Why do Indians Eat With Their Hands?

 If you visit India, you’d probably be surprised to see people eating with their hand.  It is normal to wonder why they use their hand instead of spoons and forks. Some even find the practice to be annoying, unhygienic, uncultured, uncivilized, and perhaps even gross! But is it really so? Here are some reasons why eating with the hand is a better and safer way to eat. Read on!

  Connecting with Food – It is said that we should connect with the food we eat, but are we really doing so? BUT what better way to do so than to eat with your hand! Eating with your hand puts the sense of touch to good use, feel the food, and understand its texture. It improves your consciousness of the food and helps you enjoy it completely.

Type of Food – Some foods are best eaten with hands, don’t you agree? How does one eat chicken wings, burger, popcorn, pizza, or chips? With hands, of course! Eating certain types of Indian foods such as Roti, Dosa, Idli, Pani puri, and Pav bhaji with a spoon and fork would be such a nightmare! HENCE THE HAND! 

  

 Age-old Practice – Culture and traditions are given a lot of importance in INDIA! Eating food using hands has been a practice since vedic days. In fact, hands are believed to be the conduits of five elements. If you visit South India, food is served on a banana leaf during special occasions. Ideally, people sit on the floor and use their right hand to eat food from the banana leaf. However, the practice of sitting on the floor is diminishing, but eating with hand still prevails and is preferred by everyone.

Hygiene – It is a common practice to wash hands before touching the food and obviously after eating too. So that makes a person clean his hands at least six times in a day when having food, apart from other times.

Here is an interesting conversation between the then Indian President Dr. Radhakrishnan and the then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When they both sat down to eat, Churchill reportedly asked the president, “Why are you using your hands? Use spoon and fork, they are more hygienic." To this, Dr. Radhakrishnan reportedly quipped, “Since nobody has used my hand to eat before, my hand is more hygienic than any spoon you can find.”

FACT : Indians do use spoons and fork whenever social circumstances or the type of food require them to.

 
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