For many members of the South Indian community, dosa is a classic example of a comfort food. Similar to a crepe, the dish is made from a batter of fermented rice and urad dal (uncovered black lentils), then spread onto a pan and lightly fried until golden brown and crispy. Despite being rich in protein, vitamins and iron, you likely wouldn’t see dosa promoted as a healthy food on nutrition-based Instagram accounts.
In the era of social media, many of us turn to Instagram and TikTok for nutritional information and recipe inspiration — one survey found that over 70% of adults turn to social media for recipes. But for those of us whose For You Pages are filled with content creators like Gena Hamshaw, May Zhu and Mariah Knight, students who primarily eat ethnic food at home often don’t see the foods we eat daily reflected on these accounts. But when the purpose of several of these accounts is to present vegan or lower-calorie modifications to everyday food, their benefits are ineffective to many students of color. After all, how does swapping spaghetti for zucchini fulfill our dietary requirements or desires if we don’t even eat spaghetti often?
Whether hastily making instant ramen or microwaving a meal from the frozen section, the first time many of us will start routinely cooking for ourselves will be in college. For those who prioritize having a balanced diet, it is easy to lose touch with their culture when the media only presents a whitewashed range of foods that do not showcase cultural ingredients or spices as healthy. Transforming one’s diet can be stressful, and we should not have to sacrifice cultural foods and flavors in the name of eating healthy.
Healthy recipes on these nutritional accounts are often inaccessible to the 80.7% of MVHS students who primarily eat ethnic food at home, especially if they rely on their parents to cook for them. For MVHS students who use vastly different ingredients and flavors in their diets, adding these foods to their everyday menu can be unrealistic.
Furthermore, making food we see online isn’t a bad thing — many influencers dedicate their platforms to creating delicious vegan-friendly and gluten-free dishes and helping people with these dietary requirements eat better. But ultimately, we shouldn’t have to qualify the search term “healthy food” with the words “ethnic” or “cultural” to find the representation we want. 
We should not have to feel pressured to give up the ethnic foods we love in the name of eating “healthier” food, especially because ethnic foods can be just as healthy. For example, saag paneer, a North Indian dish made of paneer — Indian cheese — and leafy greens like spinach and mustard leaves, is packed with protein and fiber. Tandoori chicken, a form of grilled chicken, is protein-rich and does not contain excessive amounts of oil or fats.
Food can be an integral part of many of our lives and is an important way to connect with our cultures and communities. Modeling healthy eating for students with a diverse range of foods is the first step to teaching us how to feed ourselves, which FUHSD Nutrition Services already does a good job with by creating a diverse lunch menu, with foods like Chicken Tikka Masala on the weekly rotation. Furthermore, integrating education on cultural dishes into existing curricula can offer students far more benefits than what diversifying our Instagram feeds to include content creators who cook cultural dishes can do.
It is imperative that we teach students how to eat healthy without sacrificing cultural foods, and a perfect course to do that is in the Ethnic Studies course. Teaching students how to cook cultural dishes, resources they can use to find diverse recipes, and, most importantly, how to share and receive recipes from other cultures can give students the guidance they need to preserve the food that is familiar to them.
While this course is taught to freshmen, it might be more effective for seniors to take the course to best prepare them for college. In addition to increased efficacy, this would also alleviate some of the stress of declining enrollment in prerequisite elective courses such as Writing for Publication or Drama as a result of mandated courses.
Ultimately, food is an integral part of our cultures — the flavors and ingredients we cook with inform our understanding of our heritages and allow us to connect with others around us. As we become increasingly responsible for our own nutrition, it is imperative that we internalize that having a balanced diet and preserving our cultural values are not mutually exclusive. We must take charge and find the resources we need to learn about our cultural dishes — whether through school or by diversifying our social media feeds — so that we can continue to eat the food we love.
