “learning crisis,” with improvements in learning, lagging behind increases in enrolment.

Worldwide, India also has one of the highest rates of child undernutrition and household food insecurity—that is, inadequate or inconsistent access to enough safe and nutritious food to sustain a healthy life. Both of these issues have negative implications for the long-term health, well-being and productivity of young people, as well as for the economy more broadly.

In our recent study, we used survey data from the Young Lives study of childhood poverty to examine whether there is a link between food insecurity and learning for Indian adolescents.

There are good theoretical reasons why learning and food insecurity may be linked. When households experience food insecurity, they may have to make difficult decisions in order to meet the family’s nutritional needs.

For instance, households that need money for food might reduce spending on school fees and materials. Children might miss school, have less time available to study, or even drop out altogether so that they can contribute to the household economy.

Food insecurity can also cause children to experience hunger, undernutrition, and micronutrient deficiencies. This can lead children to have problems with concentration and memory. It can even impair their cognitive development. Children who experience food insecurity might also feel irritability and shame. This could impact negatively on their interactions with their parents, teachers and peers.

In the Young Lives data, 47% of 12-year-olds had experienced household food insecurity at some stage during the observation period. And even 18% of the wealthiest families had experienced food insecurity; food insecurity is not exclusively a matter of poverty.

Associations with learning

The study followed the same children over time, beginning in 2002. It tracked both food insecurity and children’s learning outcomes in four domains: reading, English, maths, and local language vocabulary.

In order to test for a link between food insecurity and learning, we applied statistical modelling. We used information on whether households had experienced food insecurity when the children were aged five and eight, and when they entered adolescence at age 12.

We found that food insecurity was negatively linked to learning outcomes in all four domains. This was true even after we accounted for other important factors.

For example, it could be that poverty affects both food insecurity and learning—and so any link between these outcomes is actually the result of poverty. We accounted for this and other possible explanations in our robust models, and still consistently found a negative association between food insecurity and learning across domains.

We also considered the timing and persistence of food insecurity. Do early life experiences affect later learning? Or can adolescents recover from earlier food insecurity? Are there differences if adolescents experience shorter versus longer periods of food insecurity?

We found that both timing and persistence do matter, but they have different effects in different learning domains. For vocabulary and reading, early and persistent food insecurity were very detrimental for learning. English and maths were more complex.

For English, early food insecurity didn’t matter as much, but later and persistent food insecurity were linked to poorer learning outcomes. This may reflect that, at the time of the study, English language learning happened later in the curriculum.

For maths, food insecurity at any time was strongly and negatively associated with learning. This may reflect the fact that maths learning at one level is built directly on learning at a previous level. In other words, a child who does not learn basic addition due to food insecurity will struggle with more complex maths. In contrast, for subjects such as reading, once foundational skills are established, some catch-up for missed material may be possible in the short term.

Feeding the future

Our work demonstrates the lasting effects of early life experiences. Addressing food insecurity may be an important part of resolving India’s learning crisis.

It may also contribute to achieving some of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Goal #2 aims to end hunger and achieve food security. Our findings suggest that meeting this goal may have ripple effects by reducing inequalities (goal #10) and ensuring inclusive, quality education for all (goal #4).

As we have argued elsewhere, early intervention to prevent food insecurity is important to ensure that children are not disadvantaged while learning foundational skills. Scaling up early childhood feeding programs may be useful for targeting early food insecurity.

Offering free remedial learning classes for children who experience food insecurity may also enable them to catch up with peers. Finally, where social protection is inadequate to prevent children from working, providing safe, well-paid employment opportunities over school breaks may help children to work without missing learning opportunities.

Onigiri and specialty Japanese foods make their Tucson debut

If you've never had an onigiri rice ball before, we don't blame you. These triangular treats may have been a Japanese staple since the Nara Period, but they just arrived in Tucson for the first time this week.

Kukai opened quietly at the Mercado Annex the other day, making it the second food vendor in the westside shopping area after Beaut Burger. You may recognize the familiar face of Setsuko Mochizuki inside the shipping container kitchen. Her husband Kazuo Senda is the owner of Samurai on Oracle Road, which has been Tucson's go-to rice bowl joint for more than 30 years.

Kazuo is partnering with his son-in-law Michael McCormack at Kukai, crafting a menu that feels like Samurai meets Instagram. Michael assured me they're still working on the menu and changing it up before their grand opening Feb. 28. But right now the small space is making everything from ramen to those takoyaki octopus balls you may have lined up for at Tucson Meet Yourself.

We stopped by for a quick lunch yesterday and shared a few things on the small but eclectic menu. Michael had also worked at Raijin and was very proud about his pork-based Hakata ramen ... but unfortunately was still in the process of simmering his latest batch while we arrived for lunch. (I'm definitely coming back to try it soon.)

But no problem, that allowed us to really get into the onigiri. To put it lightly, this was a special moment for me. These utilitarian triangles of rice and pickled vegetables or fish are known for their convenience and portability. They're popular all over Japan because they're simple and cheap and can be eaten on the run.

I made them a regular part of my diet while I was living in the Bay Area, picking them up at the grocery store and unwrapping the delicate plastic covering when I was ready for lunch. Needless to say, the onigiri at Kukai are worlds better than the grocery store variety: the rice is fresh and warm, and the seaweed wrapper retained its snap.

Unlike sushi, onigiri are often made with salty pickled vegetables that preserve the triangle from the inside. So Kukai has a lot of vegetarian options on the menu. We tried the umeboshi salted plum, which was cut into bright purple little slivers that were nestled in the center of the rice. We also tried the tuna mayo, which was a little richer and more substantial if you eat fish. Right now they also have a pork belly and an unagi freshwater eel option for the rice balls, which range from $3.50 to $4.50 apiece.

Kukai's handrolls are also much better than your average teriyaki joint, as evidenced by the buttery salmon roll we enjoyed yesterday. And if you're going to get a rice bowl, Setsuko recommended the Mt. Fuji Don, which was basically a spicy tuna volcano bowl. Like everything here, it really hit the spot.

The Biggest Food Technology Advances of 2018

If the food-centric technological advancements of 2018 are any indication, humans are closer than ever to a world in which they no longer have to interact with each other at restaurants, and the very act of consumption may soon be in for a major disruption. Automated delivery vehicles, robot cooks and servers, and new ways to experience flavor and meet daily nutritional standards will soon be the status quo. Here's a look back at the major food tech advances of 2018.

Gadgets, gizmos, and dodads galore

In January, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Pizza Hut and Toyota teamed up to announce a terrifying driverless concept vehicle that, once the plans comes to fruition, will cook pies and deliver them straight to customers' doors. For some reason, the two companies designed this thing to look like a giant toaster on wheels instead of, say, a normal-looking car or truck that wouldn't scare the living daylights out of any innocent pedestrians or motorists in its path. The “e-Pallette,” as the vehicle is called, will reportedly debut in 2020. Pizza Hut's U.S. president Artie Starrs says it will allow his company to “define the pizza delivery experience of the future.”

In other displays at CES, tech enthusiasts gazed upon kitchen appliances with built-in tablets and Amazon Alexa connectivity, bottle openers attached to bluetooth speakers, and robots that both deliver beer and serve food and drink at the airport.

But the most interesting product may have been a countertop dishwasher that also boasts the ability to cook seafood: The Heatworks Tetra will be appreciated for its compact size and the ability to make its owners rationalize their living situations. If one has the ability to avoid washing dishes by hand and steam lobster in their own 350-square-foot home, things can't be too bad, right? Pair this with BuzzFeed's new single-burner smart induction cooktop, and anyone can transform an abode the size of Elaine Benes's cleaning-closet apartment into a professional restaurant kitchen.

Replacing old foods with new sensations

Those who are growing tired of the increasingly annoying marketing stunts and online personas cultivated by major fast-food brands will be wishing for simpler times if Soylent, a bottled solid-food replacement developed (and mostly consumed) by Silicon Valley tech bros, breaks into the mainstream. Despite a history of causing violent illnesses with its complex recipes, in February, chief executive officer Bryan Crowley proclaimed Soylent is “coming for fast food.” He went on to ominously say, “This isn't a tech product — when people see it, we want them to think about food.” While Crowley's goals are ambitious, it could be tough for Soylent to overcome the obstacle of being a product that people need reminding is food.

A more optimistic development in the science of eating came from New York City-based startup Analytical Flavor Systems, which in May revealed it is attempting to use artificial intelligence to create hyper-personalized flavors for snack foods. The company's Gastrograph AI platform aims to bring about “a day when we'll each have a Doritos of our own.” In addition to a whole new world of flavor, the future looks bright for the avocado, the berry that is so beloved by millennials and so loathed by mortgage lenders. In June, Apeel Sciences, a startup with backers that include billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates, announced it had found a way to keep avocados at peak ripeness for twice as long, a development that is expected to decrease food waste in supermarket produce sections. Maybe the future isn't doomed to be a dystopian nightmare, after all.

The robots are taking over

Or, maybe it is. At its I/O conference in May, Google unveiled AI technology that allows restaurants to use a robotic voice-answering service to take reservations, and the voice is so well done, it can trick diners into believing they're on the phone with a real person. The program is getting smarter and more intuitive with each reservation it takes, and it seems to be a safe bet high-powered executives will one day employ their own disembodied robotic voices to book tables at fancy restaurants. While we are reportedly still far away from an era of robots calling other robots on the phone, it doesn't take much imagination to jump to the end of the page and see what the inventor, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil termed as an age of spiritual machines, when technologies created by humans will evolve beyond human intelligence and begin to experience human emotions.