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EGG AND TOAST It may provide adequate nourishment for some

You are what you eat. The philosopher who said this got it absolutely right. Food is one of the three pillars of health, activity and state of mind. What we eat acts at the cellular level, and affects our psyche too.

Calories, vitamins and minerals… we do keep track of them, but one facet we forget to take into account is taste. Yes! Taste does matter. “Not just calories, minerals and vitamins, our body needs arusuvai or the six tastes to function. Sweet or madura suvai (taste) as in fresh curd, potatoes, idly and rice, sour or amla taste as in tamarind, raw mangoes, etc, salty or lavana taste, katu or pungent taste as in chillies and pepper, bitter or tikta taste as in bitter gourd, kashyapa or the astringent taste as in tea and cocoa… a normal person without any complications needs all of them for proper formation and functioning of the various tissues,” says Dr. V. R. Seshadri, ayurveda expert and superintendent, IMPCOPS Hospital.

However, too much of a good thing can be bad. Excess madura can cause diabetes and obesity. Likewise, excess intake of sour stuff can weaken teeth, cause hair fall and gastric acidity. Excess salt intake can cause tooth decay, and weaken bones and eyesight. Excess karam or pungency can cause gastritis and hair fall. Excess intake of bitter food can cause nervous disorders. Excess astringent or kashyapa intake can affect your body’s outflows, be it gastric secretions, lactation, sweat, stools or seminal fluids. Sattvic food, which has less of salt, pungency and sour taste, results in a calm and cool state of mind, says Dr. Seshadri.

“A curious fact is, though we make buttermilk from curd, they are worlds apart in terms of function. Curd increases obesity, cholesterol and triglyceride levels and is certainly not recommended for anyone over 30,” informs Dr. Anbalagan. Dilute buttermilk, on the other hand, gives you the minerals and vitamins in curd, besides cooling your body, and without creating the ill-effects mentioned above. Likewise, the rice you eat should at least be a year old. New rice is not as nutritious, and also aggravates the kapha or mucous in you body, and even your risk for diabetes.

And ensuring you derive health from food involves a lot more than just what you eat. For instance, your last meal for the day should be before 7.30 p.m. or 8 p.m. “By the time you sleep, food should have moved from the stomach to the intestine, and it takes two-and-a-half hours for this to happen,” says Dr. Janaki Ananthan. You do need to ‘breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper’. But even then, you need to fill just half of your tummy with food. Leave one quarter of space to drink water and another quarter free for the digestive juices to flow in and act.

The order of dishes you tuck into matters too. Begin with vegetables, protein and carbohydrates; maybe dal and rice, along with a little ghee to stir the digestive juices into action. “A sweet dessert such as ice cream or even payasam at the end of the meal inactivates your digestive juices. So, make sure you end a meal with buttermilk or even a cup of tea, certainly not a sweet dessert,” advises Dr. Seshadri.

Food can be nourishment, defence, and medicine. Says an ancient maxim: ‘Diseases will not affect one who knows what to eat, what not to eat, when to eat and how to eat.’ On the other hand, if you do not satisfy your body’s requirements, you are destined to suffer ill health. We have become health conscious and are into health foods. But we often forget to consider the context – our climate, environment, and genetic make-up. It can make a world of difference.

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