Having meal used to consider sacred activity in local culture. It used to be considered critical so people used to eat by sitting on the floor and enjoying food fully.
So when someone is eating, there used to be helping hands to serve them. At special days like marriage, family members take care of all guests (Atithi(s)) and serve them food with love. They feel pride in contributing sacred meals of near and dear ones.
Now?
Now we arrange buffet and guests have to arrange queue like criminals do in jail. No respect for guests. It is different thing that guests also have no respect for host in most cases 😀
Guests eat standing and get engaged in talks. Eating happens as background process as neglected task. No self-respect.
Side effects
• Due to lack of attention to food, enough secretion of stomach acids and enzymes does not occur -> lead to indigestion -> sickness in near future
• Due to standing position, Apana Vayu (The downward force described in Ayurveda) is deranged. -> lead to indigestion-> sickness in near future
Solution?
• Always be seated while eating.
• Give complete focus to food. Talks can wait. Gossips can wait. Cell phone can wait. Food cannot wait.
Here is a supporting material. Neurons in our skins can do advance calculations.
“our touch experiences are already processed by neurons in the skin before they reach the brain for further processing”
Research hint: Our body has त्रिकाल ज्ञान (ability to know all states past, present, future) at cellular level and take operational decisions accordingly.
So when you eat by hands, you help your digestive system to prepare environment and avoid indigestion related sickness.
Research
http://www.medfak.umu.se/english/about-the-faculty/news/newsdetailpage/neurons-in-human-skin-perform-advanced-calculations.cid238881
Neurons in human skin perform advanced calculations
A fundamental characteristic of neurons that extend into the skin and record touch, so-called first-order neurons in the tactile system, is that they branch in the skin so that each neuron reports touch from many highly-sensitive zones on the skin.
According to researchers at the Department of Integrative Medical Biology, IMB, Umeå University, this branching allows first-order tactile neurons not only to send signals to the brain that something has touched the skin, but also process geometric data about the object touching the skin.
– Our work has shown that two types of first-order tactile neurons that supply the sensitive skin at our fingertips not only signal information about when and how intensely an object is touched, but also information about the touched object’s shape, says Andrew Pruszynski, who is one of the researchers behind the study.
