Food, Body and Health

 October 25, 2016

“வாயை மூடிண்டு சாப்பிடு, - close your mouth while eating” was a constant refrain at home. One would retort, “How to eat if I keep my mouth closed?”

Obviously, opening the mouth to push a morsel in was not prohibited. But, while chewing, one must not open the lips. That seems to be etiquette and also a health titbit. If we chew with mouth open we swallow more air which exacerbates flatulence caused by bacterial decomposition of food.

Also, there was an undercurrent of acharam. As one speaks, a fine spray of saliva permeates the surrounding items, and it was taboo.

It also means that one should not talk while eating – मौनेन भोक्तव्यं. We may find it difficult to follow for many reasons, one of the important ones being that it is not received wisdom from colonial rule.

An aunt of mine made it a practice that she would not talk while eating, to keep her conscience quiet for not resting the tongue otherwise.

My Tamizh vadyar would say, ‘God has given us two ears wide open, but only one mouth which is normally shut.’

January 03, 2015

Eating

Do we eat to live or live to eat?

Quibbles occupy thoughts. It is a typical mindset that a yes or no answer is clear-cut in all questions.

Eating sustains us, but what we eat is a choice. To relish what we eat is innate. When we had a cow at home, I saw that it showed eagerness for grass and peanut cake (after pressing the nut of oil) soaked in water in preference to hay that was its staple food. Thus, animals too prefer tastier food.

We eat to live, but choice eating is one of the chief attractions of living. A glutton may invite ridicule and ill health, but an epicure enjoys life in style and substance.

March 28, 2018 ·

All about curd rice

It was 1986 I think. Sri V Mahadevan visited Madras LHO. As he entered the lunch room (he came on some official visit of course, not for lunch), he exclaimed, ‘Very good, curd rice is there’ like children would on seeing choice desserts. Most Tamizh people may be pleased with curd rice which is the regular dessert in meals for them! A north Indian colleague remarked, ‘You have the antidote as finishing course.’

A friend demurs as he says, ‘Buttermilk, not curd, is what the doctor ordered.’

Buttermilk, lime juice and coconut water are three healthy drinks compared to a variety of coloured, carbonated, caffeinated, sugar solutions.

Curd is a probiotic by itself, but Nestle and others sell probiotic curd, whatever it is supposed to contain.

I used to go for curd rice in preference to other items even before my stomach dictated terms, but my elders would chide me, ‘muttaalukku mor saadam’ (Curd rice is for fools). They might have been on the dot, but some twist it to mean that a fool will improve on eating curd rice. No luck for me though!

O, I forgot to mention that these thoughts occupied my mind reading a forward:

“The Curd Rice is the only Indian food which can release a chemical called tryptophan in brain, which calms down the brain. People take it with sugar outside India mostly. Sugar will not calm your brain, but increase glucose level and make you more restless.

Tryptophan brings a cool thinking, and your neurons are recharging with a mild rest. (In Sanskrit it is Thrupthophan, thrupthi means satisfaction).”

Ingenious ending!

Vegetarianism

Sri K Parasaran, an orthodox Srivaishnavite and vegetarian, said in a speech that if everyone turned vegetarian, there will not be enough food for all.

Yuval Noah Harari says in ‘Sapiens’ that Agricultural Revolution, when Sapiens switched from being a forager to being a farmer, was a disaster in the evolution of Sapiens. It multiplied and intensified problems, he argues rather convincingly.

Russell says that organic life depends on other organic life, except plants which convert inorganic material to organic matter.

There is difference of opinion whether man is suited for one or the other type of food. To start with, he lived on herbs and fruits, then took to foraging before discovering tilling of land, it would appear. Be that as it may, he is omnivorous now.

We have serious issues about sustained viability of agriculture. Scarcity of water and infertility of land because of overuse and economics may make farming unattractive. As it stands, agriculturists are at the receiving end (not of proper price). Agriculture depends on subsidy and price support even in developed countries. When we pay through the nose for foodgrains and vegetables, the beneficiaries are hoarders and the middlemen, not agriculturists.

Vegetarianism is certainly an evolved virtue born of felt need for compassion, but its universal adoption is neither possible nor advisable.

(My svabhava is not synchronous with my opinion. I cannot accept killing at least in my presence unless the victims are small insects that cause harm persistently, and I cannot eat non-vegetarian food.)

Look at the universe. Everything in it has a rhythm, a regulation, a pace that sets it on and on effortlessly. Even the plants and animals have a natural rhythm. They are more survivalist and less expansionist than we humans are. There is a lesson for us. We must regulate our life and act in harmony with the inbuilt rhythm as regards food, work and sleep. Most of our problems arise because in the last five hundred years or so, we have upset it. A doctor told me that about 80% of the complaints relate to lifestyle. More and more, rights and entitlements, excitement and deadline, maximising gains, all such concerns that engage us as slaves to them have sapped us of the vitality of life.

Let us relax.

Let us be.