Why Kashmir Rejects the Global Breakfast Menu

Despite the cereal boom and croissant craze, India's diverse breakfast traditions-from Kashmir's czot to Maharashtra’s poha—stand strong against globalised food fads.

- By Seema Sangra

Most of us have grown up hearing the famous quote by American nutritionist Adele Davis: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”

Davis, a prominent advocate of natural foods in the 1930s, also criticised the food industry for promoting unhealthy habits through misleading advertising.

That problem continues even today, as the U.S. remains among the most obese nations globally.

But her prescription for a heavy breakfast isn’t universally echoed across cultures. In fact, Ayurveda suggests the opposite: Don’t eat like a king in the morning.

Across the world, breakfast was never a formal meal. Some languages, like Kashmiri and Dogri, don’t even have a direct word for it.

In many Indian regions, traditional eating patterns revolve around one or two main meals a day, with little to no emphasis on an early morning meal.

In most traditional societies, there was no separate menu for different meals. People ate the same types of food at different times, and meal patterns varied widely by region and social class.

Historically, Asian peasants often ate two main meals: a late morning meal and an early supper.