DO AS ANIMALS DO

Humans have been given the gift of the brain to use it judiciously should have been natural. However when it comes to our own well-being and health, I think we couldn’t have been further away. Here is how animals can teach us well in this sphere of things.

  1. Learn to chew like a cow: Cows chew on grass, for a long, long time, semi-digesting their food with their saliva. This is called the cud. Very often as children we have been told to chew our food slowly and completely before swallowing it. Very few adults follow that system. Many gulp their food down in the urge to eat more. The mixing of saliva with food in our mouth actually begins the digestion process. The saliva amylases the food into semi digested bolus which goes down the esophagus to be further digested in the stomach.cow

 

  1. Lions eat when they are hungry: It is a well-known fact that a lion and its game(zebras, gazelle, giraffe, bison) can be in the same grassland, not far from each other and yet the latter will have nothing to fear if the lion is not hungry. We humans however, eat whenever the food is placed in front of us, irrespective of whether we are hungry or not. If it looks good, and smells appealing we will dig into it. Our stomach and diets notwithstanding.
  1. Tigers leave the leftovers for the next meal: Tigers will not eat a single morsel after their stomach is full. They might preserve it by burying it to come back to it the next day. We humans have this need to finish all that is kept in front of us irrespective of its portions. It is to our benefit that we choose smaller portions at the onset if we can’t learn from the tiger, to leave the leftovers for the next day.

tiger-new

 

  1. Ants stock up on food: Ants stock up on food before they eat, so that they can eat well piecemeal by piecemeal. They work hard before they eat. But because they are aware that they have food in stock, they are never in a state of hunger to devour more. We eat first and then think of working out to nullify the calories. Many a times a person ends up eating almost joining 2 meals into one. The worry of whether his next meal is going to be as fulfilling or as desirable, a person often ends up eating more.

5. Birds share food: Sparrows, Mynahs, hens, geese, weaver birds etc eat together often sharing food with their mates and their young. This is probably the only place where we are one of the few cultures that promote sharing meals unlike many East European countries, where individual meals are norm of the day. Cultures similar to ours are Italian, Spanish, Greek, Middle Eastern where breaking bread together is what shows friendship and affection.

birds-new

It would do us a lot of good health wise if we remember to assimilate and use these animal traits in our eating habits. So for once, you can choose to become an animal and benefit.

Read The Times of India article – click here

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