How Other People Digest Your Food

and how we bite the hand that feeds us

The Buddha receiving milk rice from Sujata, painting in the in Sri Dalada Maligawa

In Sinhalese the word for hungry is bada gini. Tummy fire. The number calories comes from literally lighting food on fire and seeing how much heat it generates. Fire is an intrinsic part of human digestion. So is cutting, cleaning, and all the work that goes into a meal. We have indeed evolved in such a way that we can’t digest any other way.