How to eat a pizza in a healthy way?

How to eat a pizza in a healthy way?
Is it what we eat or how we eat?

The modern world is occupied with restlessness. Everybody seems to be in a great hurry. To keep pace, most people eat whatever they get. The advances in the medical field have made professional dietitians available who can guide us about what to eat & what to avoid. However, it is more important to know how to eat. The oldest medical science known to mankind (Ayurveda) has documented the importance of the above question and prescribed a regimen for what to eat & how to eat under “Anna Vidhi Vidhan”. The Ayurvedic texts also teach us how to drive maximum nutrition from the food.

Ayurvedic Thumb Rules for the Art of Eating

“Eat your meals, reasonably hot and unctuous at a congenial place of your mind’s choice,
With all the favourite accessories, neither hurriedly, nor very slowly;
Neither while talking, nor while laughing, but consciously,
Putting your heart and soul into what you are eating.”

Another Sanskrit Shaloka given below also explains the same

• “Ushanam Chashniyat”: Always eat moderately warm food. The warm food is a natural carminative (relieves flatulence). Hot meals aid proper digestion by activating digestive enzymes and increasing healthy secretion of digestive juices which also naturally increase the appetite. In case of warm food, our digestive system has to work less on it and food gets properly digested and assimilated. In simple words, hot meals share the workload & save the energy expenditures of our digestive system. Additionally, our body easily absorbs the nutrients from the hot meals as they quickly diffuse into the digestive system. Hence, a warm meal increases the nutritional value of food.
• “Snigdham Chashniyat”: The meals that we consume should contain a healthy amount of natural oils. Nowadays people are so conscious about cholesterol levels that they are even afraid of consuming unsaturated healthy fatty acids such as vegetable oils etc. However, such oils (unsaturated fatty acids) are naturally helpful to assist in digestion and treating digestive irregularities.
• “Na Ati Dhrutam Chashniyat Na Ati Vilambh Chashniyat”: Don’t eat too fast or too slow. Quickly throwing food inside your mouth will lack proper churning of food and mixing of salivary enzymes in it, before the food is pushed down the throat. Such practice of eating is not tummy-friendly. Another poor habit is to eat food while watching TV or Cell phone. Such scenarios take too long for the completion of a meal intake & the nervous system is not able to judge whether the meal has been finished or not. This can cause a disruptive unhealthy secretion of the various enzymes.
• “Jeernam Chashniyat”: Avoid eating if the previous meal is not completely digested. If food is taken under such circumstances, rather than offering nutrition, the meal will become AMA (undigested food). This Ama is circulated in the body via blood and gets accumulated which becomes a causative factor for multiple diseases.

Further, it is difficult for micro-organisms like bacteria/fungi to survive in hot foods. So, hot meals are naturally free from bacteria and hence good for health. According to Ayurveda, hot meals help in Deepan and Pachan by enhancing Agni to prevent digestive irregularities viz. IBS & constipation etc. Moreover, hot food regulates the body temperature during a cold weather by providing warmth. It feels great after taking hot meals as compared to a cold meal & this happy feeling naturally boosts energy levels. Keeping pace with our fast lives & time constrains, following the Ayurvedic “Anna Vidhi Vidhan” is very important to remain free from a diseased life.