New Delhi, India – Meena Chaudhary often visits the local market late in the evening when vendors are busy wrapping up makeshift stalls and vegetables are sold at throwaway prices. The quality is run-down but that hardly matters. It is one of the many tricks the 48-year-old homemaker uses to deal with soaring food prices.
In the Chaudhary family, diets have changed dramatically over the past two years. A litre of cooking oil is used with utmost caution so that it lasts about two weeks, halving consumption, milk is an occasional delicacy, and fruits and meats are out of reach. Even the humble egg has disappeared from the ever-shrinking menu.
