ABSTRACT

India, with its wide range of physical, cultural and economic conditions and food production, offers a large variety of diet preferences which not only vary with age, sex, religion, caste and economic conditions in the same area, but which also vary from place to place producing distinct regional dietary patterns. This chapter analyzes the nature of dietary pattern and related diseases and examines the influence of Hindu vegetarianism on the intake of animal protein and the related protein malnutrition problem in India. India has an excellent record, covering several years, of diet surveys conducted by the Nutritional Research Laboratories and some state public health agencies. Among the malnutrition and dietary deficiency problems, protein malnutrition is most serious and widespread in India. Scarcely any relationship exists between the vegetarianism practiced by Hindus in India and the consumption of meat, fish and eggs and protein malnutrition.