Since ancient ages, human beings have been investigating various kinds of food. Such inquiries were based mostly on the direct experiences with the foods. During the ancient days, there were no other modern methods like testing foods and their chemical compositions in the safety of laboratories. However, with various scientific advances, we have been able to get detailed knowledge of foods and their compositions. Equipped with such a vast repertoire of know-how on food, we now know why food is important and how it helps us to maintain our health.
Our body is built from the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. Eating the right food in the right manner with a happy state of mind helps people develop a healthy physique and mind. Consuming unhealthy food and eating with a tense mind, on the contrary, causes illness. If we remain alert while we eat, whatever food we consume is properly assimilated, helping us stay healthy. Food is the major component required for our body to grow and stay healthy; everything else like exercise and body is secondary. Food also helps in regenerating damaged cells and producing new cells in our bodies. This consequently gives us the energy to work, generate body heat, and develop the immune system of our body. In short, food is necessary to help us perform our day-to-day activities. Without food, no living being can ever survive.
We can categorize the food we eat into six major groups (by source) – Carbohydrates, Proteins, Fats, Vitamins, Minerals, and Water. Few major sources of carbohydrates are rice, wheat, potato, and sugar. The major sources of proteins include pulses, nuts, lentils, eggs, fish, and meat. The foods high on fat are ghee, butter, curd, and oil. We find vitamins and minerals in the foods mentioned above as well as in various kind of fresh fruits and vegetables. Water, on the other hand, is readily available independently as well as in other forms of food mentioned here. It is imperative to mention that the human body needs different minerals viz. iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, sodium, iodine, etc. for its proper functioning. The body also needs vitamins (fifteen of them have been detected) to help it assimilate and absorb the food consumed.
The food we eat should be healthy as well as appetizing. Such nutritious food not only helps our body keep illness at bay, but helps to regain our health as and when any kind of illness strikes us. Good health is the consequence of nutritive food. At certain stages of our life, if we cannot take proper food in the form of a balanced diet, our body could not grow properly. This also affects the development of my brain and intellect. If a person eats a healthy and balanced diet throughout her/his life, then s/he would achieve proper growth and be able to perform all her/his roles, including that of reproduction, in a proper manner. Today we can see that despite the abundance of a wide variety of food, people suffer from malnutrition. This has been chiefly because of the choice of the wrong food and bad eating habits, making people deficient in vital nutrients like protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, etc. Overindulgence of food (Overeating) has also been a reason for certain sections of people suffering from malnutrition as it hinders the capacity of the body to absorb the nutrients from the consumed food.
Our eating habits also have a deep relation with our personal liking and disliking of food. Each individual has a different food habit than another. Despite that, by checking certain parameters like observing our face, our enthusiasm to work, and our involvement with other daily activities, an experienced physician could predict whether or not our body lacks any vital nutrients. By observing our actions and body language and by probing into our thoughts, the physician could diagnose our food habits and consequently our health to a great extent. The food we consume has a direct influence on our personality and our disposition towards different life roles we undertake in our everyday life. Our food habits decide whether we will go to bed at night with a tensed and agitated mind or with a joyful and contented state of being.
Our mental construct plays a huge role in selecting the food we like to eat. Hunger, therefore, depends not only on our body but also on the mind. Both the state of unwillingness to eat food despite having hunger and willingness to indulge in more food despite a full stomach are unhealthy and are correlated to both body and mind of a person. The same food can be tasty for someone and bland for another. The fact is, whoever can consume food with satisfaction and joy remains healthy.
Therefore, food should be prepared in a way that satisfies the taste and should be taken with contentment and joy. The food should always be appetizing. However, appetizing should never mean cooking food with a lot of oil and spices. Since, by doing so, quality and the nutritive value of food gets spoiled. And, despite the taste it serves to the tongue, it does not help the body. We should therefore remember two things while choosing our food: The first one is, food has to be delicious and the second one is, the nutritive value or quality of the food must remain intact. It is also important to understand that even if certain food does not taste good for us, we should try taking them for our own good. Maintaining this habit would gradually help us develop our taste for the food we once disliked.
Ten Tips for Healthy Eating:
(1) We should not eat food in an emotional or anxious state of mind. When we are suffering from depression, anxiety, we should not eat any food, as during such time the digestive juices are produced in a lesser quantity by the stomach and the digestive process is disrupted. During such time, the priority should be more on what is eating us rather than what we are eating. When we eat food, we should cheer up and eat in moderation. We should not eat while looking all around us or while watching T.V. The dining area should be clean. A study conducted by a University of ‘United States’ found that if the eating environment is clean and suitable for a person, the stomach produces digestive juices more efficiently. We should also express our gratitude before eating. Although many of us can produce our own food through our own labor, we should not forget that nature provides the air, water, and nutrients needed for crops to grow. Therefore, we ought to show our utmost respect and gratitude towards nature.
(2) We should eat fresh food and avoid all kinds of packaged food and stale food. Such artificially produced food, as well as stale food, causes various diseases.
(3) We should eat whole grain food as these contain a high quantity of nutritive value. Green vegetables are another important source of nutrition and without these, it is impossible to imagine the existence of any animals (including humans). A recent study conducted by the ‘University of California’ showed that whatever food items grow naturally in a particular region is best for the people of that place. Such foods add more vitality and happiness to the people. Therefore, one should make a habit to eat food produced in one’s locality or nearby. Cereal food items help in regulating our blood sugar as well as lowering our blood cholesterol. Besides, it helps us in strengthening the internal glands of the stomach and also helps in defecation.
(4) Our body is not designed to store excess fat, sugar, or processed carbohydrates that have become so prevalent in our modern diets. If we prioritize cakes, pastries, parathas, puris, halwa, etc., then we are just paving our way to get sick more easily and eventually facilitating our death earlier than usual.
(5) We should consciously choose foods that nourish the body and enhance its quality. Traditionally, healthy and moderately healthy food keeps our body and mind healthy. Especially if we eat rice, bread, pulses, fresh vegetables, spinach, vegetables, milk, banana, coconut, almonds, dates, honey, papaya, orange, lemon, bee stings, blackberries, jackfruit, pineapple, etc. produced locally, we would get better nutritive value.
(6) Food needs to be cooked well. We should try to avoid cooking food in oil and spices as much as we can. Cooking food serves three primary purposes. First, the food becomes delicious; second, the food becomes easy to digest, and thirdly the germs and harmful microbes get destroyed.
(7) We should maintain an open and inquisitive mindset towards our food habits. The food we eat is not just some rice or vegetables but is a part of our body structure. We should never eat food to the full capacity of our stomach. While attending any social event like weddings or meetings, we should decide what to eat and how much to eat beforehand to avoid any overindulgence. If we overeat because of the mouthwatering food offered or because of the influence exerted by someone, we are inadvertently punishing ourselves. If such things happen to us often, we should minimize or stop attending such social events.
(8) It is good to attend such kinds of events together and enjoy the food we eat. While eating, we should also remember that the way we eat food and the food we choose to eat influences our health, body, and mind, consequently affecting our lives in the longer run.
(9) Today, it has been proved that no matter how expensive food is, if it does not have nutritive value in it, such food is lifeless and hence useless. Eating such costly food makes little sense, as eating such nutrition-less food does not help our body. Instead, the body and the mind get adversely affected, disrupting our normal course of life.
(10) Remember that the food we eat helps us to become who we are. So, let us choose fresh, nutritious, and sattvic food for our consumption, making our life healthy and beautiful.
