Indians smoking less, eating more chicken

An NSSO report shows that more Indians are now eating chicken instead of red meat and smoking a lot lesser, reports Aloke Tikku.

Health-conscious and price-sensitive Indians prefer chicken to red meat. They are also smoking a lot less.

HT Image

These trends, says the latest National Sample Survey Organisation report released on Monday, are true of both urban and rural India. Between 1993 and 2004, the proportion of households consuming chicken increased threefold in urban areas, and two-and-a-half times in villages. “The per capita consumption of chicken has outstripped that of goat meat and mutton,” says the report for 2004-05.

The report shows a decline in the number of smokers. The per capita cigarette consumption in urban areas has fallen by 30 per cent since 1993-94. The proportion of households with beedi smokers has declined across both rural and urban areas, by 26 and 35 per cent respectively.

Confirming the trend of people opting for readymade clothes, the report says the money spent on getting clothes stitched has fallen by one-fourth in rural areas and by one-third in urban areas.

But one feature has not changed since 1993 — the percentage of households in urban and rural areas that had eaten an apple in the four weeks preceding the survey. This figure was still three times higher for urban households than for rural ones.