Food and Diet_Poshan Maah'2020

The Month of September is been celebrated as "Nutrition Month" or Poshan Maah! This year 2020 is the 3rd National Nutrition Month. Bringing to you an exclusive insight into Food and Diet by

Antriksh

Founder, Adyant Health.

Practicing Acupuncture, Auriculotherapy, Scalp Acupuncture, Ayurvedic Acupressure, Su-Jok, Marma, Chromotherapy.

Food and Diet | The right food at the right time

There are only three things that keep us alive, breathe, water, and food. Removing any of the three, causes death, replace any of the three, the system begins to fail. It may be in minutes, hours, days, months, or years. The cravings of your mind may see no end, but the body requires only three things, and none of them can be replaced, so you can’t have pollution for air, aerated drinks for water, junk for food. Why? Because we fancy the creations of our mind and take pride in it by calling it a lifestyle. If we can’t even arrange these basic things for survival that indeed are present in abundance on the planet, what purpose does mental evolution, professional achievements, and scientific prowess serve us and our civilization? What have we achieved through modernity?

In time, we have come to justify our choices, food choices, and habits. There are certain combinations of food that absolutely harm the body, but since we have been consuming them since childhood, or just for the sake since we have developed a liking for it, we often defend such choices or habits. Food, if not compatible with our body and if taken for a long period of days causes excessive systemic damage to the organs, primarily that of the digestive system. I have seen patients who have had their organs like gall-bladder removed yet never knew where they were to begin with and what purpose they served. But don’t dare ask them about their profession, their description wouldn’t be short of a living encyclopedia. How many have been taking medication for diabetes, how many of us have bothered to look where that impoverished pancreas exists or if pancreas alone causes diabetes? Why do we feel satisfied when someone tells, nothing can be done about it? Don’t we have a responsibility for it? Do we expel the ailing members of our family or stop caring for them if they fall sick? Of course, we have justification for everything, and moreover, we don’t have time. Today we know more about the disease and less about food, the plight of modern education.

Let us help ourselves make the right choices that are conducive to healthy living. We shall simply look into four aspects of food:

1. Food Combinations

2. Food Type compatibility.

3. Time

4. Hot & Cold

1. Food combinations: Let us see what our usual diet consists of. Usually, they range from these five types of food: Vegetables, Non-veg, Fruits, Dry fruits, Dairy products (including milk, cottage cheese, and cheese). It is important to understand that Vegetables, Non-veg, Fruits, Dry fruits, Dairy products are a different category of foods and are absolutely incompatible with each other. What that means is that we should not take them together at any given time. So food items can be combined safely in the following pairs to help in proper digestion:

[Vegetables + Grains] OR [Vegetables + Non-veg] OR [Vegetables + Dry fruits] OR

[Vegetables + Dairy Products]

As said earlier, it’s not advisable to mix those five types of food items amongst each other, else they may cause indigestion, acidity, constipation, belching, or other gastric issues. People who have a sensitive stomach must definitely avoid mixing Vegetables, Non-veg, Fruits, Dry fruits, Dairy products with each other.

2. Food-type compatibility:

· Always take one type of food at a given time. For example, if you had taken wheat in the form of roti, then you must avoid rice along with it. The reverse is also not compatible.

· Avoid taking milk with bread/biscuits and other cereal related products, as we have observed earlier, Grains and Dairy products are not compatible and will likely cause indigestion sooner or later in life. Yes, we probably have been taking them together since childhood, but if you have digestive issues, try not taking them for few days and see the difference for yourself.

· Never combine dairy products like curd with pulses. Some of us develop a habit of mixing the two or even taking them together in a meal. Avoid it at all costs, it will certainly cause acidity or flatulence or both.

· Do not combine acidic and alkaline foods together since their digestion takes place under the presence of different enzymes. In this light, I would like to emphasize, that pouring lemon juice(citric acid)/tamarind(tartaric acid) over salad (alkaline) will have the same effect and will actually slow down the digestive process. Similarly, do not squeeze lemon on dals and other pulses.

· Do not mix cottage cheese (paneer) with any other vegetable. This forms the same norm as discussed above in the first point. Yes, do not consume paneer ki sabzi, because paneer is not sabzi. That is why we must have one type of food. You may consider, if you were taught mathematics and chemistry at the same time, none will be digested by the brain. A similar situation occurs in the stomach.

3. Time: Food, if taken on time is a blessing, at the wrong time, it is destined to harm the body. Generally, we get to see the effects in a few years of not taking food on time. Issues like gastric ulcers, GERD, constipation, flatulence, acid reflux are also related. Let us follow three norms of the time in relation to food:

· Always have breakfast from 7AM-9AM. This is the time the stomach has maximum acidic concentration and will digest anything offered to it. As the day progresses, the digestive capacity of the body decreases and is the weakest at night. Now, most of us, have formed a habit of eating a king-size meals in the oddest hour of the night. Imagine, the moment you arrive home from work and someone asks you to run a marathon? We ask our stomach to do just that when we eat a heavy dinner at night.

· That brings us to dinner. The food must be digested by the time you go to bed. So plan your evening in such a manner that you are able to take a light dinner at least 4 hours before going to bed. And of course, unless your profession mandates sleep by 11PM.

· If you have taken fruits at any given time, ensure to wait for at least half an hour before eating anything that is not of fruit origin. On the other hand, if you have just taken a meal, wait at least an hour before eating fruits. Do not combine fruits and meals together at any given time.

· Yes of course, the smoothies that have such combinations of dry fruits, fruits and vegetables are an absolute debacle for the body.

4. Hot and cold. This is where most of us ignore the concept of digestion. In Ayurveda, the stomach (not the abdomen) is known to harbor the qualities of fire, the ones we get to experience when there is the acidity of acid reflux. It is through this quality, the food is broken down and digested. Many of us have the habit of eating cold like ice cream prior to or after a meal. This douses the fire and renders the digestive qualities weak. I should not discuss further since even the idea of doing such an injustice to the body is illogical. Similarly, do not force yourself to drink unnecessary amounts of water in a day, your body will tell you when you are required to take water. Did anyone educate a baby when it’s time for a feed?

To conclude I would certainly emphasize that your body needs simple and pure food, it’s the mind that craves complexity. Do not torture your body with the cravings of your mind.