India
Work with the Akshaya Patra Foundation, a PVO that feeds nearly one million children with a soy-enhanced midday meal, continued and expanded in 2009 with NSRL also offering technical assistance with extrusion for soy snacks.
Efforts continued with the Madhya Pradesh government to design low cost, high-protein soy snacks for incorporation into their Mid-Day Meal program and Aganwaddi (pre-school/kindergarten) system. Madhya Pradesh is the largest soy producing state in India but is also, sadly, the state with the highest childhood malnutrition rates. NSRL is working to connect those two statistics to yield soy-based solutions
More than 680,000 School Children Fed Soyfoods in India
WISHH and NSRL are helping the Akshaya Patra Foundation, a non-governmental organization, feed soy-enhanced school lunches to more than 680,000 children. This highly successful program incorporates soy flour and textured soy protein into existing Indian dishes that the children know and enjoy. The addition of the soy protein supplies one-third of the children’s daily protein needs. In many cases, the knowledge that the children will be receiving the hot lunches has encouraged parents to send their children to school.
In the Bangalore region of India, ISCKON, a local non-governmental organization, is using 18 tons of soy-based lentil analog every month. WISHH, through its partnership with the University of Illinois’ National Soybean research Lab, is providing support for this program.
