International Jain Conference 1985 3rd Conference

Author(s): Satish Jain, Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Ahimsa International

Page 125

Food, Health And Jainism
Dr. Dhananjay Gunde
Food has a very important role to play in the day-to-day life of every living organism. Hence it is not surprising that animals, plants, insects etc. spend most of their time in various processes connected with food, namely, finding food, eating it, assimilating or storing it. Man is not an exception to this. (If you ask anybody, "Why do you work ! his immediate reply would be, 'For the sake of food.') When food plays such an important role in our life, it is obligatory on our part to know the scientific aspects of food. Why do we need food ?
It is very surprising that though we strive so much to earn our food, we do not know precisely why we have to eat. Well, most people think that we derive energy (calories) from the assimilation of food, and this energy is required for all our day-to-day activity. A hardworking blacksmith for instance has to eat more than a person doing sedentary clerical work. Well, they are not wrong, though their knowledge is incomplete. If an adequate supply of calories was the sole aim of eating food, then half a kilo of sugar every day would have been sufficient. But we know that man cannot survive by eating only sugar. He needs a balanced diet.
Why do we need a balanced diet ?
It is very interesting to note that our body is continuously changing. Though our body looks as if it is one unit, it is not so. It is composed of innumerable tissues like skin, muscles, bones, perves, blood etc. These tissues are made of trillions and trillions of very minute cells. It is estimated that the number of cells in one adult body is equal to the number of world population multiplied by 17,000. The second important point about our cells is that different tissuecells have got differnt life spans. For example, a red blood corpuscle (R. B. C.) has got a life of 3 weeks, a skin cell has got a life of a few hours to few weeks. In the same way bone and muscle cells have got different life-spans.
It is estimated that every second 1.2 million R. B. Cs. die, and those many R B. Cs. are newly produced. In one's life-time half a ton of R. B. Cs. are pro