Relish what you eat with all your senses

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