18 - Simple And Satwik Snacks

Once Narayan was sitting in his room in the hostel. It was afternoon and he was having snacks. One of his friends entered the room. He saw Narayan eating and asked, ‘What are you eating Narayan.' Narayan replied, ‘Peanuts and jaggery.' The friend made a face and spoke, ‘Is this called snacks?’ Narayan asked, ‘Why? What is wrong in it?' The friend said, ‘It is not tasty.' Narayan asked, ‘What do you eat as snacks? ’ His friend replied, ‘I eat tasty snacks in the hotel.' Narayan said, ‘Do you know how unhygienic it is what you call tasty?' The friend said, ‘but it does not look impure, it looks very clean.' Narayan said, ‘It looks clean from outside but the grains, sauces, water everything is impure. They use old, spoiled and uncleaned grains, sauces are stale and water is not filtered.'

The friend agreed, ‘Yes Narayan, in a way, you are right. The ingredients used to prepare snacks are impure!' Narayan continued, ‘Such unhealthy, fried in impure oil, spicy and stale food cannot nourish our body, isn’t it? Such food is not at all hygienic and healthy. Peanuts and jaggery is a simple snack and it is nutritive also. Such snacks provide energy to our body.' The friend listened to Narayan carefully. Narayan explained further, ‘Spoiled and stale food spoils our health, our studies and the most important our mind.’ The friend inquired, ‘How does it spoil our mind?' Narayan explained, ‘Look, spoiled and stale food is impure. It is full of germs which can spread diseases in our body, which weakens our mind. When our mind is weakened, our thoughts are affected. There is a proverb, ‘You are what you eat.’ Therefore, our thoughts are affected by our food. Clean, simple, Satwik and nourishing food provokes healthy, pious and creative thoughts. Therefore, we must always eat simple, Satwik and nutritious food.' The friend confessed, ‘I have realized it today that our food can affect our thought process. Now onwards I will try to avoid eating out.' Narayan was pleased. He offered peanuts and jaggery to his friend. The friend found it extremely tasty.

Difficult words:
Stale - Not fresh
Ingredients - Components
Nourish - To promote life and growth
Hygienic - Healthy and clean

Points to ponder:
- Outside food which tastes good is impure and unhygienic.
- Muktaraj teaches us that outside food spoils our body as well as mind.

Exercise

Answer the following questions:
1. What was Narayan doing when his friend visited him at his hostel?
2. Why did the friend make face?
3. What did Narayan say in favour of simple snacks?
4. How are outside snacks? Explain it according to Narayan’s opinion.

Fill in the blanks :
1. That is _____________ snacks.
2. Peanuts and jaggery are _____________ and _____________.
3. Spoiled and stale food spoils our health, our studies and the most important our ________.

Complete the following sentences :
1. Our thoughts are affected ____________ pious and creative thoughts.