Seven Types of Food

What is "Food"? What items constitutes food? What are the different categories of food? What happens if the supply of food stops? Whether food came first or consumers came first? Who creates and controls food? Is there any custodian for food? Are there any ancient texts that dwell on these issues relating to food? These are indeed captivating questions. 

One can discuss on these interesting questions and find answers only if one's stomach is filled with food! Any activity can be carried on by living beings only when the basic need of food is met. Activities are initiated and continued either for procuring food or for preserving it for future. All other comforts follow but primacy is for food and food alone. Hunger is the prime motivating factor for all activities pursued by animals and humans alike. 

The answer to the first question "What is Food?" is answered by the dictionary as "any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth etc." The basic function of food is to sustain life. If the supply of food stops, activity of living beings comes down and finally life itself ceases. What items constitutes food can be answered in many ways. What is food for one may not be food for someone else. There are certain items which are near universal food. Milk is one such item. It is consumed by vast majority of living beings. Cereals and grains, pulses, vegetables and fruits also constitute food for human beings. Food may also be classified as vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Someone may differentiate between geographical areas. North Indian and South Indian Food for example. It may be Indian or Continental. There can be umpteen types of classification itself.

Whether food came first or consumers first is another interesting question. As soon as any living being takes birth or comes into existence, the first requirement is food. Other activities like growth and transformation start only after consumption of food. It is not just first consumption, but continuous consumption thereafter. Consumption stops only when life ceases to exist. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that first food came into existence and then life. Who creates and controls food and who are the custodians? These are also interesting questions but there can be many opinions and answers to them

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Discussion about "Food" can be seen in many ancient Indian texts. In fact one of the many names for the Supreme Lord is "Anna" (अन्न), which means food. In Vishnu Sahasranaama, Verse 105 mentions the names of the Lord as "Annam Annada Eva Cha" (अन्नं अन्नाद एव च). Name number 983 is Annam which means "That which is eaten by living beings, or who eats all living beings". Name number 984 is Annada which means "One who is the eater of the whole world as food". Thus he is Anna as well as Annada. Bhagavadgita also makes reference to food and "Food Cycle" as well.

The word Anna is most commonly used in our parts of the world for "cooked rice". This is a very restricted meaning. The actual meaning of Anna is indeed vast and encompasses everything that is consumed as food. In Upanishads, Anna has much wider connotation and covers all inputs required to sustain life. It is said that the real swaroopa (form) of Anna can be understood by contemplation, and not mere words.

The supply of food never gets exhausted despite being eaten for centuries and ages. How is this possible? It is because desire in the human mind is never exhausted. This basic desire creates the need to grow, find and manage food. This ensures an eternal supply of food. This also justifies the belief that mind is the most important sensory organ. The remaining five, roopa (sight), shabda (hearing), rasa (taste), gandha (smell) and sparsha (touch), are the mere outlets for this main sensory organ. 

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The most exhaustive discussion on Food can be seen in Bruhadaranyaka Upanishad. Bruhat means big or huge. Aranya means forests. A broad translation of the name can be "Secret learnings from the huge forests". Many aspects like creation of the universe, metaphysical, spiritual and psychological matters are dealt in detail in this Upanishad. Chapter I, Section 5, Madhu Kaanda, "Saptaanna Prakarana" of this Upanishad deals exhaustively about Food. Saptanna means seven types of foods. The discussions are rich in content and quality.

The Supreme Lord created Food first and then the living beings. He created seven types of foods. He himself classified them into two groups. The first four are known as "Gross Foods". The next three are "Subtle Foods". Gross foods sustain physical life. Subtle foods are significant for sustaining metaphysical life both at individual and cosmic levels. In addition to creating the seven types of food, the lord also created user groups and custodians as well! Thus each type of food is in the custody of one designated group, but its actual users are in another group. The classification is as under:

Type of food	Users	Custodians
Swaha (स्वाहा)	*Gods	Man
Swadha (स्वधा)	Pitrus (Ancestors)	Children (successors)
Crops	Man	Gods
Milk	Babies	Parents
Body (Kaaya) (काय)	The Lord	Man
Speech (Vaacha) (वाचा)	The Lord	Man
Mind (मनस, Thinking capacity)	The Lord	Man

*The word Gods in the above table denotes "subordinate functionaries of the Supreme Lord", who hold different portfolios for managing the Universe and are different from the Supreme Lord.

Among the gross or solid foods, crops are controlled by the devatas and the foods of the gods (swaha) is in the custody of the man. This is given through Yagnas on one side and rains supporting crops growing on the other. Thus they are inter-dependent. Mutual co-operation will ensure that everything is in order. Liquid food represented by milk meant for infants and growing ones is in the custody of parents. Food (swadha) for the earlier generation (pitrus) is in the custody of the successors or the next generation, their children. This is given through Kavya, by conducting annual ceremonies and periodical offerings to the ancestors. Thus the earlier generation, present generation and future generation are also linked. 

The most interesting part of the Saptaanna Prakarana is in the second group, the Subtle Foods. The three components of the subtle foods are meant for the Supreme Lord himself. Though the Lord created these three for himself, yet he gave the custody of these three items to the man created by him! Then what is expected by the Lord from the man he created? 

The body given by the Lord is to be used for the service of others in his creation. This is the best way to serve the first of the three foods to the Lord. Spoken words should be truthful and bring true happiness to those around us. This is the way to serve the second food to the Lord. Thinking of Universal welfare and devotion to the lord is the third way of offering the subtle food to the Lord. This is how a man can discharge a part of the debt to the creator, though it is believed that the entire debt can never be repaid. The Lord does not need anything and yet he has given these resources to us. That is to test how it is used by us and not for him to derive any benefit out of them. The often used term "Trikarana Shuddhi" (त्रिकरण शुद्धि) is derived from this line of thinking.

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Saptanna Prakarana in Bruhararanyakopanishad is indeed a beautiful plan and quite logical as well. Does it not look like a wonderful modren management plan with resources, custodians and users with checks and balances to ensure harmony and mutual co-existence?

Not Just For Walking

Many words are easy to understand but difficult to define. We have to take the help of dictionary to find a proper definition for such words. The word "Footpath" is not one among such words. It is probably easy to define and its dictionary meaning is also quite simple. Dictionary meaning of the word footpath is "A path for people going on foot". Another definition is "a narrow path for walkers only". Both these definitions make two things very clear; the size and use of footpath. It is expected to be narrow and it is reserved to be used only by walkers. It is also to be used only by people going on foot.

There were days when footpath was considered safe for people going on foot as they need not worry about other modes of transport, usually heavy and fast, going on the road. The road part and the footpath existed side by side. As Panchasheel is being suddenly remembered today, after fifty years, we could as well say that footpaths and the roads had a time of peaceful co-existence. Not any longer. The density of vehicle population is overtaking human population and hence it has become important to increase the size of the road and reduce the extent of footpath. In addition to the reduction in size of the footpath, it has found many other uses as well. Even gods have chosen to make their homes on footpath. Shops have come up there. They started on temporary basis but became permanent in due course. There are even "Footpath Merchants Associations" to fight for the rights of selling on footpath. Of course, there is no footpath walkers association. In cities like Bangalore it is common to see traffic police chiding two wheeler drivers for running their vehicles on the road. "Why do you come here? Can't you see so much of space is available on footpath?", they say!

Some areas of Seattle city are excellent examples of alternate uses of a footpath. Seattle is an important city in the Pacific Northwest and is growing faster than many others due to some of the growing companies operating from there as headquarters. The old city still maintains its charms. Each house is different in these residential areas; there are no multi-storied buildings and concrete monsters. The houses stand in the middle of landscaped gardens withe each having a different type of pathway leading to the main door. There are flowers galore and fruit bearing trees around the house. Most of them are not fenced and yet the gardens are perfectly safe. It is a city where you may find an apple tree full of red ready-to-eat apples during your evening walk on the side of footpath and still find them that way after two days. Vegetables are grown in the garden around the house and there is no danger of theft or being eaten away by free roaming cattle. Footpath is strict for pedestrians only. The vehicles on the road stop and allow a person on foot the right of way to cross the road. In short, roads and footpath have a wonderful and peaceful co-existence.

There is a picture given at the top here. A newcomer to the city would wonder what this is. It is a footpath library. Residents of the area have put up such structures in front of their houses. The books purchased and read are later kept in such library shelves on the footpath. Anybody going on the street can check the books in the shelf, decide what is to be read and take the book with them for reading. The shelves have doors but no locks. If you have books that you do not need at home, you could also add to the collection. There are no accounts kept and there is no need to return the book at all. A book taken from one shelf can be returned to another shelf elsewhere, if one wants. It is a wonderful community service centre and they are always full of books. They are used regularly but there is no vandalism or theft in the regular sense of the words.

Another use of footpath and median can also be seen in Seattle. For orderly and safe vehicular traffic, most roads are provided with median space to divide traffic on the two directions. Space available on medians is not used for walking. We can find some plants in such space all round the world. But Seattle has something more than this. In many median space, vegetables are grown. Cabbage, tomato, eggplant (brinjal), lettuce, and other similar vegetables are grown here. A picture of such median garden is given alongside. A regular checking of these gardens for a full month showed that somebody was watering them regularly and de-weeding them. The vegetables were allowed to grow to their full potential without being taken away by somebody in the middle of day or night. There are flower gardens as well and the beauty of the flowers in them is a delight to watch whether you are walking on the footpath or driving along the road. 

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An extension of usage of surplus resource has been highlighted in the press here last week. Dr Issa Fathima Jasmine of Beasant Nagar, Chennai (See photograph on the right) had a problem of disposal of remaining food items each day. She was giving it away to an old lady sitting in her street corner. Then she thought of many others who need food like that old lady. But one does not know whom to offer as some may get offended when it is offered to them. It is also a difficult proposition to wait for someone with food in the hands leaving aside other work one has at home or at office. Dr Fathima has solved this problem by keeping a community refrigerator outside the Besant Nagar Tennis Club. The initiative is called "Ayyamittu Unn". Avvayars (meaning respectable lady) are a series of Tamil poets who have enriched the literature by their valued works. One collection of poems titled Aathichoodi of Avaviyar has a poem, the first stanza refers to "share the food with the needy before you eat". The food sharing has now got extended to clothes and other items as well.

In fact, this is not something totally new. It is reported that there are community fridge system in Mumbai and other cities as well. The idea of sharing or giving away something which still has some value for others has been there for generations in our country. More and more organized efforts are now finding expressions in different forms.

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The world is always a better place to live with co-existence. "Love the life you Live; Live the life you Love", says a mural (a large painting on the wall of a building on roadside) in Seattle. 

Knock on the door

There is a knock on the Door. It is becoming shriller and shriller.  In the beginning, we pretended as if the door itself did not exist.  Then we behaved as if we did not hear the knock.  Now neither is possible. Even the stone deaf can hear the repeated knocks.

Assurances of weathermen, repeated regularly at irregular intervals, have not succeeded in bringing a reasonable monsoon to our country.  Of course, we know weathermen are not responsible for the arrival or failure of monsoon.  We are already in the middle of August and sowing operations have not yet started in the vast areas of South India and large part of Western India.  Wisdom is slowly dawning on us that the sowing will indeed be missed this year.  And the harvest that was to follow. At this time of the year, preparations would have been underway for harvesting crops like Potato, Groundnut, Raagi and Jowar.  Hundred of trucks laden with fresh Potato should have clogged the highways from Hassan in Karnataka to Subzi Mandi in Delhi's Azadpur. Estimates are now made that the food production which reached 252 million tons last year may be around 250 million tons this year. The estimates are made before factoring the full effect of monsoon failure. Economists have the freedom to revise the estimates later on to 220 to 230 million tons. Talking of economists, we knew of two types earlier; the good and the bad. The good ones were those whose predictions and estimates failed due to genuine reasons. The bad ones were those whose predictions and estimates failed without any reason. Then there was the third type, though not recognized as such, whose estimates and predictions defied every logic or we were neither able to understand their predictions and estimates nor appreciate their subsequent failure.  Now the classifications of economists are made at a different level. They are classified as Government Economists and Private Economists!  One breed who are paid to toe the official line like "His Masters Voice".  The private ones (who failed to secure such jobs?) who perforce differ from the Government Economists as a matter of principle.

The present generation has not seen or heard of famine. As a nine year old boy, during the famine of 1963, I remember accompanying my father, bags in my hand and money in his pocket, visiting every single shop in the town for some rice or wheat or any flour.  All shop keepers were personally known to my father and he knew very well that each one of them had stored grain in their shops and houses. But they waited for a better day to sell.  A better day when the prices would definitely be higher than that day.  After three hours of intense search, we were able to get one kilogram of boiled rice. We were not used to eating boiled rice.  My mother made some curry with extra home grown vegetables and chillies to enable me and my siblings have a late lunch of boiled rice, for the first time in our lives.

That was the time after Indo-China war.  Prices would slightly come down when the news of ships carrying PL 480 wheat products were to arrive in Madras (now known as Chennai) harbor. For those youngsters who have not heard of PL 480, its full form is "Public Law 480", an American law that permitted funding by which US food could be used for overseas aid programs under what was called "Food for Peace" program.  The suji (semolina or rava) and palm oil arriving in these ships were distributed to various schools for the mid-day meal program. Some of it found its way to black marketing shops. Famine of 1963 was  the last official famine, perhaps.  There have been famines in parts of the country later as well but they are not true famines as they are actually not recognized as famines.  Just like a dead person is not accepted as dead since there is no "Death Certificate" issued by a competent authority.

Thanks to the "Green Revolution", credited to the group of scientists led by Professor M S Swaminathan, which peaked in the late sixties and early seventies, our dependence on import of food grains gradually decreased and we became self-sufficient. High yielding and genetically modified wheat pioneered by Dr Norman Borlaug were used for agricultural production.  Today genetically modified food grains are frowned upon, but we have lived on them for fifty years!  More and more areas have been brought under irrigation.  Chemical fertilizers have been used in never before quantities.  Even food grains were exported on many occasions. There were celebrations when the food production crossed 200 million tons in the 1990s.  We have now crossed 250 million tons mark, despite of vast areas of agricultural lands being eaten away by land sharks for real estate purposes and non-agricultural uses.

We are told that nearly a third of all food grains produced is lost due to wastage.  It looks as though we have perfected the art of wasting food grains and food items much better than the science of their production!  Food grains are wasted at every stage; be it harvesting, transporting, storing or distributing.  Rats and mice have a first right on the grains produced.  Food grains rotting in the godowns of Gujarat is the latest news item. Storage levels in dams have dropped to record low levels.  Added to that water tables have dropped all over the country.  Bore-wells with a depth of even 500 meters have gone dry.  We are not the ones to be deterred; we are digging deeper and deeper.  And continue to use fresh water for washing our newer and bigger cars.

We are not alone in this mess.  We have excellent company elsewhere also.  Untimely rains in sugar producing Brazil have reduced cane cultivation levels.  Dry conditions in Russia's wheat belt has reduced wheat production there turning the surplus zone into a deficit one.  Historic mid-west drought in USA has made economists predict reduction of corn yield there from 146 bushels per acre to 123 bushels per acre. 65% of USA is said to be under drought conditions. The resulting forecast of 15% reduction in production made the prices of food grains on the Chicago Commodity Exchange increase to an all time high level.  Global food prices are expected to shoot up from 6 to 10% and may even worsen.  We know what it means to the price levels in India.

Software and IT services have already taken a hit and the earnings from their exports is expected to dip this year.  Exports from our country have touched 300 billion dollars last year, but it is feared to be lower this year.  Imports increased last year even more to reach 485 billion dollars and have not abated at all.  Oil is consumed as if tomorrow does not exist.  Car makers are advertising of a drive to Madakeri just to have a cup of tea or coffee.  We may not be able to import food grains for two reasons; firstly we do not have the foreign exchange to afford it and secondly traditionally grain rich countries may not have the commodities to export from their countries as they themselves face a deficit.  Our policy makers and politicians are too busy in their ivory towers due to other pre-occupations.  There is no shortage of food items for them in resorts and five star hotels. Many of them are extremely busy in shuttling between their homes, offices, courts and jails.  The remaining are busy trying to cover their tracks so that they can avoid this kind of shuttling.

Let us enjoy the lunch today.  We can not be sure of such sumptuous lunch a few days later.  Ghosts and horrors of Bengal famine of 1943 or even 1770 are knocking on our doors.  Knocks are becoming shriller and shriller now.