Between Tradition and Taste: Rethinking Festival Food Practices and the Growing Presence of Non-Vegetarian Diets in Contemporary India

With the fast spread of globalization and Western influence, India’s food culture has changed a lot. Today, Indian festival food traditions often clash with Western ways of eating. Indian food customs have long been shaped by ideas of ritual purity, local conditions, and deep cultural rules about eating plants and animals. Ancient texts and regional cooking, like Ayurveda, focus on eating what’s in season, being moderate, and separating pure from impure foods during holy times. But new studies show Indian diets are slowly moving from mostly plants to more mixed diets with eggs, chicken, fish, and meat especially in cities, among young people, and those moving up in society. Studies on food rules show that these customs change with social life, the economy, and markets; they don’t stay the same forever. Health research also shows people often eat more animal foods at celebrations, which can raise heart and metabolic risks, linking culture and health changes. With all this, festival foods in India are clearly changing. Urban life, higher incomes, moving across regions, more food choices, and changing youth cultures are all reshaping how festival meals are seen and enjoyed. Non-vegetarian foods, once mostly avoided during festivals in many groups, are now becoming signs of wealth, joy, and modern taste. This new trend shows not just a change in nutrition, but also a quiet shift in ideas about ritual and purity. This study puts these changes in context using theories from anthropology and cultural studies to look at how food rules are being questioned and reimagined. By looking at how ideas of purity, social change, and taste mix together, this paper argues that changes in festival foods are a good way to see how Indian food identities are slowly being lost and reinvented today.

food culture, deep culture, Ayurveda, metabolic risks

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