GAIN Working Paper n°54: Leveraging Food Culture in India to Promote Nutritious and Sustainable Food Preferences
- 09/07/2025
Food culture is often understood as the practices, beliefs, and traditions surrounding food and eating within a particular society or community. It encompasses various aspects of traditional dishes and recipes, culinary techniques and cooking methods, mealtime rituals, social aspects, and symbolism. Food culture in a critical factor shaping food choices by influencing eating and dietary norms and habitual behaviours. Given this, it is essential to clearly define the dimensions of food culture (particular to a country or region) if one is to seek to leverage its profound impact on individuals and communities. This working paper thus explores the multidimensional nature of food culture in India, emphasising its deep-rooted connections to cultural identity, social bonding, and wellbeing.
Science in Action: Why Science Must Lead Kenya’s Food Safety Agenda
Every morning in Nairobi’s informal settlements, thousands of mothers head to the local market, searching for fresh vegetables to feed their families. For many, affordability is a top concern—but so is safety. Mary, a mother of three, recalls the time her youngest fell ill after a meal of sukuma wiki (kales). The vegetables had looked fine, but invisible risks like pesticide residues or poor handling were the real culprits. Across the City, 27-year-old Joseph joins dozens of young men at a construction site, hoping to earn enough to make it through the week. With limited pay and rising costs of living, lunch often comes from a nearby kibanda—a roadside kiosk offering fast, affordable meals. It’s filling and convenient, but rarely is the question asked: Is the food safe?
From Maps to Action Strengthening Indonesia’s Food Security through an Enhanced Food Security and Vulnerability Atlas 2025 with Localized and Updated Indicators
- 16/06/2025
Indonesia’s 2025 update of its Food Security and Vulnerability Atlas (FSVA) marks a transformative leap in the nation’s commitment to building a resilient, data-driven food system. While the FSVA has been updated annually in previous years, the 2025 edition introduces major innovations, including the use of village-level data for over 83,000 villages, expanded sub-district analysis, and the integration of new composite indicators and predictive modeling. These advances enable the more precise identification of food-insecure areas, supporting targeted actions aligned with national priorities, such as reducing stunting, alleviating poverty, and promoting rural development. With these enhancements, FSVA 2025 strengthens Indonesia’s capacity to deliver evidence-based, locally tailored interventions across all levels of government.
Jack bean: A resilient legume to improve ‘tempeh security’ in Indonesia
Did you know that nearly 90% of soybeans (3 million tonnes) in Indonesia are still imported? Soybean is dominantly used to produce tempeh – a traditional food as one of the main plant protein sources with high nutritional value and has been consumed in Indonesia since the 16th century. The consumption of tempeh in Indonesia holds deep historical and cultural significance, yet ironically it currently relies on imported soybean from North and South America. GAIN Indonesia is currently working in 2 provinces on diversifying bean supply for tempeh production to increase resilience of tempeh production.
Indonesia’s Commitments at the N4G Summit 2025
- 09/06/2025
The Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit 2025 is set to be a defining global event, providing a vital platform for countries to reaffirm and strengthen their commitments toward ending all forms of malnutrition. This summit holds global significance as it seeks to accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly goals related to nutrition, health, and sustainable food systems. For Indonesia, the 2025 Summit represents an opportunity to build upon and deepen its commitments from previous summits, specifically targeting persistent challenges such as stunting, wasting, obesity, and anemia, while reinforcing systemic integration of nutrition within broader health and social protection frameworks.
World Food Safety Day 2025
Every year, unsafe food makes 600 million people sick and claims 420,000 lives – including 125,000 children under five (World Health Organization, 2015). These aren’t just numbers; they’re a call to action. At GAIN, we are using science and evidence to change this. For World Food Safety Day, we are spotlighting 10 ways we’ve advanced food safety over the past year.
Food Safety In Tanzania
- 03/06/2025
The food safety regulatory framework in Tanzania is characterized by the absence of a comprehensive, overarching policy framework dedicated solely to food safety. Instead, food safety governance is fragmented across various laws and regulations managed by different institutions each addressing specific aspects of food safety.