Photo by Biswarajan Rout

In the fall of 2008 I travelled from Delhi to Turin, Italy to participate in Terra Madre, Slow Food’s conference that happens every few years and brings together food artisans, activists and many others concerned about safeguarding and promoting all aspects of food cultures from around the world. There I met some of the Slow Food Canada contingent, one of them being Lulu Cohen-Farnell of Real Food for Real Kids (check them out as they are doing great work with school lunches in Toronto). She told me about an article that she had recently read about a group of monks in India feeding schoolchildren in different states throughout India. Upon my return I found the article online and read that the foundation was called Akshaya Patra and it originated and was associated with the ISKCON temple in Bangalore. I was unable to visit any of their cooking centres until a few years later on a trip to the city of Puri, in the eastern state of Orissa. Here is an article, with a photo slideshow, I wrote about their school lunch program for the online website Zester Daily.