Kum. Urmila T. Patil

Food is an inseparable and indispensable part of human life. With changing stages in human civilisation the concept of food, too, has undergone accordant changes. From its unrefined form in the primitive age to its present refined form, food culture has constantly progressed. Two major facets of the food culture however, can be said to have remained more or less constant.

1) Food comes from nature. Nature is one and the only source of most of the foods that are later processed to suit the taste and the digestive system. Nature implies mainly the environment and bio-diversity around us. Availability of food varies according to diverse regions.
2) In every culture certain beliefs, ideas or concepts are associated with food peculiar to that culture. Thus food is never a mere means of sustenance but a mirror which reflects the pattern of thoughts and beliefs of that culture and vice versa.

When we think of food as preventive medicine as looked upon by the ancient Indians, we find certain ideas associated with the above mentioned aspects. Traditional health systems aim at understanding and applying both the material and non-material properties of plants and foods. Careful observation and research done by our ancestors revealed the knowledge of foods that either harm or heal. Such foods were included in everyday as well as special diets that prevented certain diseases. The preventive properties of food may vary according to bio-diversity.

Apart from the ecological aspect, the idea of food as preventive medicine is rooted in the fundamental concept of Balance in traditional health systems - balance between mind and body, between individual and the environment, between individual and culture and between culture and environment. All these are interconnected. The breaking of this interconnectedness is the fundamental source of disease. Health is nothing but a state of balance in all of these. Food acts as a means to restore and retain the balance. 'Treatments are designed not only to address the locus of disease but also to restore a state of systemic balance to the individual and his or her outer and inner environment.'
(Gerard Bodeker, Valuing Bio-diversity For Human Health And Well-being : Traditional Health Systems.)

Having considered various properties of foods, in accordance with the environment, a system of diet was prescribed. There is a cultural aspect added to it when certain foods are used in certain cultural occasions. Metaphysical ideas, too, join the stream and food is regarded as sacred. Many medicinal plants such as Tulasi and other foods were and still are used in rituals. In Tamilnadu 'Panchamritam', the divine washings of God, are regarded as divine as well as medicinal.

Food as preventive medicine, ecology and bio-diversity and culture form a 'Complex whole' where each of these is associated with the other two. The idea here is that of harmony rather than the idea of sequence.

* Necessary and elaborate references will be read out at the time of the seminar.