This Indian example shows how a local nutritionist can give people living with HIV ideas on how to eat better cheaply. Are there any organisations working on this issue in Myanmar?

What saddens me is all these quotes and references to foreign innovations and efforts towards nutrition for PLHIV. I mean we are a country of one billion people, full of amazing diversity and plentiful flora and fauna that give us the option of highly tasty, nutritious and indigenous diets thanks to our peoples' ingenuity. Just along a two hundred KM stretch on the Konkan coast starting from Bombay going down south to Goa, one can still find over twenty varieties of wild rice if one is really interested. During the heavy monsoon showers, there are wild vegetables like 'takla' and wild mushrooms all over the Ghats.
 
With this in mind, Humsafar Trust got its nutritionist Usha Kamdar to comb the bazaars and come up with cheap and nutritious diets. The result is a booklet called 'Eat Well and Stay Healthy' brought out by the Humsafar Trust's IEC Department. It describes in detail what  PLHIV or anybody who wishes to stay fit and fine should be knowing. For example, a simple investment in a good cheap thermos flask will allow you to carry boiled water with a little cumin (jeera) in it. This is extremely healthy and an excellent diuretic to flush out toxins from the kidneys. It is very common in Kerala to be served such warm cumin water even in the poorest eating houses.
 
We have asked small scale manufacturers to make powder from whey which is practically pure protein even for those who have lactic allergies common to Indians. This can save your life if you have any form of dysentery or diarrhea. All boiled, steaming food is practically sterile and one need not follow the habit of turning the tea cup around and holding it with the left hand in order to avoid drinking from the spot commonly used by others at tea-shops.
 
Usha has made a week-long diet with the common vegetables and fruit that are sold both seasonally or round the year in every Indian bazaar and you can do it too. Look for unpolished parboiled rice (ukdaa) and organic wheat. There is Indian wild millet in plenty like nachni and bajra which are enormous protein banks. Eat them by grinding them to flour, make chapattis or upma and stay healthy.
 
Then shop for the cheapest fruit and eat it in plenty after washing the fruit. It is a good habit to have fruit only for breakfast as it also helps digestion apart from the minerals, vitamins and nutrient value. Look for green and red vegetables. Fresh green beans of all kinds stir fried with light 'bagaar' (tempering) with mustard seeds and green chilies with minimal oil are great for nutritional value. Change them every day so that the stomach learns to adjust to these variegated healthy foods. Eat dalia (broken wheat or bulgar) boiled with whey and a little jaggery. It's simple yet amazingly tasty and lastly good for you.
 
Walk rather then take buses and see the huge range of naturally grown vegetables India is so rich in. Touch them and smell them before you buy them fresh. The different kinds of gourds -- bitter (karela), ridged(turiya) and snake (lauki) -- are by themselves a huge mine of protein and fiber. Use them liberally with moong dal to make tasty kichdis with small quantities of unpolished rice. And the number of pumpkins, cucumbers and gerkins (tondli) are legion. Eat them all year round for both roughage and proteins. Eat dahi more than whole milk. Rice payasam is easy to make and cheap. Learn to observe the poor who make chutneys from tamarind seeds, for example. Wild mint and coriander makes for absolutely wonderful chutney with raw mangoes rich in Vitamin C. And if you have a generous baker in your neighbourhood, then use different cereal dough to make your own bread. Many bakers charge you a small sum to use their huge ovens. So experiment with dough of nachni and broken dalia or barley and millet breads.
 
Vary your diet and be free. And share it with everyone around you. Sharing your food is like eating from a million mouths. When you see healthy people around you, you too will be healthy and we can all move forward together as a healthy nation. As the ancient Sanskrit prayer goes : "Om Sahana Vavatu, Saha Nau Bhunaktu, Saha Viryam Karavavahai..." (Om, Let us sit together. Let us eat together and Let us do Brave Acts Together).
 
Yes Indeed!
 
Ashok Row Kavi,
Humsafar Trust,
Mumbai Metro
 

This is a cross-posting from the Solution Exchange for AIDS Community in India at aids-se@groups.solutionexchange-un.net.in
For more information on Solution Exchange visit www.solutionexchange-un.net.in