[Stoves] News: Feeding the poor to save their lives by modern cooking

Traveller miata98 at gmail.com
Thu Dec 8 01:19:25 CST 2016


 Chennai shuts, but Amma Canteens feed the hungry
<http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/Chennai-shuts-but-Amma-Canteens-feed-the-hungry/article16769683.ece>
, The Hindu 7 December 2016

Jayalalithaa - a Tamil movie actress who went on to become a corrupt but
populist Chief Minister of the state of Tamil Nadu died a few days ago. One
of her signature pro-poor initiative was Mother's Canteens, (in Tamil Amma
Unavagam <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amma_Unavagam>, also commonly known
as Amma Canteens). BBC had a story - Amma canteen: Where an Indian meal
costs only seven cents <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36659670> 4
July 2016, and NYT reported a long time back In Tamil Nadu, Politics Meets
Idli
<http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/tamil-nadu-chief-minister-provides-cheap-food-to-help-win-voters/?_r=0>
s
<http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/tamil-nadu-chief-minister-provides-cheap-food-to-help-win-voters/?_r=0>
 7 May 2013  on this program "aimed at the poor to provide nutritious,
wholesome, cheap food.

The news item today claims "Most of the Amma Canteens in the State are in
Chennai. But overall they serve an estimated 3 lakh (300,000 - ND) people
every day. A meal costs Rs 5 and idlis come at Rs. 1 a piece. Even push
cart vendors cannot afford to reduce the price of idlis to less than Rs.4 a
piece."

I am happy to report - or rant, as Ron would complain - that over the last
three years, Jayalalithaa's Amma Canteens, burning LPG instead of biomass,
has protected 500,000 trees, plus prevented 90,000 premature deaths (from
reduced pollution as well as better, safer nutrition, usually to the
needy).

I think that is more than the celebrated "stove science" of Ron Larson can
claim in a comparable period.

Anil Rajvanshi had the right idea -- the working poor don't have the luxury
of cooking fresh, nutritious meals every day.

Contextually speaking, mass cooking (subsidized or not) and collective
kitchens, make a lot more sense in the growing urban areas of the poor
countries.

There will always be some poor with the luxury of entertaining luxurious
"scientists".

Bluntly put, the claims of "dirty cooking" killing 4 million people
annually and the promises of saving such people by 100 million clean
cookstoves (most, no thanks to GACC), are plain lies.

Nikhil
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