November 2022
Training started with a review of the previous day’s session, which started with Nutrition. Pabitra asked, why we eat food. We eat food for survival or eat food to eat, and then everybody laughed. However, we agreed that we eat food for survival. Pabitra was very happy listening to our responses, and she added that we eat food for physical development as well as mental development. For that, we need food for our bodies.
There are three different varieties of foods:
Provide energy: Maize, rice, oil, banana, sugar, wheat, potato, sweet potato, sugar, and fats
Build the body: All beans, fish, meat, milk, eggs
Protect against diseases: Vegetables, fruits
Pabitra again asked, what are our eating styles that in practice in our area. We look at each other and shared that we usually eat one or two types of food. Pabitra added that it is not enough for our bodies. If there is maize harvest season, everybody eats only the maize and similarly, if it is the season for the beans, everybody eats beans. Therefore, through this lesson, we should change our behavior regarding food habits.
Pabitra informed us that in our body, 20% protein is needed and the body itself makes 12% protein. Therefore, the remaining 8% of protein needs to be fulfilled from the food. If we are not able to manage the 8% protein from the food, then the 12% protein provided by the body will be lost. This is very new to us.
Then we played a game. We were divided into three groups. In addition, different names were given to each group such as:
Group 1: Energy Group
Group 2: Body Building Group
Group 3: Protection Group
I belong to the Group 3, so I tried to remember the food items which protect our body.
There are many small cards (with pictures of different food items on the card) The different cards were put on the floor face down. Each group was then asked to pick up one of their relevant cards and see if the cards matched the group or not.
After the game, Pabitra requested to discuss available foods in our areas and prepared a seasonal calendar. It was a very interesting part to prepare a seasonal food calendar, and we understood that in every season there are varieties of food we can grow or is available, so we commit ourselves to eat food from the three categories. And we will also reduce junk foods.