No
sorry for clumsy attempt, but you were claiming that some people can't afford the expensive alternatives to meat and I was trying to ask you if you think that was the only option and what do you think those in other countries where those alternatives are not available/widely available eat
But this isn't recognising the vast differences between the two situations... Yes, it's not true that rural poor are necessarily eating crap food. What they may well be doing is practicing subsistence agriculture; i.e eating what they can grow with little or no surplus for sale. That means that you might be getting a reasonable diet, but it's also obviously very precarious (flooding, drought, changing land use, pollution etc). And it means a significant labour investment in processing what you grow for food. If they're not doing that, they may have very poor diets - malnourishment is a huge problem in India. Afaik that has to do with conversion of land from traditional, more protein rich crops (lentils, alongside more rice varietals etc) to monoculture of higher yielding rice strains. And, as mentioned, vegetarianism in India is lacto vegetarianism, to the extent that it's reflected in higher rates of lactase persistence in areas with high levels of vegetarianism.
This contrasts with the situation in the west where poverty can be associated with food deserts... So a more built up area but with very limited access to shops that sell things like cheap fresh fruit and veg. That doesn't mean no access to food, just means you might have a corner shop and some takeaways; chicken shop etc. Actually means people spending more for poorer diets. For fairly obvious reasons this is particularly bad in the US.
Food deserts aren't super common in the UK, I think they affect around a million people, but even then you have other problems. Fresh fruit and veg in the UK is not actually particularly cheap, especially when you factor in preparation time and having to shop regularly. Many other countries you'll have producers bringing their goods directly to markets (or with very few steps between), so you're only really paying farm labour (very low wages), and maybe a couple of levels of markup. Whereas in the west, UK particularly, you're paying supermarket shareholders, shipping, processing, storage, wastage, more labour etc. Of course that applies to meat too... But that's not really what we're talking about here. What is significant is how cheaply someone can buy the required calories to keep them and their families going within a certain time/transport budget. And the people who decide that in the UK are the supermarkets.
So when you say 'but in India...', the answer is just that it's a fundamentally different situation. Not comparable at all. Give people more time, subsidise high protein plant crops, spices etc. Give them cookery classes, fix their kitchens up. Open more local markets with prices reflecting producer costs rather than supermarket markups and processing. More localism in food production. The kind of stuff
Funky_monks has posted about on this thread.
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