Eating Habits

Rules for Eating


A Real Life case

One day in June 1822, a gun went off accidentally in a crowded store in Michigan, USA. The person who got wounded was Alexis St. Martin. He got wounded in his side. He was immediately rushed to a doctor and he ended up with a hole on his left side near the stomach. And this hole remained there till he died after fifty eight years. But this was no small event.

Through this hole, one could see his stomach functioning deep inside. And Dr. Beaumont, by employing St. Martin in his laboratory, observed through this window as to how the human stomach functions and published his “Experiments and observations on the gastric juice and the physiology of digestion”, the most acclaimed original classic in the field of medicine.

Dr. Beaumont found the stomach walls soft and velvet looking and found its color is pale and pink. He observed that as soon as we put into stomach something, hundreds of droplets trickle down the walls of the stomach. With the help of a rubber tube, he collected these droplets and put them on a small piece of boiled beef and heated it to the temperature of stomach and in ten hours it was completely digested. He then conducted very many varieties of tests with varieties of foods. . He found fatty foods are difficult to digest and that the stomach generally requires much less food than generally supplied to it. His findings were great guides to our eating habits.

Sometimes St. Martin was calm and sometimes angry and sometimes vexed. The doctor noticed that when St. Martin lost his temper during a meal, his digestion was very slow. In his anger, he took twice the normal time for digesting the given food. Dr. Beaumont came out with very interesting findings that emotions play a great role in digestion. The diner’s anxiety disturbs his digestive nerves and muscles and when he is frightened, his stomach lies still and that ulcer is associated with emotional stress.

Having known the above, it is now necessary for us to know in detail the relevant aspects of our eating. In this context, let us look into the following questions:

What - What should we eat?
Where - Where should we eat?
When - When should we eat?
Who - Who should all be with us when we eat?
How - How should we eat?
How - How much should we eat?

These questions are discussed in the succeeding pages.

What should we eat?

The Science

The job of our digestive system is to attend to the food that we take and ensure that the nutrients i.e. heat and energy contained in our food are reached to our various body cells, for they need food to function. Metabolism is a term used to denote conversion of food that we eat into heat and energy for use by our cells. The digestive and metabolic systems are said to transform the food we eat into blood, bones and cells.

The food that we consume contains carbohydrate, fat and protein on the one hand and vitamins, salt and water on the other.

The protein is needed for growth and repair of tissues in our body. Protein is made up of a large number of amino acids. This protein is broken into molecules. After wards, it enters into our duodenum and through that the small intestine.

The carbohydrate is a term used to denote starch and sugar that our body needs. The starch is converted into maltose and glucose. The sugar is converted into glucose, fructose, etc. Our brain cells predominantly use glucose as their food. Per 100 ml. of blood, the glucose level should be 60 to 100 mg.

Fats are useful for our body cells for heat and energy.

Any food that we take must therefore supply the needed proteins, carbohydrate, and fat to provide for the needed heat and energy.

General Discussion

It is said the man is what he eats. His mind, habits, character and performance depends on what the man eats.

Digestion is the most important activity in our body. In digestion, much of energy is spent. Our body is spending this energy only on the assumption that more energy would in flow for it to compensate the loss of energy in digestion.

Let us start with the life style of a normal person we see day to day. He is one who takes a range of cooked food every day using salt, maida, sugar, oil, milk and milk products, condiments, colorings, preservatives, etc. His two inch tongue is his guide for his eating habits. These take hours and days to get digested as they contain lot of toxic materials. This high effort to digestion means high energy spending which in effect means destruction of more cells than normal, especially those cells in our mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestine and the entire digestive track. Thus our cellular turnover goes up very high. In the normal course, red blood cells live for 60 days whereas in this pattern of eating, its life is reduced to 30 days. Thus our body is thus forced to wholesale replacement of cells on a continual basis making our body gradually lose its vitality. In addition, our body is stuffed with a lot of unwanted materials which get carried away by the flowing blood to different parts of the body.

From the above you should know that our present eating habits not only destroys our cells wholesale but also fail to facilitate generation fresh cells. This accounts for our loss of health and suffering from disease. Someone said, “If you want to be healthy, disconnect your oven”.

If we are cooked would we have prana? No. Same way, when the vegetables are cooked, they lose the prana. And that food cannot provide ‘life’ to our cells and organs. And when our cells and organs daily get life less food, how would they live and function well? And if they don’t function well, we get our illness.

So, please opt for Pranic food, i.e. the food which has prana in it. Consume more fresh fruits. Take more of raw, uncooked vegetables which are life giving. Avoid refined, processed, cooked, fried foods. Yes, you may take them to a limited quantity to fill your tongue need. But take care ti add more of pranic food to your meal than what the position currently is. We can ill afford to give full attention to our six inch tongue to the negligence of our six feet body.

Now what items could supply us the needed energy in the form of vitamins, minerals, etc?

Ask any doctor you like. He would say that you should take more vegetables and fruits. You consult any manufacturer or advertiser. He would say you should take biscuits, chocolates, tinned food, etc. It is for you to decide whether you should listen to the doctor or the manufacturer for your health. And if you value the advice of doctors, let us look into vegetables and fruits.

Do you know your body is made of five natural elements such as

Earth - Solid
Water - Liquid
Fire - Heat
Air - Air
Sky - Empty space

Who do you think fill the loss of these in your body? The filling elements are fruits and vegetables, because they are also made of the above five elements. They

Grow in earth and absorb the needed energy from earth
Grow using water but retains the distilled water for you
Grow in sun light absorbing much of energy contained in the sun light
Grow in open air, absorbing much of pure air you need for your body
Grow under the sky absorbing various nutrients coming from dews, rain, etc

Thus the vegetables and fruits carry for you all the nutrients you and your body cells look for.

They get digested easily
They provide us maximum nutrients
They add no toxins to our body


Vegetables

Washing

The first action we need to take before using vegetables is to wash them. You know in these days, they add many chemicals in growing vegetables. A proper wash before cutting them, ensures we wash away the chemicals. Wash them in water with some salt added. This is very much necessary for washing green leaves because they may carry some insects in them. And never wash them after cutting the vegetables because they would lose their nutrients.

Cutting

The next action is cutting the vegetables. We should cut them only when we are going to use them. If we keep the cut vegetables as it is for cooking after sometime, they lose much of their energy in the open condition. In many homes they have a practice of cutting the vegetables the previous night for morning cooking. This is a very wrong practice and allows the vegetables to lose the energy contained in them. Let us say we lose 10% energy in the process.

Further in cutting, you generally throw away the skin. The skins of vegetables carry the maximum protective energy. Can you tell where our military protection is most? It is in our borders. Similarly, the skins contain the maximum protective energy to ensure that the vegetables last for more days even after they are plucked from the plant. And the same protective energy when goes inside you, would also protect you. Look at the skin. There is a purpose behind everything that the God has designed. If the skin is thin, it means you can consume it. If the skin is thick, it has other external protective uses. For example, you can consume the skin of vegetable like Cucumber. Whereas the skin of say lemon, is created for your external use. Be aware of this principle.

Cooking

The next action we take is to cook the vegetables. Cooking could be in many forms such as steaming, boiling, frying or deep frying. In all these processes, the vegetables lose further energy. It has been estimated that the energy loss from vegetables is as under:

Steaming - 20% loss
Boiling - 40% loss
Frying - 70% loss also adds oil fat to us
Deep frying - 100% loss also adds carcinogens*
that cause cancer

*Any food that is blackened before consumption is a carcinogen. The fringes of dosa, the baked bread, etc. are the examples.

What and how would you like to do the cooking is up to you. By frying and deep frying, you not only loose much of its energy, you also loose your hard earned money in the form of additional inputs as oils, etc.

In bad cooking, our body does not get the energy it needs to sustain itself. You know it had spent much of its energy in digestion of your earlier meal in anticipation of fresh energy input. When you deny that input, the body starves.

Further the fat and carcinogens you had put in, need more energy for digestion. Where would your body go for it? You had already expended your energy in return for less energy. So decide to day how would you cook the vegetables henceforth.

Eating

Any cooked food must be taken immediately after cooking, i.e. at moderate heat in it, say at the level of body temperature present in it. Cooked food kept beyond say an hour, starts losing its energy because it starts perishing and decomposing. The more time you keep it only means you are eating decomposed food.

In metropolitan cities, a new eating culture is developing. They are so much hard pressed for time that they can’t find time to cook. They therefore pass up the traditional meals and grab a sandwich meals at work place. Thus snack food and fast food have replaced their Tiffin boxes. These quicky meals clearly indicate their stressed up states and such consumers are prone to stress related illnesses.

Be aware that families that eat together stay together.

Fruits

Fruits? Who takes it? Does anybody includes fruits in his regular diet? Nay. If at all we take fruits, it is very occasional, may be a plantain or two sometimes.

Fruits come in two varieties, sweet and sour. Both are good. But in case you are having bad digestion, do not go for the sour variety till you are alright. Sour fruit is likely to in­crease your problem.

Take only one kind of fruit at a time. Well you can take all kinds of fruits in rotation but not together. Do not make fruit salad and take.


As already stated under Vegetables, take fruits with their skin wherever it is possible. God has given thin skins to some fruits and the indication is you must take those fruits with the skin. Take for example the apples. Its peel contains phenolic compounds such as the antioxident qyuercetin which is said to have anti cancer powers.

Here again, do not cut them and keep them. Cut and immediately take them.

Another important thing in taking fruits is that you must take them only when your stomach is empty. However, avoid taking fruits like jack fruit, jamun, ber and mango in empty stomach. They can however follow other fruits.

Fruits are easily digestible and it should not get mixed up with other food which take hours for digestion. In that case the fruit element after early digestion would start decomposing in your stomach.

Juices

In the normal course, to get nutrients from fruits and vegetables, you need to consume a good amount of them. The roughage they provide, is very necessary for our waste elimination. Therefore taking whole fruit is advisable.

But if the roughage could cause problems to digestive system, in case of those who are ill and whose digestive system is already weak. Here comes the importance of fruit and vegetable juices which give the needed nourishment, without causing the burden of roughage disposal

In general, fruit juices help cleaning our body because they are all cleansers. They remove the toxins from our body and purify our blood. On the contrary, the vegetable juices help build our new cells and help us rejuvenate ourselves. Thus both the juices are very important to our health and vitality.

In these days of fast life, no one takes time to chew his food thoroughly to break cell walls of whatever they eat. Whether fruits or vegetables, they gobble down. In this context juicing out fruits and vegetables helps us to break their cell walls and extract all the nutrients available in them. The second advantage is you can also take more of vegetables or fruits in more quantity when you consume it in the form of juice. The third advantage is juice get assimilated readily in our body than the raw vegetables and fruits. So, those who have no time to sit and eat a chewed meal, they should opt for juices. But juices too must be taken sipped and taken slowly and not simply gulped.

There is a wonder vegetable which is both a vegetable and fruit. And that is carrot. Carrot is both a vegetable and a fruit. It means it is both a cleanser and builder of our body. It both purifies and revitalizes our blood. Carrots are a good source of

Beta carotene out of which liver synthesizes vitamin A
Potassium, sodium and calcium
All vitamins [especially B complex and vitamin E]
Has traces of iodine and sulphur

Carrot is useful in many disease states including anaemia ulcer, acidity, gall stones, rheumatism, etc.

In summary

Eating raw food in the form of fruits and vegetables enables you to cleanse your body from insides and provides you with a cocktail of essential vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, anti oxidants, phytochemicals, etc. and these work to promote your health. Raw food is clean food. The fruits and vegetables are sun cooked foods and of pre-digested variety. They thus do not tax our digestive system. When eaten at room temperature, there is virtually no wear and tear to our various systems. In addition they bring to lots of vitamins and enzymes much in need by our body for replacing the old cells. Thus fruits and vegetables bring to you lot of energy to take care of your functions.

But still many people would find it difficult to even think of living on raw food. Does not matter. There is no need to go to such an extreme and making it 50:50 would do. Now the choice is yours.

General Awareness

All said and done, other eatables dominate our food intake. They include cereals, pulses, grams, spices, milk and milk products, non-vegetarian items, liquor, etc.

You must have observed the traffic signals installed in the cities. The colors used are Green, Yellow and Red. They have specific meaning and when you see green, you are permitted to move, when red glows, you are asked to stop and when yellow comes up you are asked to slow down.

The same colours have application in food also. Food is also of three categories, viz. Green food, Yellow food and Red food.

Green food is positive food. This includes vegetables and fruits which have life and are perishable in a short period. Because of their short life, they are easy to digest and we need to spend only very little energy but out of which we get larger energy.

Among vegetables there are three varieties viz. leaf variety, green variety and root varie­ty. Leaves top the list because leaf is the laboratory of the plant. It takes the energy from the sun and converts it into food. The chlorophyll present in leaves is very good for our health. Animals do not go to hospital and they remain healthy because they eat more of leaves. Leaves are also medicines out of which all medicines are prepared. Therefore pay attention to leaves first and make them your priority diet.

Then comes the non-leafy green vegetables which are fresh. That which is fresh is green, despite its colour. Green vegeta­bles include tomato, raddish and carrot which perish faster.

Yellow food is not that good and you need to slow down here. They include any food item that you can store and use over months. Because of their capacity to live longer, they stay in your body for longer period and their digestion is time consuming. So if you consume more of them, more of accumulation of undigested food in your body and problems to you. So you can take them, but in little quantities with caution because you get less energy from them and you spend more energy for their digestion.

While discussing about vegetables, we mentioned of root variety. Among the roots, some vegetables like potato, yam, sweet potato, etc live longer and do not perish as fast as green variety. These also are to be included in the Yellow food.

If you are taking pulses, you can sprout them when they turn into green vegetables. When they become alive and fresh, they give you much nutrition.

Red food is negative food. In this category comes all spices which you like most. They carry value to your tongue and carry negative and devitalising value for the rest of your body. They require lot of energy to digest in return for no energy whatsoever. Any red food irritates your systems and if you go on eating more and more of condiments, your systems get irritated day in and day out. All this leads to inflammations, gastro entritis, liver and kidney problems, sugar complaints, etc.

You know all manufactured, processed, refined, tinned and bottled food come with all chemicals and preservatives added to them. It means they get into your body and get preserved. Our body is in fact baffled as to what they are and how to digest them. For nullifying their effect, you need additional inputs in the form of medicines and that is why you are after doctors and hospitals in your life. Please be aware that any food coming through an industry or with interference from industry is a devitalising food. In this variety also are included are oil, sugar etc. Oil adds to your fat and cholesterol problems and the sugar eats away the vitamins you take. The sugar is in fact described as the vitamin thief.

Thus if you want to be healthy do not clamor for more hospitals, do not demand for more medical aid but take more positive food, i.e. green food, reduce yellow and avoid red. Eat natural food, as they are in nature, which are not bottled or tinned. As far as salt is concerned, limit your intake to less than 5 gm. Per day.

Where should we eat

The place of eating should not be that important so long the other aspects of What, When, Why etc. are taken care of well. Nevertheless, it is better we deal with it, even if it be short.

Our own home is the place where we should prefer to eat. It is there the rules pertaining to choices of raw materials as well as the mode of cooking could be taken care of. Good practitioners of diet generally avoid taking food anywhere other than their own homes. Even if they would be out during noon say at work, they carry home made food.

Once you start taking the food at any place, such as hotels, way side stalls, etc., you should be prepared to suffer the consequences of what you eat, for at those places, the sellers are sure to prepare your food with profit motive, which means any kind of adulteration and stale food entering your stomach.

Moving on to parties, the less said the better. In the name of variety, you would have a feast of possibilities to cause discomfort to yourself. Strange things in display there may be very tempting for you and once you consume them, you could become a victim of strange problems.

Why do you think these days in many cases, the doctors are not able to pinpoint what is your real problem? Why do you think there is problem of diagnosis? It is because, we consume all kinds of food at strange places and we become victims of strange diseases.

In journeys especially we need to be more choosy of what we eat and where we eat. In fact it is very cheap and advantageous to restrict ourselves to fruits and vegetables during journeys. Taking with you vegetables like cucumber, cabbage, etc. would help you to have salads and your intake of water too would get reduced saving you from consuming contaminated water on the way. And fruits are an excellent medium to keep you feel good during travel.

For a willing person, fruits and vegetables are a great boon during journeys. The problem is of willingness and will power and nothing else.


When should we eat

The first and foremost rule under this topic of ‘when to eat’ is, we should eat only when our stomach is ready to receive what we send in. How do we know whether our stomach is ready to receive? It is simple. You need to eat when you feel the hunger.

Many people are afraid that they would become hungry. It is common sight to see mothers telling their children that they should eat as not to feel hungry because they consider getting hungry would make the children weak. Under this logic many mothers start feeding their children when they are not hungry. Naturally children do not take the food and mothers are seen having a tough time in feeding the children. This problem is present in almost every home.

Hunger should not be equated with weakness. No one would become weak by getting hungry. Hunger is not starvation. Hunger is a communication provided to us by our Creator. Through hunger, our body communicates that the earlier input is out of the stomach and you can now go in for your next input.

One of the major causes for our falling ill is our practice of eating by clock, whether we feel the hunger or not. In this process what happens is that even before the earlier food is out of our stomach, the next input is already there and before that is digested and sent out, the third one is waiting to enter the stomach. In this manner, we cause a traffic jam in our food pipe. This ultimately becomes the cause of indigestion, gas, loss of appetite, acidity, etc., i.e. illness.

And when we continue to practice sending the input before the earlier input is out, over a period, we totally lose the hunger instinct. This often happens with people who practice

06:00 Bed Tea
08:30 Breakfast
11:00 Tea
13:30 Lunch
16:00 Tea
18:30 Snacks
20:00 Tea
22:00 Dinner

Now in this method of regular hourly input, where do we give time for our stomach to feel the hunger? If this kind of consistent intake we practice, naturally the stomach loses its capacity to feel the hunger and to communicate the hunger. Loosing the hunger means, we have disturbed the natural processes and we should be willing to suffer its consequences because, we don’t allow the stomach to get empty and to rest. It is forced to work all the 24 hours all the 365 days and in this background its ability to contract is lost. Further, with continuous working it becomes weak. The consequence is, over a period it loses its ability to digest the food put into it.

You will remain healthy if you allow the natural processes to go on and let the stomach communicate to you as to when should you eat.

The second rule on ‘when to eat’ is when you are in peace. You know the brain controls all our internal activities. For the purpose of digestion, the need is secretion of right chemical at the right time. When we eat in peace, our brain works in peace and produces the right digestive juices, But, when the brain is tense or agitated, it gets busy creating other chemicals and at that time if we eat, we get wrong chemicals for digestion. It would naturally upset our digestion process and cause problems to us, even if we take quality food of fruits and vegetables. So we need to be at peace when we eat.

In case we are tense, worried, agitated, tired etc. it is better we avoid food. In fact the nature itself would not get you any desire to eat at these times. That is, the nature knows what to do. But unfortunately, we go by clock for eating and we opt to eat even if we are agitated. This practice is to be avoided and we should support the nature by not taking the food at that time.

Do you know there is a tradition among some people who first make the prayer at the dinner table and then only start their dinner? Do you know why this practice has started? One thing is, it is expressing your gratefulness to the God for what he has given you at your meal plate. The second reason for this is, it calms you down before you enter the meals and this calmness facilitates secretion of correct digestive juices. Thus this practice is worth emulating by all of us subject to the condition that we do the prayer sincerely and wholeheartedly.

With whom all to eat

We have already known that we should proceed to eat only when we are calm and at peace to facilitate right secretion of chemicals we need for digestion.

You can improve on this situation by not only being at peace, but being cheerful and happy. In such a case, not only right chemicals get secreted, but they get secreted with first class quality.

How do you get cheerful?

Needless to say that you should sit on the dining table with your entire family along, elders and youngsters all joining together. There at the dining table all of you should converse freely without touching on any sensitive issues. You can tell stories and listen to others, or discuss that day’s newspaper accounts of some interesting and amusing events. [Never, Never discuss politics and crime at the dining table].

You can add to color by inviting some interesting friends and personalities to the dinner table. Once in a fortnight you can invite one of your child’s teachers to listen to them on the subject [not on your child’s study progress] which could be very interesting. The bye product could be the development of intimacy between you, the teacher and your child, which could pay dividends in other ways.

The sum and substance of the above is that we should be either normal or positively excited at the dinner table. Being positively charged would be very preferable while eating, as it gets us additional nutrients.

Joy and cheer are to mind what sunshine and dew are to the flowers.


How should we eat?

We are aware that we need to digest our food properly and this depends to a large extent on how we eat our food. We all know that whatever we eat, it should be get digested so that we get the nutrients. But eating is not putting something into our mouth and sending it to the stomach.

The starting point for digestion is not the stomach, but the mouth itself. Chewing is essential for breaking down solid food particles as well as increasing the production of saliva, which is the main enzyme here. Saliva is the first of the digestive juices which starts digesting the food we take. The saliva has some antiseptic chemicals and germs entering through our mouth are attacked by this. Those who simply swallow their food lose this help from saliva and allow the germs to straight go into the stomach. In addition the saliva is meant to moisten and lubricate our food, the first step needed in digestion. By chewing, we allow our food to come in effective contact with the saliva and derive all the benefits that saliva is there to grant to us. This also gets our digestion to a good start.

For the saliva to act upon the food, there are certain requirements. They are:

v The food that we eat should not be hot, either by heat or by taste
v The food that we eat should not be chill
v It should stay in the mouth for sometime for saliva to do its work

You can observe that when we take something hot or cold, the saliva does not get secreted. It means that anything that we take hot or cold, goes into our stomach without the first stage of digestion having taken place. If the first part of digestion does not take place, there is difficulty in subsequent processes to be effective.

Similarly, hurried eating and swallowing also prevents the first stage digestion from taking place. That is why very often it is said that we should eat slowly and after proper chewing.

What is proper chewing? It is said that anything solid put into our mouth requires to be chewed thirty two times. The number of teeth we have provides the clue as to how many times we need to chew.
I had once tested with raw food. You too can test it while taking raw vegetable like cucumber or even plain chapati. Puit the cucumber or the plain chapati into your mouth and count the number of times the mouth chews it before it is sent into the stomach. And you can not swallow it before this number of chewing takes place. So allow a good chewing. One way of allowing this is to put your cutlery back on the plate and practicing hands off, between mouthfuls to slow down the rate at which you eat.

The message from the above paragraphs is that if you allow any food to get in without giving it first stage digestion, you are likely to develop problems like indigestion and gas. If ever any patient goes to the doctor with complaints like gas, acidity, etc., the doctor would invariably advice that you should eat slowly after due chewing. The reason behind the same is what has been stated above.

Thus chewing the food thoroughly is very essential. In chewing we break down the solid food particles and increase the saliva enzyme which is the first chemical that prepares the food for the stomach to process next. Chewing would be effective, if you can focus your mind to what is happening inside your mouth while eating. Many people read or watch TV while eating. Those people cannot really chew to an optimum extent.

Whatever is stated above for eating, applies also for drinking. You should avoid chill or hot water which would prevent production of saliva. Take warm water instead. Whenever you drink water, here too, you need to ensure that you chew the water to facilitate production of saliva to take care of the first state of digestion of water. We generally gulp water. That is wrong. Naturopathy says

Drink the solid – i.e. chew, make it liquid and then drink it
Eat the liquid - i.e. chew the liquid and eat it

This much about the first stage digestion at the mouth. Now let us move on to the digestion that takes place in our stomach.

Our stomach is said to produce two types of digestive juices to suit two kinds of input that we make. If we input protein, the stomach produces hydrochloric acid for its digestion. If we put carbohydrate, it produces alkaline. When you take in your meal both protein and starch, the stomach produces both acid and alkaline. Any one who had read chemistry would tell that when acid and alkaline come into contact with each other they neutralise each other.

So what would happen if you eat both protein and starch in a single meal? There would be no digestive juice to digest them, since the juices produced by the stomach got nullified by the process of neutralisation. The result is undigested food and resultant problems. Then you take in tablets and capsules.

Somebody said that we the human beings are the only species in the world who need medicine to move the food out of stomach to the intestine.

So, we need to ensure that we in a single meal, either eat protein or carbohydrate. It means no rice and meat together. But rice and beans are ok.

Even among proteins like Flesh, eggs, diary products, nuts, etc. it would be better we don’t combine different proteins in a single meal, since proteins are of different character and complexity.

They say that the one function that demands more energy from our body than any other function is digestion. Digestion of food, according to scientists, takes more energy than running, swimming, etc.

Why all of us feel sleepy after a good meal? It is because all energies are concentrated on digestion of the food and we feel energy less. If only we would take regulated food, our body would not be over taxed and we would feel energetic.

One more thing on ‘how to eat’. That is about drinking water.

You know when we eat, our organs like the mouth and stomach secrete digestive juices for digestion. Now at that time, if we drink water, this liquefies the chemicals and they lose their power. Therefore it is better if we avoid taking water while eating, except for some small quantity if we feel suffocated without water. Otherwise, water should be taken either well in advance of or well after the mealtime so that the water vacates the stomach before the meal arrives therein.
How much should we eat?

Cooking and eating food are among our greatest pleasures and the food we most often enjoy is often fatty. This fat often compels us to overeat fatty foods. This fat has a tendency to slow down the body’s BMR [Basal Metabolic Rate] allowing activities such as heart beat, respiration, etc. to continue functioning on fewer calories and thus conserve calories and thus making you eat lot more calories than your body needs to function optimally. This thus adds to your weight. Fat also dulls your ability to experience fullness.

There is a popular saying that we should ensure that we leave adequate space in our stomach for food, water and air and therefore the ideal way is to take food for half the stomach and leave the remaining half for water and air in equal measure. There is also another saying that we should not eat to the full stomach since it needs space for contracting in the process of digesting the food within it. In fact both these versions are correct. The question however arises at what exact time do we really stop the intake.

The answer is simple in the scheme of things that the nature has prescribed. The first requirement is when there is no hunger, we never go in for any input. Now, when we are taking meals, when the stomach is half full, we would get the sound of first ‘Dakar’. This noise is a communication to us that our stomach is half full and we can stop the intake. But generally at that time, since our stomach is not full, we would still fell like eating further. This is the starting point for indigestion, gas, acidity and heart burn.

Since many are in the habit of taking food to the full stomach, over the period, the first Dakar had stopped coming to them and what they get is the second Dakar after their stomach gets full. This second communication in fact says that ‘well I can’t take any further’.

Eating a heavy meal acts as a trigger for heart attack in much the same way as extreme physical exertion and outbursts of anger. Those who eat more run the risk of having a heart attack in the first two hours after having the heavy meal.

So next time, when you sit for eating, leave the table or plate when you are at the most three quarters full.

In Conclusion

Healthy eating is very essential for good health. You would then feel well, look well and do well. Your hair will become more shinier, your skin more clearer, your eyes more brighter and you would have lots of energy. All the repair works that are needed would automatically take place without any effort on your part. Hence

Overhaul your diet and eat healthily
Take more salads and sprouted grains, nuts and seeds
Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water but none during meals
Take more vegetables and fruits
Cut down on stimulants like tea, coffee, alcohol which all tax the liver
Take fresh foods only

We should eat what we require and not what we desire
The food we take should be simple to eat and easy to digest

Start the day with honey
Have the honey added to a glass of warm water plus little lime juice
Have the food in sitting position
Keep sitting for three minutes after you have finished your meal
Better to wait till those who are taking food along with you complete their food

Even a moderate restriction of food intake can help in tremendous reduction in disease and help increase longevity.