Are you Eating the Right Way? by Pooja

Are you Eating the Right Way? by Pooja,  Drop the Fork and Use your Hands

Ayurveda has always practiced the art of eating with your fingers. The ancient tradition of eating food with the hands comes from mudra practices.

Mudras are used during meditation and are hand movements and pose used in yoga and other healing practices along with chanting.

In Ayurveda, hands are considered the most precious organ of action, used in all human action and attention.

This is linked to the Vedic prayer.

Karagre vasate Laksmih karamule Sarasvati Karamadhye tu Govindah prabhate karadarsanam

On the tip of your fingers is Goddess Lakshmi, on the base of your fingers is Goddess Saraswati; in the middle of your fingers is Lord Govinda. 

Ayurveda shows us that our hands contain all of the five elements. The Ayurvedic texts teach us that each finger is an extension of one of the five elements. Space is held in the thumb, the Forefinger  Air, the Middle finger, Fire; the Ringing finger, Water and through the Little finger it is Earth.

Pooja continues -

Eating food with forks and spoons have become the norm in our culture. Eating any other way is considered unhygienic or even primitive.  We try teaching our children how to use utensils early on and make sure to scold them when they “pick” at their food with their fingers.

But if you’ve ever been to India, you’ll notice that everyone eats with their hands – those remarkable set of eating utensils that we’re gifted with at birth. In some households, it is considered disrespectful to NOT eat with your hands. So you’ll see the 2-year-old, the 30-year-old, and even the 70-year-old all eating with their hands and licking their fingers afterward! So how did this custom arise and is there anything beneficial about it?

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