Chapter 8 — Food We Eat

Chapter 8 is called Food We Eat. It explains why we need food and water, what a balanced diet looks like, where food comes from, and how food choices change with the seasons and across different parts of India.

Shirin was a Class 3 student who ran fast but fell sick often because she ate only rice and potatoes. A champion runner advised her to eat a variety of foods including vegetables, fruits, grains, and pulses. After following this advice and practising hard, Shirin became healthier, ran faster, and won a medal for her school.

The chapter advises eating different vegetables and fruits, things made from various grains like rice, ragi, jowar, wheat, and bajra, as well as pulses and nuts. It also says food cooked at home is always a good choice.

Chhappan Bhog is a special food prepared on festivals and auspicious occasions in honour of guests, friends, and family. It contains 56 varieties of food items representing six tastes: sweet, spicy, astringent, sour, salty, and bitter.

We eat leaves such as spinach, fenugreek, cabbage, and coriander; fruits such as mango, guava, and apple; roots such as carrot, radish, and beetroot; and stems such as potato, ginger, onion, and bamboo shoots. We also eat seeds in the form of grains, pulses, and dry fruits.

Foods obtained from animals include milk, curd, ghee, cheese, paneer, honey, eggs, and meat.

In summer the weather is hot and we sweat a lot, which means our body loses water. That is why we should drink more water and cooling drinks like buttermilk, nimbu pani, aam panna, sugarcane juice, or tender coconut water to make up for the water lost.

In summer, people enjoy kulfi, ice-cream, and tender coconut water, and fruits like mangoes and melons are available. In winter, people eat warm soups, stews, and hot drinks, and fruits like apples are plentiful.

Different regions of India have their own traditional dishes and locally grown ingredients, so people across the country eat a wide variety of delicious foods that may be quite different from what you eat at home.

A balanced diet means eating a variety of food items — vegetables, fruits, different grains, pulses, nuts, and milk products — rather than depending on just one or two foods. Shirin's story shows how eating a balanced diet made her energetic and healthy.

The chapter says our body needs a lot of water and we cannot live without it, which is why people say water is life. We should drink water frequently, especially when we play or do physical activity because we lose water through sweat.

The chapter suggests activities like drawing favourite homemade dishes, ticking food items eaten regularly from a picture list, making a list of seasonal fruits and vegetables, preparing a fruit chaat or salad together in class, and writing the recipe of a favourite dish.