Drop the Utensils, Eat with Your Hands!

Ayurveda recommends eating with the fingers instead of utensils. If you try using your hands to eat, you may be surprised by what it does for your digestion!

One Thing at a Time

Eating with your hands means you can’t check email, read, text or answer the phone. With food all over your fingers, you are stuck doing one thing at a time, and this is the time to eat. This allows us to relax and dine. Eating with such awareness is essential for optimum digestion and proper delivery of nutrients. People underestimate how much this can make a difference. More often than not, how you eat it is more important then what you eat.

The fingers are the sensors, and also the hand contains not only the planets, but all the nakshatras (constellations). So when you are eating with your hands it is satisfying everything [all the needs of your physiology because the planetary ‘map’ on your hands is like the DNA – it contains everything about you]. The planets and stars [imprinted] on the hand are YOUR planets. When you touch the food you will know the food texture, temperature, and immediately the enzymes will start inside you, and from the mouth itself the digestion will start. (1)

– Dr. Krishna Raju

Other Recommendations for the Ritual of Eating

• Don’t eat when you are angry, depressed, emotionally unstable or immediately after physical exertion.
• Sitting cross legged on the floor encourages the right pressure to assist with digestion.
• Once your food is served, do a prayer before you start eating. Give thanks to nature for providing you with the food and can thank whichever deity you worship.
• Chew each morsel at least 32 times, food should be like liquid.
• Enjoy your nourishment.

(1) Dr. Krishna Raju is a highly respected Vaidya who practices in South India at his family clinic that has been healing patients for generations.