Given six cents per kid and some rice and wheat, is it really possible to make a healthy, balanced school meal?
Not everything goes smoothly, however. According to the kitchen manager who showed me around, the cooks can't predict exactly how many kids they'll be feeding on a given day. Beans have to start soaking the day before, and cooking starts at midnight. That means they can't respond quickly to rainstorms that keep a large number of kids at home. Although the leftovers would probably be safe to serve to humans, they're instead given to piggeries. This seemed like a strange choice for a Hare Krishna organization operating in a city in which few people eat pork, but it frees the Foundation from liability in case of food becomes contaminated after being served.
Avoiding the potential for scandals is part of ISKCON's effort to keep its reputation pristine in the sometimes-controversial school meal effort. (Other NGOs, schools, and teachers have all been accused of stealing grains and meals.) ISKCON's kitchen meets the highest sanitary standards, and even has an effluent treatment plant of the kind usually seen in fancy hotels. Each metal canister of dal or rice is double-checked before it’s loaded onto the trucks, and is sent back if the ziptie holding it closed is broken.
Seeing the impressive operation--and sampling the delicious halwa in the kitchen--made me eager to head to Delhi’s Gurdwara Bangla Sahib kitchen tonight. This Sikh temple feeds 10,000 visitors a day for free!
The ISKCON Food Relief Foundation has turned this daunting challenge—the Indian government’s mandate that states provide kids with cooked meals—into a modern “stone soup” story:
- The central Indian government provides rice, wheat, and about six cents per child to cover other ingredients and charges. (For context, the US National School Lunch Program reimburses an average of $2.68 per child.)
- Former businessmen voluntarily manage the operations and serve on the Foundation Board of Directors.
- Corporations like Tata and Indian Oil give land, money, and food delivery vehicles, amounting to up about half the program’s total funding.
- Individuals donate on the phone or in the workplace.
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| Steam powers the rice boilers on the left. Kidney beans cook in the vat on the right. |
Preparing all those meals requires a truly massive kitchen. The ISKCON kitchen I visited was their biggest, serving 352 Delhi schools. Walking in between rows of cauldrons, each holding 100 kg of boiling rice, and 600L vats of cooking beans, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the scale.
Kids get a different meal every day of the week. Menus are set by the central government to provide 450 calories and 13g of protein per child, and attempt to accommodate the diverse culinary traditions of India. In South India, all meals are rice-based (rice and dal, for example). In Central India, where wheat is the staple grain, they’re wheat-based. The Delhi kitchen caters to both rice- and wheat-eaters, so meals are rice-based three days a week and wheat-based the other three. Since most of the children reached by the program don’t get two square meals a day, the menu includes fried bread (poori) for extra calories.
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Machine churning out 20,000 pooris (fried Indian flatbreads) an hour. |
Kids get a different meal every day of the week. Menus are set by the central government to provide 450 calories and 13g of protein per child, and attempt to accommodate the diverse culinary traditions of India. In South India, all meals are rice-based (rice and dal, for example). In Central India, where wheat is the staple grain, they’re wheat-based. The Delhi kitchen caters to both rice- and wheat-eaters, so meals are rice-based three days a week and wheat-based the other three. Since most of the children reached by the program don’t get two square meals a day, the menu includes fried bread (poori) for extra calories.
Not everything goes smoothly, however. According to the kitchen manager who showed me around, the cooks can't predict exactly how many kids they'll be feeding on a given day. Beans have to start soaking the day before, and cooking starts at midnight. That means they can't respond quickly to rainstorms that keep a large number of kids at home. Although the leftovers would probably be safe to serve to humans, they're instead given to piggeries. This seemed like a strange choice for a Hare Krishna organization operating in a city in which few people eat pork, but it frees the Foundation from liability in case of food becomes contaminated after being served.
Avoiding the potential for scandals is part of ISKCON's effort to keep its reputation pristine in the sometimes-controversial school meal effort. (Other NGOs, schools, and teachers have all been accused of stealing grains and meals.) ISKCON's kitchen meets the highest sanitary standards, and even has an effluent treatment plant of the kind usually seen in fancy hotels. Each metal canister of dal or rice is double-checked before it’s loaded onto the trucks, and is sent back if the ziptie holding it closed is broken.
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| Lugging a giant cauldron of dal to the wash area. |
That poori machine is awesome! I bet I could eat 20,000 pooris an hour.
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