It has been a while since I posted. I’m done with the horrendous task of my final exams and my master’s dissertation. So, my days as a Christite are nearly over, and I can finally devote time to my eager audience.
I would like to begin by introducing my dissertation topic, titled “Food security and the COVID-19 Crisis: Raising food security levels and resilience since the outbreak. As many of you might have gathered from the title, my study analyses how food security was maintained and how resilience was created since the beginning of the pandemic at the household level. The purpose of my study was to analyse how the four pillars of food security (availability, accessibility, utilisation, and stability) were affected by the pandemic. During this process, I’ve come to the realisation that many of us have a very peripheral view of what food security is and what it means to be “food secure”. Primarily, when we talk about food security, we only think of the legal dimensions like policies and development programmes that should be formulated and implemented. We fail to recognise other important aspects that are key factors in understanding and addressing this matter.
I am pretty sure most of my readers have heard about the17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by all the United Nations member states in 2015. If you haven’t already, I’ll give you the gist of it : as per the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it is a unifying framework for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, both now and in the future. At their core, the SDGs are an urgent call to action by the developed and developing countries for a global partnership. Now, a lot has happened in the background for formulating this blueprint, beginning with the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and continuing through the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, but our main focus here is on the second SDG, which is Zero Hunger.
Have you guys heard of the butterfly effect? In its definition, it is “the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state” [1]. So to break it down, it means that an action or a change, however small it is, can have a significant effect in the future. This theory is closely related to the work of Edward Norton Lorenz, who gave the metaphorical example of the flaps of butterfly wings in one corner of the world adding up to a tornado in another corner of the world. The first person to ever mention this theory to me was my very dear friend, and the same person initiated the butterfly effect in my life by ghosting me (it was 2020, y’all. Don’t blame them one bit). But it worked wonders because the sudden emptiness in my life motivated me to take up the UN international online volunteering program, introducing me to sustainability, which in turn made me take up my master’s in sustainable development, which spiked my interest in food sustainability and security.
Now, growing up, food was one of the things that bothered me the least. I didn’t give much thought to what I ate, how it was made, or where it came from. But all of that changed once I started college and was away from home. I started noticing my food habits, the quality and access to food. During those three years, I have gone through many phases, from missing my amma’s cooking to excessively ordering from restaurants. Then came the issue of sustainability, and I have to say, YouTube has played a huge role in integrating my passion for food and sustainability. I started coming across youtubers mostly from villages in Asia flaunting their exquisite cuisines and colorful cultures. Now, whether these videos were genuine or staged, they really brought up the issue of food security. Because such influencers show only a small part of their vast country, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole population is secure in terms of food. This really puts a lot of things into perspective, like the accessibility, availability, variety, and utilization of food. All these things kept poking my brain, and I landed on my career path: to marry food and sustainability.
So on this platform, I’ll be sharing all my thoughts on food sustainability. I’ll share information on food variety, food security, and culture and history, which are all very important when it comes to sustainability. I’ll even share some of my favorite recipes with the foodies out there. I’m a firm believer that every single thing we do in our lives, no matter how big or small, will affect our future, just like the butterfly effect. So stay tuned for more blogs along the way, and I hope you have your butterfly effect soon if you haven’t already had one!
P.S if you’re wondering, yes, me and my friend are on good terms now (another butterfly miracle!).
Edible ideas 