Concerned About Good Food Crisis, President (Patli Urbanocrats) Avinash Kumar Writes Column to BT EYE Readers

Food is Our Medicine:

Hippocrates

‘Dear Readers, I hope that you all would be in the best of health. I did not want to mention Hippocrates in this Column, but I have to, because we follow western culture more than ours. It is not because I want to ignore him, but only because we have long heritage in form of Ancient Texts of Indian Medicine System which are older than any written medical books in world and approved by time to time by different scholars of Medical Science and available in form of Samhitas written by Ancient Sages of India i.e. Charaka, Shushruta, Vagbhata, Chyvan and many more.

In current scenario of Medicine World, we shall always find that patient were getting treated with medicine but after couple of days it comes back again in a demonic way.

We have never cared about why these diseases are coming back to us with more diseases while treatment has been already given to the patient.

 We have never cared about foods given to a specific patient instead we have taken a patient as a person who has lost his energy. Hence he needs a good amount of food to recover, but we don’t want to talk about which food is good for them and which is bad for them.

If we shall look in Ancient Text of Indian Medicine System which is based on Nature rather than complex unnatural chemicals, we shall find many shloka inscribed in the books which always talk about food as medicine.

Swasthya, 'to be established in one’s self or own natural state' is optimal health. As per one of the Ancient Scholar, Vagbhata wrote in his book Astanga Hridayam. Ten factors (Dasha Vidha Pariksha दश विधा परीक्षा) are used to determine the state of health of an individual namely:

• Body Tissues (Dushya दूष्य),
• Residing Location (Desha देश),
• Physical Strength (Bala बल),
• Seasons/Time (Kaal काल),
• Digestive and Metabolic Processes (Agni/Anala अग्नि/अनल),
• Genetic & Phonetic Constitution (Prakriti प्रकृति),
• Age (Vaya वय),
• Mental Strength or Temperament (Sattva सत्व),
• Habituation (Satmya सत्मय)  &
• Food (Ahara आहार).

In current scenario of medicine maximum time, we are always talking about ailment, diseases and its cure. But we never talk about how to eat, so that these diseases should be away from us. And result is we are not getting the outcome properly.

Because in influence of Western Culture mixed with Allopathic Medicine, we have started a new business model of Dietician who never cared about above terms cited i.e. Dasa Vidha Pariksha.

They keep talking about what nutritional values a food is containing but they are never talking about its ill-effect on a specific body as per 10 Factor Diagnosis of a body. Even they are never talking about what will be the effects of a mixture of specific food item.

Due to which, if we will find a diet chart we shall find many of the food habit prescribed by them for anyone is not good for health and starts acting as invitee for diseases which is termed as Virudha Ahara.

But alternate medicine system likes Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Electro-Homeopathy or Unani medicine is always speaking about same.

Why I am emphasizing more on the terms coined by Vagbhata’s because being practical if we only take India as a part of observation based experiment, we shall find what people in South of India is eating will be never good for people residing in hilly areas of Himalaya even the most commonly used item in Indian Kitchen is Oil.

If we shall observe, in India multiple types of oil is being used by different purpose in different regions. We must ask a question to ourselves, if coconut oil can be the medium of cooking food in South, why it can’t be used in North or middle India.

It’s only because nature of place, time and body system which tells that coconut oil is better as hair oil in North India but if we shall use it as cooking medium we shall start getting problems like cough, fever, throat infection etc. Same is with Mustard oil, it is good as massage oil in South but it will create problems while digestion in form of gastric.

Medicine System is a part of Science. We can never ignore any recorded finding given by anyone time to time, but with time we have started doing so, all due to ego inside that we are the best.

If we shall take a case of Alternate Medicine System in India, we shall find all of them have only one source i.e. Mother Nature. This part is very unique in these branches of Medical Science.

When the sources of our medicine are one i.e. Mother Nature, then we must question to ourselves why we have ignored each other despite being son from one mother.

We must go into Ancient Text, text of different alternate medicines to find out what is good as food. We must have to learn about 10 Examination System given by Vagbhata for prescribing the food for anyone.

I am not limiting food habits to only Vagbhata but we have to go through different observations made time to time by naturalist rather than a dietician.


Avinash Kumar
(I am not a doctor. I am a student of Science which asks us to observe, read and learn simultaneously.)
President (Patli Urbanocrats)
HR Director (Cyko Technology)
Bettiah, Bihar.