Exploring Veggie Deficiency in Indonesian Diets

My family's meal are predictably heavy on carbs and proteins. Which sadly leaves veggies as our last choice. But it's OK because we're not alone. It's a national trend in Indonesia.

Oct 09, 2023

Halo and happy Monday everyone!

The idea for today’s newsletter came from my own family’s dinner table, where I noticed that we were not eating enough veggies. Which quickly pushed me further down the rabbit hole to dig some trends and stats, just to make me feel like my family is not the only one (we’re not).

You’ll be reading about:

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 A story of my family's food habits. Our simple food choices, meal rotations, and of course the limited veggie options.

📊 How Indonesians are consuming less than half the recommended daily serving of veggies.

🗣 Challenges that contribute to the said low veggie consumption. Affordability, food distribution, lack of awareness. It’s more complex than I thought.

📝 Tips that you can do to eat more veggies!

Oh to be a blue water jug with a yellow flower print surrounded by chicken satays and grilled fish. (Illustration by damdampops)

My family is not a foodie. They don’t really like to try new food nor do they like to explore new ingredients – which actually makes our food choices super easy most of the time. Every time we go out to eat together, we would simply just choose between the three places we always go to - it’s either the sate (satay) place, the bubur (congee) place, or the mie (noodle) place. We also have these meal rotations in our home. A cumulation of food that my parents have been eating since they were a child, that would reset itself every six to seven days as it doesn’t really have that much variety to begin with.

Meals in my family are heavily centered around protein and carbs - probably because they’re the ones that make you full the quickest.

As a true Indonesian, we would always have steamed white rice for each of our meals as it just makes sense. It’s the perfect vehicle to soak all types of liquid – from a clear egg drop soup to a rich and coconutty opor broth. Not to mention that it’s also a neutral, rather bland, but great contender to take on the more intense rendang spices.

We’re also quite flexible with our protein. Since I’m the only pescatarian in my house, most days I eat plant-based protein like tofu and tempe (a fermented soybean cake). I would usually just fry or sautée them with a simple kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) while the rest of my family have their chicken or occasionally beef. Only when they’re having fish and seafood we would then have the same protein for that day.

However, after paying attention to what we eat at home, I realized that my family is not big on veggies.

I started to notice this when on most days, I would see more than one protein option yet zero veggies on our table. It could be a mix of plant-based and animal proteins like salt and pepper tofu and ayam geprek, or both plant-based proteins like tahu isi and fried tempe. But then, there would be no veggies. Even if there are veggies, the amount is ridiculously small.

I know I said before that I’m a tiny and petite guy (I’m not), but I’m not that tiny to the point where I would feel enough to share a bowl of stir-fried kangkung with another three people. Because immediately after everyone took their share, it honestly looked more like a garnish than an actual component of the meal with each one of us probably getting just a tablespoon worth of kangkung.

It’s not that we can’t afford veggies. We do. In fact, we have plenty. We always have carrots, cabbages, and occasionally some unidentified greens like bok choy or choy sum in the fridge; which I usually just quickly steam if I feel like I haven’t eaten enough veggies. It’s just that in my house, veggies are seen as a complementary part of the meal and not the main. It’s a ‘nice to have’ and not a ‘must to have’.

This situation makes me question: Does anyone out there also share a bowl of kangkung with the rest of their family? Is it really the norm to eat these few veggies?

Turns out, it’s not only me. A 2016 survey from Statistics Indonesia shows that Indonesians are not eating enough veggies.

On average, Indonesians eat 173 grams of fruits and veggies a day whilst the daily recommended amount by the Indonesian Ministry of Health is 400 grams. That’s 43% of the recommended amount or even less than half! Compared to our neighboring countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesians are far from on par - with an average Vietnamese and Laotian person eating 476 grams and 578 grams of veggies on a daily basis (Our World in Data, 2020).

My initial guess as to what makes Indonesians not eat enough veggies is because of the rising prices of all commodities. It’s the only thing that we talked about in the last few years when we talked about food - that prices went crazy.

This is somewhat true because if we take a look at the same 2016 survey by Statistics Indonesia, we can see that veggie consumption among people in the highest expenditure decile (ED) is significantly higher than those in the lowest ED (68% vs. 25% of the daily recommended amount).

💡 An expenditure decile indicates how much people within that group is spending. One decile represents 10% of the population, with Decile 1 being the group with the lowest expenses and Decile 10 being the group with the highest expenses.

This makes sense because, of course, the more money you have = the easier for you to get food. But a quick deeper look into the statistics revealed that higher ED does not necessarily mean that you’re eating enough veggies. In fact, regardless of the ED, none of us, from the lowest to the highest, consumed a sufficient amount of veggies.

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If these patterns are consistent throughout all economic classes, this issue is more than just a class issue.

In 2015, Indonesia’s Ministry of Health launched a new program called Pedoman Gizi Seimbang (A Guideline for a Balanced Nutrition) that campaigns on the importance of having balanced nutrition in each of our meals.

I honestly just heard it recently, which is why I decided to make a TikTok video of this to help raise awareness of the program. By the time this essay was being written, the video had more than 80,000 views and 100 comments. These are what my followers have to say about it:

“I knew about it when I first started my diet plan. Everyone always says that I don’t eat enough rice despite that it’s actually the balanced meal that was recommended”

“I’m today year’s old when I know about this”.

“I learnt this two years ago because I major in nutrition. I don’t think I’ll be aware of this if it weren’t for my uni”.

These comments made me realize that people’s awareness of the importance of a balanced meal is rather mixed. Most Indonesians (well, my Indonesian followers) are unaware of the recommended nutrition, and even if they do, they’re either those people who intentionally follow a diet plan or those who study health-related majors. I guess what Dodik Briawan, a professor from Bogor Institute of Agricultural said is true, that most Indonesians still have the mindset that eating’s main purpose is just to be full and that they don’t really pay attention to its composition. Another study even says that only less than 20% of Indonesian teenagers eat a nutritionally diverse meal.

I would argue that on top of awareness, accessibility is the main barrier that makes Indonesians eat very few veggies.

It’s a shame that even though we are abundant with many types of veggies, most Indonesians would probably eat the same kind of veggies all week long. I said to myself, “Maybe these people are just like my family”. Maybe they just close themselves to the rest of the veggie world, and they chose not to try different kinds of veggies because they liked what they always had. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that the way food is distributed is inseparable from the market’s demand, which eventually affects its availability. A follower of mine who lived in a regional area opened my eyes with this comment:

“I swear, it’s always the same veggies in my local market. It’s always kangkung, spinach, and choy sum. It’s very rare to see veggies like broccoli, bell pepper, or even lemon. You need to go to the mall for that because no one eats that in my area”.

To make matters worse, the quality of our veggies is prone to be compromised due to the lack of infrastructure for food distribution. Let’s remember that Indonesia is a huge country with hundreds of islands. Problems like long transit, inadequate technology, and bad storage processes are ongoing issues in Indonesia’s food distribution.

I wouldn’t say that the quality of veggies here is that bad. It’s just that eating them raw would not be my first option. Maybe that’s also why salad is not a thing here when turning veggies into a stir-fry or a soup makes them 100x more enjoyable

OK. Now, let’s focus on ways that we can actually do to eat more veggies, from an Indonesian:

🍽 Keep it up and add it up: An improvement doesn’t need to be perfect the first time around. Don’t aim for 400 grams of daily veggies when what you usually eat in a day is a single carrot. Also, don’t let go of your weekly fried rice dose for a salad just so that you can feel good. Instead, keep your current eating pattern and add veggies slowly. Think of adding a side salad after your meal or a green smoothie for your afternoon pickups.
🍜 Mix it up: Do you have a favorite veggie? Maybe tomato even though it’s actually a fruit? Try putting them in your favorite recipe even if that means having a bowl of tomato rice (it’s actually a thing).
🙌 Own it up: Have you ever felt bad for eating bakwan jagung (fried corn fritters)? Good news, you don’t have to! I personally believe that there is no such thing as ‘good food’ or ‘bad food’ for our bodies. Honestly, it’s time for us stop to demonizing certain foods like fried food. If eating fried food makes you eat more veggies, own it up.
👀 Look it up: It’s crazy how obvious this tip is: look at the menu’s veggies section! You would be surprised to see just how many veggie options could be on a menu, especially when what you did before was to only focus on the other section. I happened to find my favorite veggie dish by accident, it’s terong raos - crispy fried eggplant in a sweet and savory sauce) when I visited this Sundanese restaurant in Bandung despite that it’s known for its fish and seafood dishes.

While awareness and accessibility play a part, maybe it's time we change things up. Eating isn't just about filling up; it's about savoring flavors while also getting the nutrients that we need. So whether it's a crisp salad, a hearty stir-fry, or some crispy fried eggplant, let's celebrate veggies in our meals and give them the leading role.

What’s your favorite way to eat more veggies? Comment down below!