Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, a vegetarian, may have cultural and religious reasons for refusing to allow state schools to serve eggs in their midday meal, but his reasoning makes no nutritional sense and hobbles severely malnourished children—a fifth of all children in his state. Chauhan was quoted as saying that “milk and bananas will be served, but never eggs” to Madhya Pradesh’s 7.7 million children, beneficiaries of the mid-day meal scheme.

When it comes to protein and calorie counts, milk and bananas do not match up to eggs, particularly for Chauhan’s impoverished state, where development indicators are among India’s worst.

Almost 51% of children under five years of age are underweight, and 49% are stunted.

The state has India’s highest infant mortality rate, ie. the number of deaths of children less than one year of age per 1000 live births.

The state also has India’s third-highest maternal mortality ratio, ie. the number of registered maternal deaths due to birth- or pregnancy-related complications per 100,000 registered live births.