My understanding is that Indian, and other Southeast Asian, gold jewelry is functionally used as a store of value. They often melt some down when they need to dip into their savings and they pass it down to later generations to give them a financial cushion.
Electronics and other industrial uses are what I would think of as true consumption, because it can be uneconomical to recover the gold.
Spot on! Jewelry is definitely a good way to store value. And the whole gold-in-food thing? That's just plain weird consumption!
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Who's putting gold in their food? Based on an episode of House MD, I believe that is severely poisonous.
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