Top News

During the scorching summer season, cases of stomach diseases and food poisoning increase rapidly. In such a situation, it is very important to take special care of your diet to protect yourself from getting sick in summer. Generally it is always advised by the elders to avoid eating stale food. On the contrary, in today’s modern lifestyle, people store leftover food, vegetables, pulses, rice and rotis in the refrigerator and later reheat and eat them. Even though some rules of modern science allow reheating food kept at the right temperature in the refrigerator and eating it, our ancient Ayurveda is completely strict in this matter. Ayurveda had made this rule clear thousands of years ago that food should be consumed within certain hours of cooking, because after a certain time, microscopic bacteria start growing in the food. WHO’s warning: Bacteria grow at the speed of a bullet in stored food. According to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), the healthiest practice is to eat freshly cooked food immediately. Bacteria start growing rapidly in food kept for a long time, which can make a person seriously ill or suffer from diarrhea during summer. ‘Danger zone’ of temperature: Why does stale food make you sick? WHO has also issued a special guideline to ensure that people do not fall ill by eating stale food. The scientific reason behind this guideline is very interesting and scary: Elimination of bacteria: When we cook food at high temperatures, all the harmful bacteria present inside it are completely destroyed. Danger from 5 to 60 degrees: But, when the same cooked food is left for a long time at temperatures between 5 degrees Celsius and 60 degrees Celsius (called the bacteria ‘danger zone’), the bacteria left in it begin to multiply at an alarming rate. Foodborne Diseases: Consuming such contaminated food increases the risk of ‘foodborne diseases’ (food borne diseases) and severe food poisoning manifold. Ayurveda’s viewpoint: The balance of Vata, Pitta and Kapha gets disturbed. According to the ancient Indian medical system ‘Ayurveda’, by eating stale or refrigerated food, all three main doshas (Vata, Pitta and Kapha) of the body become completely imbalanced. When the balance of these three doshas in the body gets disturbed, its direct and worst effect is on our ‘Jathragni’ i.e. digestive system. Due to weak digestive system, food is not digested properly and toxins start accumulating in the body. That is why it is clearly said in Ayurveda that eating cooked food only within 1 to 3 hours is best for health. Disadvantages of reheating: Essential vitamins and nutrition get destroyed. Many people think that by taking food out of the fridge and boiling or heating it properly, it becomes absolutely safe, but it is not so. According to health experts, when food is heated repeatedly or again, the essential nutrients present in it start getting completely destroyed. Many important vitamins and minerals present in food are extremely sensitive to heat and air. By reheating on high flame, these sensitive elements are completely destroyed, due to which the ‘healthy value’ (nutritional capacity) of that food remains equal to zero. It just remains a means to fill the stomach; the body does not get any energy from it.