There was a time everybody in India, especially the women, used to observe fast on a regular basis. In my childhood, I saw my mother not only observing fast herself but also insisting my sisters to keep fast once in a week, an extra fast once in a month and observe 2 Navratras in a year of 9 days each. In total, it comes out to be around 80 fasts in a year.
When I go back to my childhood, I remember the fast used to be one day of avoiding cereals altogether. We were allowed to eat Roti made of Kuttu flour, singharha flour, rice made of samak and daal made of chaulai ( all fruits).
In our childhood, we could never understand the meaning of fast. Today India is becoming a hub of diabetes, heart diseases and insulin resistance and all of them are linked with not observing fasts or eating high carb diets every day.
The culprit is eating carbohydrates, especially, refined carbohydrates. Recollecting our mythology when only one king Raja Dashrath died of heart attack, it only signifies that our mythological lifestyle was preventing heart diseases inIndia. The western culture which is now spreading fast inIndiainvolves eating carbohydrates, especially, refined carbohydrates (white sugar, white rice white maida every day.
I recently did a survey and found that women who do weekly vrat have lower incidence of metabolic syndrome.
Today’s girls and women do not want to listen to the word ‘vrata’ or ‘spiritual vrata’.
Therefore, they must be made to understand the same in the language of a ‘medical vrata’. The simpler version of ‘vrata’ can be – not eating carbohydrates at all once in a week and replacing them with fruits and vegetables.
I normally suggest that once in a week, one should eat only fruits and vegetables and at the most can have milk, curd. If still someone has desires, can have besan ka chila.
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