The term refers to what people were eating at a particular time and the term refers to what people were eating over a longer period of time.

meal ; diet                  

Explanation:

              Meal is the food that we eat at one time of the day. Breakfast, lunch or dinner  is the most common known meals. We often take meal at a particular time of the day.

            Diet is a particular type of food that we eat for certain period of time that is meant for certain conditions. Diet is most used in nutrition terms. The term diet mostly implies the use of specific nutritious food intake for weight  or health-management reasons.

swahili is an extremely rich and complex civilization, a set of ethnic groups articulated by a language and a series of cultural elements that fuse the african traditions, islam and indian culture. this growth was largely a result of the indian ocean trading network that brought in not just man-made riches, but also religious ideas, specifically islam, which had a significant impact on the local culture. furthermore, the development of the swahili language gave a common cultural unity to the people.