Capturing diversity and cultural drivers of food choice in eastern India
Indian cuisine is known for its complexity and diversity. Despite the improvements in availability and accessibility of food choices in India, the country is still known for poor nutrition status. Culture plays a significant role in driving food choice, but these cultural drivers are poorly understood. To begin to understand these drivers of food choice in two eastern Indian states, the gastronomic systems research framework was applied; an expert elicitation workshop was conducted in each state (West Bengal and Odisha).
These experts included nutritionists, home scientists, restaurant owners, and chefs. Nutritional analyses of dishes identified in West Bengal were further conducted. Data generated from these activities were analysed and visualised using Python. Head over to the wiki section for more details about the data analyses.
The findings from this study were published in 2020 scientific paper entitled Capturing diversity and cultural drivers of food choice in eastern India.