Role of parents in keeping a healthy family

Role of parents especially mother in keeping a healthy family.





A healthy flower is a joy for all.
A healthy family is a happy family

Health is a personal and joint responsibility of a family. All family members should be health conscious. Parents especially mother has got a major role in keeping good health of whole family. Mother plans and prepares the food for the whole family. This determines the health and sickness of the family. In addition to teaching the best values, mother has a major role in teaching the best eating habits too. Most of the illnesses are due to bad eating habits. The best eating habits is to be taught from child hood. Teach the children that the best nutritious, natural, and unadulterated food is from the nature not from the supermarkets or food factories. The best cooking is the simple cooking, where the nutrients are not lost, not the complex one. High temperature cooking spoils the enzymes and nutrients. Boiling is better than deep fried, or baked. Teach our children to cook at least ten healthy dishes. Giving unhealthy diet, making the children obese and unhealthy is a kind of  child abuse. Children need our wisdom till they grow up. Sometimes we have to sacrifice taste for nutrition. There is no gain without pain.

Grow food in your backyard.

In a study it has been observed, children in US schools study more about health, but at home as well as outside they eat more junks. There are many families who suffer from ill health and realize it at a later stage. So it is better the whole family has to read and learn good health books at the earliest possible on: how to cook without losing the nutrients, what are the nutritional foods, how to eat, when to eat and what to eat and what not to eat. Simple cooking is better than complex cooking.



Love nature.
 Enjoy the beauty of it.

To drive a vehicle we should be a certified license holder who has passed the driving test. To run and manage a family efficiently the mother has to learn   nutrition, eating habits, healthy cooking habits etc. to keep the whole family healthy. Good books will be the best guide in this. Learn the traditional wisdom. If our grandparents lived over 90 years, with very less medicines throughout their life, learn the wisdom from them. Their wisdom is  worthier than  a university degree. Remember mother holds the key to eating habits, and health of a family. Find the wisdom in this old saying “you are what you eat.” Mother keeps and lubricates the wheel of life to role  it freely and continuously. The wheel of life is powered by many gears. The gears are healthy food, better relations, good habits, discipline, organizing, planning and values. 

We, Keralites are living in a society where anything sweet is considered as food and anything bitter or pungent is not food. (Read the article on tastes of food).We teach our children that way. We got the highest density of bakeries in the world. We are the only people on earth who fries fruits. We make fried banana chips from riped banana fruits.  We want everything oil cooked. Nenthra kai (Big banana) is eaten by South Americans, Asians but only we make the banana fruit chips.  Are we wise or stupid? We eat maximum starch and trans fats (fried food), with very less vitamins and minerals in it. We are overfed, overstressed, undernourished, and under exercised. These are the reasons for increasing obesity, diabetes, frequent illness and cardiac problems at an early age. We claim to be educated than our old generations. Yes, we got degrees, but we are short of wisdom on simple and  happy living. These are not taught in universities. Do we use our time proven traditional wisdom, or holding on to the ego that "I know everything" because I got a few university degrees?

Organic food is the best. It is  from kitchen garden.
 Kitchen Garden food is better than farm food (no pesticides)
Good food comes from the farm, not from super market shelves.
 Processed food is  engineered, contaminated by inorganic chemicals .

Let us be a part of shaping a  healthy and happy family, a community, and a nation. Healthy life is a team effort. Healthy living starts at kitchen, mother is the doctor and food is the medicine.  Let us teach our next generation food is food, and medicine is medicine. We can avoid medicine if we take healthy food and follow healthy lifestyle. Do we want  a future generation with lots of money and ill-health, or a generation that is healthy and happy? We hold the key for it. Show them the light.