Fast Food Onslaught On Culinary Culture

Fast food chains have launched an onslaught on our traditional food habits, especially of our youth. Healthy eating behaviours should be kindled during childhood by fostering a feeling of pride in our local food culture and by promoting their health benefits

- Suresh Kumar C

"One pizza a month,” reads a wedding contract signed by newlyweds of Assam in their midtwenties. Mintu Rai, 25, married his college sweetheart and “a pizza freak" 24-year-old Shanti Prasad in June 2022 and the 16second video of the bride and the groom signing the piece of paper has been viewed 45 million times on Instagram, reads a report in the BBC news portal on July 17 this year.

The story also quotes Raghav Thakur, the couple's friend and the brain behind the surprise wedding contract. "She takes it as a joke. She keeps complaining that she's put on 3-4 kg in the past few years, but I don't think that she's really serious about cutting down on her pizza consumption," he says, laughing.

He's right, says Shanti, and adds, "We've already had pizzas twice since the wedding and it's only been two weeks.”

It is easy to laugh and shrug off the above anecdote, but in reality, it is no laughing matter. It speaks volumes about how fast food has seeped into Indian culture and has altered the eating habits of our future - our youth. It also tells us about the addictive nature of fast foods and the link between fast food and weight gain or obesity.

Such a radical change in the eating habits of a population is a clear sign of a cultural loss leading to the complete desertion of culinary traditions. Across the nation, millions, perhaps billions, are currently developing tastes that will sustain for the rest of their lives - one of the great American conquests of our time. McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, and other stereotypical American fast-food chains stay popular and their offerings go very well with the modern lifestyle of Indians. All of the top 10 fast-food brands in the world have their roots in the US.