India's way - Part 2 -- Eating

Eating

In India, we have peculiar eating habits which are very different when compared with rest of world. Example, Most parts of the world think and believe that eating with hands is an unhealthy and ugly practice. But we have number of reasons to support our habit of eating food with hands. All these reasons might not have been proven yet in science and technology. Most importantly science didn't disprove them as well. Following are few of those habits

Eating food with hands

1. Cleaning your hands is in your boundary, but most often quality of utensil that you are using is definitely not in your hands that includes dangers that could come with the quality of utensil

2.It is easy to regulate the amount of food that your are taking into mouth. 

3. There is a old saying "eating food with your hands feeds not only the body but also the mind and the spirit".

4. In Indian context, Hands are considered divine "“Karagre vasate Laksmih karamule Saraswathi Karamadhye tu Govindah prabhate karadarsanam”. Tip of fingers is lakshmi, middle is govinda and root is saraswathi . Food consumed by touching them becomes divine i.e. more than food, prasaadah.

5. According to ayurveda, our fingers constitutes five elements. Thumb denotes space, forefinger air, mid finger fire, ring finger water, little finger earth. Touch food with these five elements does trigger certain activities inside our body i.e. Example agni aides digestion.

6. In islam, it is believed that prophet mohammed promoted eating food with right hand for number of reasons i.e. regulates amount of food to be taken etc

7. The skin sends the senses to the brain about the temperature, texture of the food and this acts like a catalyst in the action of generating the necessary salivary juices

8. Our body/skin does have bacteria called as flora, Unlike most of the bacteria this does protect our body.Not eating with hands could possibly damage structure of this flora and this can inturn effect our immunity

Eating food in leaves

We used to eat in banana or stitched almond leaves. Now we have plastic/paper plates, yes obviously they are convenient nobody can argue on the convenience but think about the destruction they are doing. 

1. Earlier food waste was easily disposable left food can be easily consumed by animals or it is organically absorbed by mother earth. Now we have waste management practices which are not practiced because they are difficult to practice.  Why in first place make wrong habit of using plastic and why make complicated waste management systems.  Instead of adopting to plastic, As a nation we should teach rest of the world how environment friendly it is to eat in leaves.
2. Eating food served on banana leaf is found to be healthy. Serving hot food on banana leaf will give required nutrients along with the food. Example: leaves contain polyphenols such as EGCG i.e. found in green tea. Unfortunately most of know how green tea helps but we dont know how banana leaves help us.

3. Unlike natural leaves, Plates made out of plastic/paper might mix harmful chemicals in food.

Sitting down and eating

During childhood days instead of dinning table, we used to sit down and eat. Usually we sit legs crossed i.e. sukhasana or half padmasana posture

1. Sits and eating in this posture will help digestion, it signals brain to prepare for digestion.

2. Leaning forward and taking food will activate abdomen muscles and secrete required digestive acids

3. Your mind will better concentrate on the food rather than anything else, Recent research has proven that concentrating on food while eating does have significant health benefits. It will help you to loose weight.

4. You can easily figure out that your stomach is full, when it is actually full. Chances of over eating is very less

5. Make you eat slower and thus you will chew it better

6. Make you more flexible. 

7.  A Study published in European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, found that people who sat on the floor in padmasana and were able to get up without any support were more likely to live longer

8. Sitting on floor will help your heart and blood circulation. when compared to sitting on the dinning table blood is easily available to heart. Heart will not have to over work while it is helping digestion. On dinning table circulation is more into your legs not into your heart.

References

http://experiencehinduism.com/scientific-facts/benefits-of-eating-with-hands

http://asqfish.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/why-do-we-eat-with-our-hands/

http://theancientindia.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/banana-leaves.html

http://www.thehealthsite.com/diseases-conditions/why-you-should-sit-on-the-floor-while-eating/

http://cpr.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/12/10/2047487312471759