Eating with hands - Mindful eating

                                       Eating with hands - Mindful eating


     All machines need fuel to make them go, and the human body is like a living machine whose fuel is food. Right food supplies for energy and make the body grow, maintain itself, and repair daily.

All food is a priceless gift of love from Nature. We have to be thankful for all food, it is Brahman, the Supreme Being. His universal energy is transmuted into our individual energy and helps us in all we do .

From an early age, Indian children learn the pleasures and the skills of eating with fingers. For adults as well as children, this way of eating is part of enjoyment of a meal. Touching, feeling, smelling, licking and savoring the food with the fingers fulfill more than just humger.

Food is eaten with right hand fingers after thoroughly cleaning them with water .

In   vedic tradition , it is believed that eating food with the hands feeds the body, mind and spirit. Hands are our most precious organs of action. Our hands are said to be the conduits of the five elements of Nature - Space  , fire , air , water and earth. Each one of them flow through each finger. The five elements in the fingers are Fire, representing sight or thumb in the thumb, Air representing the sense of touch in the index finger , sound in the form of Ether in the middle finger, Earth representing smell in the ring finger and the quality of taste by water in the little finger.

It is believed that the five elements   begin to transform the food and make it digestible even before it reaches the mouth. This heightenes the senses so that we can smell, taste , and feel the texture of the foods we are eating, and even hear the sounds as we eat. All of these sensations help to ready the body, or to awaken the fire ( agni ) within ourselves. Agni is the term used for the digestive fire that breaks down the food, assimilating what is useful and eliminating the rest. This awakening aids digestion, and according to vedic beliefs, good digestion leads to good thoughts.

In Indian  cuisine, in addition to primary tastes sweet , sour , salty , bitter  , and pungent  , there is a sixth taste called astringent ( kashaya ) comes from ancient Indian medicine. To maintain perfect balance and ensure complete nourishment, Indians includes spices of all tastes at every meal.
Daily meals consists of chappaties ( wheat bread home-made), rice, vegetable curry , a legume curry , vegetable salad  , raita ( beaten curd with vegetable ) , chutneys and pickle.

South Indian meals consists of vegetable curries, both in fried and liquid form, rice, sambhar, rasam, curd or butter-milk and pickle in daily routine.
Thus, it provides all the elements of food pyramid.
All the six types of food which Ayurveda recommends as a practical technique for keeping our digestive fire strong are also included. They are-

1-  Choshya, the food that has to be sucked like fruits.

2- Peya, the food that is drinkable like soups and gruel.


3- Lehya, that has to be licked like chutney.

4-  Bhojya, the food to be eaten like cooked items like rice and dal .

5- Bakshya, the food that is to be broken with teeth and be eaten like nuts .


6- Charvya, the food that has to be chewed, all knids of rich fibre foods.

There is a pattern of spreading the food items in the plate on festive occasions and on normal days.
Kheer ( sweet milk pudding ) and little dal ( lentil) is to the extreme right. Moving anti-clockwise, Sweet chutney , Raita, vegetables, plckles to the left of the vegetables in order. Fried papad is served usually on the extreme left. Rice is served on the plate in the center. Then sambhar, khadhi, rasam, curd and milk pudding are served fresh as needed.

The method of proper eating food is very scientific as seen in the prescribed sequence for taking food.



'
पूर्वं  मधुरं   मध्ये लवणा म्लो  कटु तिक्तकषाया पय श्च  ततः त्रि दोष साम्यम l'

First sweet foods  , the second group to consume are salty and sour  , the bitter, hot and astringent foods foods in the end to maintain the balance of three humours,  vata , pitta  , and kapha .

There is a difference between eating and drinking for for strength and from mere gluttony.

A great variety of foods at one meal exerts a potent influence in creating a love for eating. Eating with hands is a way to feel connected to food. Eating becomes sensational and mindful.
The brain and the other organs of the body are affected by the quality of the blood which nourishes them and the blood is made up of the food eaten.
Indian foods have ayurvedic elements which prevents people from falling ill.
Food cooked and eaten with reverence is both nutrition and medicine.
 It is hard to imagine that until about four hundreds years ago, European people ate everything with their fingers. When a few people started using forks in England, every one else thought the idea of tools for eating was totally ridiculous.
It is said that in a dinner party held in London for diplomats, all took spoons and forks and sat down at the table. Only an Indian diplomat of well-repute went out, washed his hands and came to join the others. He started eating with his fingers. All were surprised. Before they could ask anything , the Indian diplomat said with a smile on his face, " I am eating dinner with my fingers , given to me by the God. It is pure and untouched by others. Spoons and forks are man-made and they do not belong to an individual in a public place, they are common and used by all, where as my fingers are naturally made, exclusively mine and no one can use them."