Are you listening to Stomach and Tongue?

Life lessons – Are you listening to Stomach and Tongue?

Description:  We are what we eat. Mental clarity and mental toughness were directly related to the nature of one’s diet.  We should eat to survive instead of living to eat. As in, we should value life more than food.  We need to eat food that keeps us healthy; we should ensure food does not become our obsession or addiction. By transforming our diet, we can dramatically reshape our body, moods, energy levels and overall vitality.  All our academic excellence and self improvement techniques will not help us if we do not have the energy and health to apply and excel with them. With proper and thoughtful nutrition, we will have the longevity and ability to achieve our dreams. 

Intent: To understand golden rule - ‘Eat to live and don’t live to eat.

To be conscious of suitability of intake according to one’s bodily needs

            To understand the transient nature of taste

Caring for stomach over tongue

Life lesson: Recently my friend Arun went to Bangalore stayed in a Hotel.  After the day’s work he went to a shopping Mall.  On his return he had seen a small American corn outlet and naturally a desire arose in his mind to have a taste of it. He approached the corn shop. The shop boy asked whether he prefers Rs.15/- cup or R.20/- or Rs.30/- cup?  He preferred Rs.30/- cup as he wants to have more. The boy again asked him whether he prefers with masala or without. He said, with masala.  Arun’s stomach felt semi full.  He had tasted a full cup of corn.  When coming out Arun entered a nearby hotel and it was then past 8 pm, his dinner time.  On looking at the menu list, he ordered onion rava dosa. It took some time for the hotel to prepare the rava dosa and he waited patiently with an eagerness to have a taste of it.  When it was served, it did not taste as expected.  As he had the policy of not wasting food, he ate full dosa.  On coming out he bought a yellow banana after sometime he ate it thinking that it would help digestion.  He went to sleep. Suddenly he got disturbed at 3 am and felt some uneasiness in stomach.  He felt vomiting sensation and vomited to see entire rava dosa came out. His digestion parts struggled for more than seven hours to digest the oily rava dasa and at last lost in the battle.  Strenuous effort to vomit had taken the toll of his throat also. He was in difficulty to swallow anything.  The next day was horrible one for Arun.  He became austere for the whole day.  Most delicious food could not tempt him.

Questions:

1. Do you have any such experience in your life?
2. What should be our approach towards food?
3. Should we allow food an obsession or addiction in our life?
4. Why we are not caring for stomach’s alarm and hasten to fulfill the slightest command of the tongue?
5. Why are not able to resist the temptation of taste? What should we do?
6. Is it possible to take what is good for health though it has less in taste?
7. Do all people go to hotels to meet the needs of stomach or tongue?
8. Can we cultivate enough courage to say ‘No’ to tongue?
9. What are the life lessons we can learn from the above incident?

Role plays concepts:

1. Debate between stomach and tongue (enacting the parts of stomach and tongue)

2. Scene No.1 – Unable to resist the delicious food and succumbing to the temptation of tongue

     Scene No.2 – Overcoming the temptation

3. Scene No.1 – Going after tongue’s sound dictates

     Scene No.2 – Listening to the small voice of stomach

Analyze and Explore:

The most powerful animals the elephant, rhino and gorilla (which has thirty times a man’s strength) all survive on vegetables or fruits.

One Minute Talk:

Junk food and Nutritional food

Creative Drawing:

Food habits – positive and negative effects