Relish what you eat with all your senses

“Mani beta! Look, how nice this rhyme is,” I overheard a young mother pleading with her twoyear-old son, while coaxing him to eat. We were in a train. The kid shook his head vehemently in a big ‘no’. From his iPhone, the proud Papa patiently played one video after the other but none found favour with the little master. Finally, to their relief, ‘ Gangnam Style ‘ brought a smile on the child’s face. Happily and hurriedly, the mother unpacked some South Indian fare, and started feeding the tiny monster. With eyes glued to the phone, the child chewed on to the stuff being put into his mouth, quite unmindfully.

I wondered whether the doting couple deserved to be admired or admonished.

Walking down memory lane, I reflected on my parents, who, though equally affectionate and caring, never allowed any distraction during our meals. Even talking or reading was prohibited. “No, nothing doing, finish your food first,” was their directive. Then, they would quote Yog Shastra with its “Tad dhiyanam hitam atman,” which translated means, “The mind should be where the body is”, meaning that we should focus on what we do.

The act of eating, so essential to life, should be done attentively, used to be their argument.

In present day life, wisely or unwisely, eating has been reduced to a mere act of filling fuel in the body to keep it running. It’s often done while browsing the internet or attending calls or watching television. Many people feed on their favourite serial while having dinner. A friend can’t resist turning on the idiot box before eating. His excuse: “TV provides a dramatic backdrop to dinner and you feel transported to a romantic world where chicken or cheese, palak or peas taste the same.”

This is surely a symptom of unmindful eating when taste is not registered in the brain, and can cause overeating leading to obesity or other digestive disorders.

Eating is an experience to be enjoyed thoroughly with all our senses. As noted dietician Rujuta Diwekar says, “If eating employs one of our sensory organs, the tongue, shouldn’t the other senses support this essential process?” The answer is an unequivocal “Yes”. All five senses should be active when we eat. We need to see, touch, smell and silently savour what we eat. What meditation is to the astral body, eating is to the physical body. It is a process of internalisation. The food eaten by us produces “ras” or juices in our body, which generate blood, fats, marrow, bones and semen, the source of life and energy.

Eating to fill up the belly is a natural act, but to eat intelligently is an art. While the art of cooking creates delicious dishes; it is the art of eating which renders them digestible and delightful. We need to relearn or revive this art of having a fine and fulfilling experience with food. We must use all our sense organs to acknowledge and appreciate; experience and evaluate, relish and remember what we eat.

THE ART OF COOKING CREATES DELICIOUS DISHES, WHILE IT IS THE ART OF EATING THAT RENDERS THEM DELIGHTFUL. WE NEED TO REVIVE THIS ART OF HAVING A FINE AND FULFILLING EXPERIENCE