We all know that technology has been integrated into the weave of our modern lives to such an extent that without technology there would be a big hole left in this fabric.
However as far as kids are concerned, it is a totally different ball game. I think technology has been developed to make our lives easier. What that means is less physical and mental effort to carry on a particular piece task. Less effort leads to less usage and less usage leads to impairing the capacity to function at the optimum level. So in simple terms what I mean to say is that introducing technology at an early stage would make kids use less of their brain and physical prowess. For example, using a calculator to do a 2+2 addition would never make him understand how the calculator derived the final answer. Similarly playing video games would never let him/her know what it is like playing in the open field in fresh air, where you run which builds your stamina, where you fall and get hurt which makes you more resilient, where you argue or agree with real people, which builds long lasting friendships as well as gives you people skills. Same things could be said about reading books vs getting information from the internet.
Thus, though I am not against technology (we know we cannot escape it no matter what), introducing it during the developing years of the child would do him more harm than good. It should be introduced as and when appropriate, but there is no need to feel ashamed if your 5 yr old does not know how to use a laptop or play the latest video games. Technology should be looked at just as a tool and not as a replacement to what is true and tested. And learning to use a tool could be done at a later stage in life. All of us reading this blog are a shining example of this philosophy.
01 June 2009
Importance Of Fresh Home Cooked Meals
What I would be writing here are purely my thoughts on the topic and I in no way mean to hurt anybody's feelings. Maybe after reading this post if atleast one person starts thinking in a different way - I would feel my purpose is served. My thoughts come from the study of Ayurveda, Yoga and Vedic Sciences that I have been doing for the past few years. Thus please bear with me if I contradict many of the general beliefs that are prevalent today.
Today, in North America we live in a capitalist society where we are brain washed by most of the major corporations into believing things which would otherwise be not accepted by us if we thought about them logically and with our gut instincts. A simple example of this is the war between butter and Margarine. Even a kid would tell us that it would be more logical to eat butter that is made from milk than margarine which is generated from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in huge processing units. Now the main point of argument between using margarine over butter is the saturated fats that occur in butter. However what people do not know is complete hydrogenation of fatty acids leads to the formation of saturated fats. Thus the amt of saturated fats in margarine are controlled by partial hydrogenation. However partial hydrogenation leads to the formation of trans fats which are unavoidable in the catalytic conversion of oils to margarine. For more information please refer
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Hydrogenation# In_the_food_ industry
Trans fats are proven to be absolutely harmful to humans.
Now some might argue about the availability of reduced trans-fat margarine. These amounts of trans fats are reduced by addition of modified palm oil. Now what is modified palm oil- it is a combination of palm oil and tunic oil - the latter used for polishing furniture or used as a varnish on paintings.
Thus we can see that no matter what, margarine is not good for any one. And why do you thing these huge conglomerates take the pain of bringing all these new products on the shelf. Do you think the care even one ounce about the health of the general public. The answer is a big "NO". All they care about is catering to the newer and latest public demands and thereby filling their pockets. If the general public becomes aware of one bad thing in their product -they'll go to any extent to remove it just to replace it with some other bad thing until the public becomes aware of it. And thus the chain continues.
Now as opposed to that the ancient vedic wisdom is not baised by any lobby or sponsored by a conglomerate. It was based on pure research intended for the upliftment of the human race. The period when these text were written was a golden era in human civilization and thus much more believable.
Now coming to the original topic - about cooking food. We all now understand that we are what we eat. Food should be our medicine and medicine should be our food. We can maintain optimum levels of health if we only change our food habits and eat more fresh, home cooked food. Finally we should also realize that if after all the hardwork that we do in our offices and homes, if are missing out on the most basic survival need and that is eating healthy food, what is the use of everything else. Thus the importance of eating healthy could not be stressed more.
Now what is healthy? Healthy for me is traditional Indian food. Of course, over the course of last few decades the way food is cooked is deteriorated. We use more oil, ghee, butter, spices, sweets, salts etc to please our taste buds. However if we cook our traditional foods in the true vedic way, using all of the above in moderate quantities, we can have a truely healthy meal. Indian way of cooking is one of the most scientific ones. A simple preparation of daal has so much thought and science put into it that no modern foods can even come close. The science could be seen in simple things like what type of food should be consumed at what time of the day (din charya) or season (ritu charya). For example cough forming foods like yogurt, juices etc should be avoided during mornings, whereas a glass of buttermilk should be the last thing to have after your dinner. These and so many such things are no where found in any modern sciences let alone food preparations.
As to what can be quick and easy - I feel spending half an hour in the mornings and half an hour in the evenings to cook healthy food for yourself, your kids and your family is not asking for too much from yourself if you wish to maintain good health in the long run. Obesity, diabetes, high cholestrol, blood pressure etc are all diseases arising from poor eating habits. We should also remember that this is something we are passing on to our kids in their formative years. If we remember, most of us would be having grandparents who were or are still active in their eighties. This is mostly because of the good (healthy), fresh, home cooked food they ate as kids. We are fortunate in that respect because most of us too had a good childhood where our moms served us with 4 hot meals in a day. So I feel, we owe it to our childern to pass down this same heritage. The food could be simple like rice, dal and one vegetable. We can make use of modern ammenities to make our lives simpler. For example, I have a bread machine which I sometimes use for making bread, but use it daily for kneading dough for the rotis. Once the dough is made, making 10 rotis does not take more than 15 minutes. A pressure cooker is another good utility which helps in cooking beans and lentils quickly while the rotis get ready. I also rely heavily on the microwave oven to cook my veges in 5 minutes. Once they are cooked, just stir-frying them in a tadka hardly takes 5 more minutes. Another way of speeding up things in the kitchen is taking help from your hubby and kids. Kids love to help in simple tasks like pealing the potatoes, garlic etc. Whereas hubby could help in more time consuming task like cleaning and chopping the veges. If cooking is made into a family event everyday, it serves all the purposes like spending quality time with the family, teaching kids about basic skills in the kitchen, catching up with hubby with all the day to day happenings and the end result is a healthy, hot, delicious, home cooked meal.
Today, in North America we live in a capitalist society where we are brain washed by most of the major corporations into believing things which would otherwise be not accepted by us if we thought about them logically and with our gut instincts. A simple example of this is the war between butter and Margarine. Even a kid would tell us that it would be more logical to eat butter that is made from milk than margarine which is generated from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in huge processing units. Now the main point of argument between using margarine over butter is the saturated fats that occur in butter. However what people do not know is complete hydrogenation of fatty acids leads to the formation of saturated fats. Thus the amt of saturated fats in margarine are controlled by partial hydrogenation. However partial hydrogenation leads to the formation of trans fats which are unavoidable in the catalytic conversion of oils to margarine. For more information please refer
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Hydrogenation# In_the_food_ industry
Trans fats are proven to be absolutely harmful to humans.
Now some might argue about the availability of reduced trans-fat margarine. These amounts of trans fats are reduced by addition of modified palm oil. Now what is modified palm oil- it is a combination of palm oil and tunic oil - the latter used for polishing furniture or used as a varnish on paintings.
Thus we can see that no matter what, margarine is not good for any one. And why do you thing these huge conglomerates take the pain of bringing all these new products on the shelf. Do you think the care even one ounce about the health of the general public. The answer is a big "NO". All they care about is catering to the newer and latest public demands and thereby filling their pockets. If the general public becomes aware of one bad thing in their product -they'll go to any extent to remove it just to replace it with some other bad thing until the public becomes aware of it. And thus the chain continues.
Now as opposed to that the ancient vedic wisdom is not baised by any lobby or sponsored by a conglomerate. It was based on pure research intended for the upliftment of the human race. The period when these text were written was a golden era in human civilization and thus much more believable.
Now coming to the original topic - about cooking food. We all now understand that we are what we eat. Food should be our medicine and medicine should be our food. We can maintain optimum levels of health if we only change our food habits and eat more fresh, home cooked food. Finally we should also realize that if after all the hardwork that we do in our offices and homes, if are missing out on the most basic survival need and that is eating healthy food, what is the use of everything else. Thus the importance of eating healthy could not be stressed more.
Now what is healthy? Healthy for me is traditional Indian food. Of course, over the course of last few decades the way food is cooked is deteriorated. We use more oil, ghee, butter, spices, sweets, salts etc to please our taste buds. However if we cook our traditional foods in the true vedic way, using all of the above in moderate quantities, we can have a truely healthy meal. Indian way of cooking is one of the most scientific ones. A simple preparation of daal has so much thought and science put into it that no modern foods can even come close. The science could be seen in simple things like what type of food should be consumed at what time of the day (din charya) or season (ritu charya). For example cough forming foods like yogurt, juices etc should be avoided during mornings, whereas a glass of buttermilk should be the last thing to have after your dinner. These and so many such things are no where found in any modern sciences let alone food preparations.
As to what can be quick and easy - I feel spending half an hour in the mornings and half an hour in the evenings to cook healthy food for yourself, your kids and your family is not asking for too much from yourself if you wish to maintain good health in the long run. Obesity, diabetes, high cholestrol, blood pressure etc are all diseases arising from poor eating habits. We should also remember that this is something we are passing on to our kids in their formative years. If we remember, most of us would be having grandparents who were or are still active in their eighties. This is mostly because of the good (healthy), fresh, home cooked food they ate as kids. We are fortunate in that respect because most of us too had a good childhood where our moms served us with 4 hot meals in a day. So I feel, we owe it to our childern to pass down this same heritage. The food could be simple like rice, dal and one vegetable. We can make use of modern ammenities to make our lives simpler. For example, I have a bread machine which I sometimes use for making bread, but use it daily for kneading dough for the rotis. Once the dough is made, making 10 rotis does not take more than 15 minutes. A pressure cooker is another good utility which helps in cooking beans and lentils quickly while the rotis get ready. I also rely heavily on the microwave oven to cook my veges in 5 minutes. Once they are cooked, just stir-frying them in a tadka hardly takes 5 more minutes. Another way of speeding up things in the kitchen is taking help from your hubby and kids. Kids love to help in simple tasks like pealing the potatoes, garlic etc. Whereas hubby could help in more time consuming task like cleaning and chopping the veges. If cooking is made into a family event everyday, it serves all the purposes like spending quality time with the family, teaching kids about basic skills in the kitchen, catching up with hubby with all the day to day happenings and the end result is a healthy, hot, delicious, home cooked meal.
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