Cooking and caregiving are inseparable, because food is one of the most intimate forms of care. Every meal prepared carries with it an act of sustaining life, of saying “I see you, I want you well.” That’s why the kitchen is such a central space in families and communities – it’s one of the most powerful places to feel belonging and connection.
The paradox, however, is that while society depends on this labour, it’s often invisible and undervalued. We naturalise the idea that women, especially mothers, will always be the ones to nourish, even when it comes at a cost to their own health, whether physical, emotional, material or spiritual. Who nourishes the mother? Care can’t be a one-way street. Mothers, caregivers, and community and school cooks all need to be cared for, fed, and supported.
That’s why I believe that Brazil’s National School Feeding Programme (PNAE), which feeds more than 50 million children per day, is not just a food and health public policy, but also a care policy. A parent who has a child in school will know that the child is being well fed by great cooks, with healthy food. It’s a way the State can take the pressure off parents and care for them too.
We can say a lot with food
It was my work as a host on a TV cookery show, from 2015 onwards, that inspired me to embrace activism on policies like this. Travelling around Brazil to learn more about food culture, I understood something very clearly: not everyone has the same opportunity to eat well. Healthy, fresh, culturally meaningful food is not equally accessible.
This realisation was a turning point for me – the contrast between the art of cooking as a source of health and joy, and the injustice of its unequal access. I felt that I couldn’t just keep showing people healthy recipes on TV, but I had to embrace the mission of democratising healthy food, transforming the systems that decide who gets to eat with dignity and who doesn’t.
Good food can reduce inequalities and save lives. Brazil is facing a silent epidemic of non communicable diseases that are linked to lifestyles and diet. The worse the diet, the greater the risk: 150 people between the ages of 30 and 69 die every day in Brazil as a result of excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods.[1] So, cooking real, homemade, traditional foods has become a powerful act to care for everyone.
Nilson, E.A.F., Ferrari, G., Louzada, M.L.C., Levy, R.B., Monteiro, C.A. and Rezende, L.F.M. (2022) Premature deaths attributable to the consumption of ultraprocessed foods in Brazil. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 64(1):129–36. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2022.08.013
Food does more than feed families
My family life inspired my activism. Growing up, food was never just nourishment – it was an expression of culture and love. Watching my father, Gilberto Gil, the renowned Brazilian singer-songwriter and politician, I learned early on that art and political engagement can intertwine to create change.
Still, I was struck by the contrast between being pregnant and being a mother. I loved being pregnant. I even joke that I could live pregnant forever if it weren’t for the consequences of having a bunch of kids running around. For me, pregnancy was maybe the first time I felt, as a woman in the world, that there was any real advantage to being a woman. People respect you differently; you don’t walk around with the same fear of being harassed, abused, or violated. There’s a kind of shield around you, and that feels powerful.
But once the baby is born, the reality shifts. I always tell my friends: when you have a newborn, you don’t need ten people offering to hold the baby. What you actually need is someone to help you with the household chores – wash the dishes, cook a pot of beans, fold the laundry. That’s the kind of support that actually allows you to rest, to bond, and to care with presence.
In many Brazilian families, especially in the North and Northeast, cooking is a multigenerational act. A parent might be busy working, but the grandma steps in, preparing some traditional foods, not just feeding the children, but also nurturing a sense of intergenerational cultural continuity.
That transmission lightens the load on parents and reassures them that their children are cared for within a cultural context that honours identity. When a grandmother teaches her grandchild how to season beans, she’s not only passing on a recipe, she’s creating a bridge from one generation to the next that supports both the caregiver and the child.
How food gathers community
In the quilombos, rural settlements that were originally established by Africans who escaped from slavery, and Indigenous villages, preparing food is often collective. Everyone contributes – some harvest, some cook, others serve. These practices distribute the work of care, preventing it from falling on one individual, usually the mother.
Collective cooking builds bonds of solidarity – think of a feijoada (the famous Brazilian black bean stew) cooked in a community centre, or a big group of people preparing pamonha (a dish made from corn) at the Festas Juninas (Saint John’s festivities). Parents see that they are not alone; their children are growing within a supportive circle.
Unfortunately these practices are diminishing due to lack of time, the high price of fresh food, greater access to processed foods, and fear of violence on the street. We need to create more shared caregiving spaces around food, yet lack of resources and cultural barriers are significant challenges.
Community kitchens, school meals, or family rituals need time, space and ingredients. In contexts of food insecurity, sustaining these spaces can be very difficult without public policy support. In urban families, with long working hours and commutes, finding time for shared meals or collective cooking can feel like a luxury. In Brazil, collective cooking is very often seen as welfarism or something intended only for the poor, rather than as a dignified practice of solidarity and culture. Changing this perception is essential. And even in collective spaces, it’s common for the burden to fall disproportionately on women – so we have to avoid the risk of reproducing the same gendered imbalance we’re trying to transform.
Every parent needs to feed their child, multiple times a day. That act can be either a source of stress and inequality – when there’s no access to healthy, affordable food – or a foundation of wellbeing. Policies that do not address this miss what parenting looks like in practice. Food has to be central in any government policy that truly supports parents, because food is the secret ingredient that ties together health, education, economy and care.
Kichari and greens
A recipe from Bela Gil
During my early years of motherhood, my favourite food was kichari. I have to thank my dear friend Pablo for introducing me to this traditional Indian dish, which became more than a meal for me, it was a ritual of balance and care. Any time I felt bad, either emotionally or physically, I would soak some split mung beans and cook some white basmati rice to prepare kichari. I have a joyful memory of being in my kitchen, very pregnant, stirring a pot of kichari slowly while the smell of cumin and ginger filled the air.
Kichari is my hug-food. No other dish makes me so happy and satisfied during the winter. The combination of rice, lentils, soft vegetables, warming spices and ghee always leaves me feeling both nourished and calmer. Every time I cook it, though, I make some little change. This is my latest recipe.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp minced fresh ginger
- 1 tbsp cumin seeds
- 1 pinch of asafoetida (hing)
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
- 1 cauliflower cut into florets
- 1 tbsp turmeric
- 1 cup brown rice
- 1 cup split red lentils
- 7 cups water
- ¾ cup fresh or frozen green peas
- 2 tbsp ghee (clarified butter) or any oil (olive, grape seed, sesame, sunflower)salt
For the side dish
- 2 cloves of minced garlic
- 1 bunch of kale, dandelion, collard, mustard or beet greens finely chopped
- 2 tbsp sunflower oil
- ½ tsp sea salt
When accompanied by a side of dark greens, kichari is a perfect vegetarian food. It has complete protein from the rice and lentils, iron and a lot of calcium from the greens. Coincidentally, as I was writing this recipe for Early Childhood Matters, I also happened to be listening to an item on Brazilian news about foods that can help to lower the risk of cancer: gingerol, found in ginger; capsaicin, found in cayenne pepper; curcumin, found in turmeric; and sulforaphane, found in cauliflower. Kichari has them all.
Scroll down to find the Method.
Method:
- Wash rice and lentils until the washing water becomes clear (about 3–5 times).
- Heat the ghee or oil in a ¾-quart/1-litre heavy saucepan or a pressure cooker over high heat. Add the ginger and cumin seeds and let it fry until they turn brown. Stir in the cauliflower, let it cook for 3 minutes. Add the rice and lentils and let it fry for more than 1 minute.
- Add the water and spices (asafoetida, turmeric, cayenne and salt).
- Bring it to a boil over high heat. Cover the pan or pressure cooker. If using the pan, lower the heat and let it simmer for 1½ hours. If using the pressure cooker, maintain the high heat until it gets to full pressure and then lower the heat to simmer for 50–60 minutes.
- Open the lid, and stir in the peas.
- The kichari should have an oatmeal consistency. If not, let it cook with the lid open for 5 more minutes, stirring occasionally until it thickens.
- To make the side dish, heat the sunflower oil over a high heat in a skillet. Add the garlic until it turns brown. Add the greens and salt. Lower to medium heat and stir for about 5 minutes, until the greens soften.
