Food is medicine – An old siddha saying.
Learn right food, we intake, quantity and quality to lead a healthy life! In our house, kitchen is our lab. We prepare medicine for hunger. In the ancient days, we lived a life what was in balance with nature.
As Nammalvar says, “Food should be local, seasonal, cost effective, chemical free and should posses micro and macro nutritious.” Today We have a huge list of food products that is chemically processed, it is now known fact that, these food only harms, but kills the person over time. If we switch to organic, it is costly. But if we dig deeper, we do not need expensive food ingredients to to lead a healthy lifestyle. With simple easy to find local food, we can lead a far better healthy life. Let us find out.
Before we explore the need to find a better intake. We need to under how much our body actually needs? The Food we eat, is *NOT* the only source for sustaining our life, rather it is one of the smallest contributor. Our ancients text have give a huge wisdom of what to eat, when to eat, what not to eat and so on.
For healthy life, We need the following
- 50% Air
- 30% Water
- 20% Food
Compared this with our present life style, which is, 40% food alone. Thus leads to imbalance in other two elements, Air and Water. So technically, we eat though, Nose (air), Skin (water) and Mouth (food).
Air – 50%
The we breath contributes a lot, Spiritual Scientist, thirumoolar says, we breath 21000 times. We need to breath in a rhyming pattern, easy,slow, longer and deeper! We need to do at least, pranayama exercise (alternative nostril breathing) at least 21 times, morning and evening, More the better. There are tons technique to practice here. We can cover this in a later blog.
Water – 30%
The water mentioned here does not refer the water we consume, but rather, it is the moisture we absorb from atmosphere. Our body, absorb moisture from the root of hairs all over the body. That is why many ancient yogis do not cut hair. Waxing or removal of body hair, will block the pores at the skin and will stop us from taking water from atmosphere.
Food – 20%
It is the 20% that we eat, that includes water we drink! To know how much to eat, we need a benchmark to assess that quantity. So stomach is our tank to store this 20%. In 20% intake, that we consume thought mouth,
- ¼ is the food – This is what we actually eat!
- ¼ is water we drink
- ½ is air (or empty)
To balance the 20% intake, our ancestors always said to fast, so when we do not intake, 20% of food, then the 50% air and 30% water will increase in body. Fasting itself is a big topic by itself, again there is a lot confusing in the name of fasting, Many over kill their body with fasting, We will do a detailed blog about this in coming days.
There is another confusing about food and water intake, on whether should take water immediately after food or give 30 mins to drink water.
If you chow the food nicely and mix it saliva, then we do not need to take water. There is saying Tamil to chow every bit of the food up to 16 times. Today, with busy lifestyle, many gulp the food without grinding the food properly, in that case, you need to drink water immediately. Any Naturopathy or Traditional healers would say, drink the food, eat the water. The food we swallow, should be drinkable, until then keep on chewing, because, the digestion start right at the mouth to all way till end of anus, that is a 30m journey.
When we actually drink the food, that is processed at our mouth, you will realize a fact that, we should have eaten less, but you get a sense of filling with smaller quantity. Thus, this will lead to weight reduction easily. Try this for one week, Just 7 day, and see for it for yourself!
In coming blogs, we will share the what to eat, not to eat, should we buy expensive imported food? And so.
Nice insight…Thanks Anna.
Will share with many more
Great article Anna!!! Thank you for helping us broaden our knowledge on the most important aspect of life..