Simplifying Food Habits- "The Ahaar Gyan"
( Your food decides your state of mind.)
" Jaisa ahaar ,waisa vhyvhaar."
(Our behaviour depends largely on the kind of food we eat.)
These are age- old phrases , repeatedly mentioned by our sages, our grannies, to lead a natural healthy life.
These days staying healthy and leading a healthy lifestyle has become quite complex. The credit goes to media and western trips by most of Indians now. These trips have just led to confusion about our Indian food heritage which the world is aping now while our own countrymen are busy in gorging over the pastas, pizzas ,burgers .
People are visiting the superstores to search for quinoa seeds, the celery sticks and googling for keto diets and other fad diets.
Certainly these foods are superfoods and are valuable in filling our ' thaalis' with balanced food. But finding these foods in superstores or online, and then incorporating in our daily diets and above all developing a taste for them overnight is what makes the whole process quite a futile one.
So so so .....let's simplify our daily food habits.
There are few cardinal ways which we must follow:
# LISTEN TO YOUR BODY:)
1) Eat only when you feel hungry.
When you eat your meals daily on fixed timings , generally you get hunger pangs at the same time. But incase due to any change of routine or disturbed mood ,you don't feel hungry , DO NOT EAT THAT TIME PLEASE.
The concept behind is - "The Digestive Fire."
Digestive fire is also called " jathar Agni."
We feel hungry when our digestive fire is sharp. This digestive fire helps our food to get digested in a big way.
So if it's 2 pm and it is your lunch time ,but you aren't feeling hungry , do not eat just for the heck of eating because the food taken without hunger is going to create more of toxins rather than nourishing your body with nutrients.
2) The "Uno" moment-
We all are aware of our childhood card game Uno , where at the second last card we are supposed to announce loudly to the other players by saying 'uno' which indicates that I am about to finish my cards and hence my game.
Same way just learn to recognise that uno moment of your stomach when it really communicates to you to stop eating. Yesss! Our stomach does talk to us ,provided we are ready to listen to it. To listen to your stomach , eat in silence. The idea is to stop eating when you are still feeling little hungry. Do not stuff yourself to the fullest because our stomach needs some space to process whatever you have taken. We all can correlate with our mixer grinders as we keep them little empty while grinding something for efficient grinding.
If we miss this uno moment, we end up feeling bloated and uneasy. What is the point if at the end of our meal we are feeling uncomfortable.
So eat in silence . Even when in some gathering or a party, just find some space to sit and eat silently and then get back to socializing.
# TIMING OF MEAL:)
There are multiple ways to set your daily meal timings. Choose anyone according to your office hours , your routine and body needs.
You can even switch the patterns after 15 days to break the monotony only if your body feels the need.
One way is to take small meals every 2 hours. It will be around 6-7 meals per day. Small and frequent meals keep your metabolism active. Just stick to SMALL PORTIONS of healthy meals every 2 hours.
Another way is to follow 7-1-7 or 8-2-8 rule. This includes three major meals in a day at 6 hrs of gap.
7 am - Breakfast
1 pm - Lunch
7 pm - Dinner
Or
8 am - Breakfast
2pm - Lunch
8 pm - Dinner
In between small serving of fruits can be taken if you feel hungry.
The purpose of 6hourly meal is to give sufficient time to our digestive system to assimilate the food taken in a right manner .
- Intermittent fasting is another buzz word these days where today's folks are starving themselves for 14- 16 hours a day. In real sense it is great to give rest to our digestive system so that it can work more efficiently for us. We get energy from food. If food is digested properly it will give energy else undigested food will create toxins only and hence plethora of diseases. To implement the core idea of intermittent fasting it is better to understand this according to ancient Ayurveda science. Intermittent fasting must be a fancy word these days but this has been practiced by our sages since ages. The concepts says that our body chakras work in alignment with sun. Rather than counting on numbers of hours of fasting just create an eating window period according to sunrise and sunset. Eat your first major meal with in 2 hrs of sunrise and last meal before sunset. So averagely the eating window will vary from 8am to 6pm. Then fasting period will be from 6pm to 8am , in total of 14 hrs of fasting. But when we are getting up in brahma mahurat it becomes difficult to stay empty stomach till 8am . To manage this you can take coconut water, medicated alkaline water, freshly made vegetable juice, ashgourd juice or small serving of fruit if you are having hunger pangs. Then major meal can be taken at 8am. This is a more practical and kinder way to set your metabolism right rather than pushing yourself for 14 - 16 hrs of fasting and making your mind crankier. This will give enough time to restore and repair the vitality of our body.
Weight loss should not be the prime aim to practice a healthy lifestyle . Focus should be the optimum metabolism . Weight loss would be an effortless byproduct itself.
# The thaali should be attractive enough to trigger the taste buds and to raise our appetite which will lead to increase in digestive fire. So trigger the taste buds, trigger more salivation , means more of digestive enzymes, more of jathar Agni and a perfect digestion.....but the trigger should be only from healthy food.
# Chew well, Eat peacefully , Pay Gratitude-
Proper chewing will lead to enhanced salivation . Major part of digestion happens in oral cavity. So chew each morsel well .
Remember-
"Our intestines do not have teeth."
So Just keep a golden rule in mind-
"Eat liquids and drink solids"
Yes it's not misprinted , you have read it right. This quote is to just emphasize on chewing well.
Efficient chewing carries one additional and major benefit of facial yoga as more of facial muscles will be in use and hence a younger you.
# Mouth freshners, Starters, Deserts:)
According to Ayurveda- we must start our meals with something sweet( in small quantity). Followed by meals and end it with something bitter like Moti saunf.
ASTONISHED???......!!!!!
To understand let's compare our digestion with a havan .
When pandit ji starts havan ,he puts very little sugar to trigger the fire. Same way trigger your digestive fire with something sweet in very little quantity.
In between as we put havan samagri in fire , take your meals same way.
At the ending of havan just imagine if pandit ji puts something cold ,what will happen? The fire will get extinguished. So avoid taking deserts like ice creams etc. So as to keep your digestive fire burning to complete the digestion process efficiently.
So set your sequences right.
# General rules :)
- Eat fresh
Cooked food should be consumed maximum between 3-5 hours of cooking. Avoid storing cooked food in refrigerator.
- Avoid microwaves
- use more of iron kadhais, earthen utensils. At the maximum ,steel utensils can be used to some extent.
- use varied oils to cook. Mustard oil is the best bet due to its high heating point.
-use multigrain atta due to low glycemic index. Better to make your own mix at home as you can regulate various ingredients according to personal need.
- make your thaali more colorful by adding more veggies and fruits.
-minimise deep fried and fast foods.
These foods really go deep in your tissues and lead to faster damage and faster weight gain...hence the name deep fried and fast food. Jokes apart....this is just to understand 😀
- choose brown rice over white rice
-use shakkar or Jaggery instead of sugar
- use sendha namak( low sodium) instead of table salt.
-prefer home-set curd
- Medicated water
Our Indian kitchens are hub of divine herbs and spices: fennel seeds( saunf) , fenugreek seeds( methi daana) , carrots seeds( ajwain) , cumin seeds( zeera) , mulethi( licorice). Just soak each one of them separately overnight for better benefits or soak them altogether and take them in morning after little heating and sieving. This alkaline water if taken first thing in morning ,will neutralize the whole acid created by your stomach during night and hence making your body environment complete Alkaline in the morning itself. Remember diseases do not develop in alkaline environment.
-most importantly-be grateful for every bite you eat. Pray to God to help out your body to assimilate whole food in proper way for healthy functioning of your body and soul.
Happy Eating!!!!
