For some reason, Western food like pizza or burgers are more “acceptable” to eat with your hands, whereas there is a stigma around eating other food with your hands. This blog post covers eating Indian food with your hands.
What part of the world eats with hands?
Nearly ⅓ of the the world eats with their hands as their primary utensil. The people of India, the Middle East, Africa, and South America all have a culture of eating with their hands.
What kinds of Indian food should be eaten with hands?
Rotis and flatbreads Dosas Rice dishes along with any dal, rasam, sambar, thayir, or “liquid-y”- gravy dishes Hand held street food like pani puri or samosas
What kinds of Indian foods aren’t eaten with hands?
Although you can technically eat any food with your hands, there are some foods that even those who eat with their hands opt for spoons instead. They are:
Warm desserts or desserts that aren’t hand held. Examples: Gulab jamuns or payasam (Indian rice pudding). Soups - Although soupy dishes like rasam can be eaten with hands, soup itself is usually consumed from a cup or a slurped via spoon. This is because soup on its own typically doesn’t have a carb to help soak it in whereas things like rasam or sambar are eaten with rice or dosas.
Stigma around eating with hands
There is a lot of stigma, especially in the Western world, when it comes to eating food with your hands. So let’s address some of the comments/questions/statements that I often hear when folks express concern with eating with your hands:
Is it sanitary/hygenic to eat with your hands? Yes! Just like when you eat food with utensils or cook, you wash your hands before eating! In Indian culture in particular, the right hand is the one used to eat and the left hand (which is primarily used for the bathroom) is not used to eat. Why use hands when you can use advancements like spoons/forks? Your hands are still your best tools. Unlike spoons/forks they give you a lot more sensory cues like how hot or cold the food is and how hard and soft the food is so you have more of a connection with it before putting it in your mouth. Eating rice and wet dishes is way easier with utensils. Just like you learned how to eat with spoons or forks as a kid or if you learned to eat with chopsticks, there is a learning curve to eating with your hands. Eating rice dishes and soup-y dishes with your hands comes with practice. Of course, if you are sipping a bowl of soup it is totally acceptable in the culture/custom to use spoons. However, for soupy dishes like rasam it is paired with rice which soaks up the soupy dish and eating that with your hands is an art of managing the amount of soup/rice ratio.
Ayurvedic beliefs around eating with your hands
Ayurvedic beliefs are historical Indian cultural teachings that are often ingrained in how some Indians eat and use food as medicine. In Ayurvedic teachings, it is said that the hands are an extension of the elements. The thumb represents space, the index finger represents air, the middle finger represents fire, the ring finger represents water, and the pinky represents earth. Eating with one’s hands brings together these elements. In addition, the Ayurvedic belief is that the stimulation of the fingertips when eating with your hands help signal to your stomach that it is time to eat and helps aid in digestion.
Rules and etiquette for eating with your hands
The rules are pretty simple, but whether one follows them or not shows the difference between a novice and one that regularly eats with her hands. The rules are as follows:
Eating rice: step-by-step photos
Here is a step by step photo depiction of eating thayir sadam - aka yogurt rice with a pickle (in center) - with your hands.
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I hope you enjoyed this article about eating with your hands! Please leave a comment below letting me know what you thought of this article and if it was helpful to you! I always love hearing your questions and your comments 🙂
