Why just confine this to eating? Even while consuming liquids: coffee (south India) and chai (all over India), you're supposed to hold the cup in your bare hands. My parents and grandparents would tell me "If it's too (temperature) hot for your fingers, it's too hot for your stomach". My parents were almost manic obsessive in making sure my hands and finger nails were clean before I touched any food and I can't remember a single instance of e-coli poisoning in my family.
In later life, in college, when I was slumming with students from the Himalayan regions of India, they carried the same belief with hot soups: cupping a hot soup in your palm before sipping on it, if it's too hot for your palm, it's too hot for your digestive tract.
By contrast, Starbucks puts a sleeve on its cups, because of which I can never tell how hot the coffee is when I'm sipping it.
Not sure, what the scientific basis is behind it, but now that I think about it in later life, it makes sense that I should be able to gauge the temperature of a drink before consuming it.
In later life, in college, when I was slumming with students from the Himalayan regions of India, they carried the same belief with hot soups: cupping a hot soup in your palm before sipping on it, if it's too hot for your palm, it's too hot for your digestive tract.
By contrast, Starbucks puts a sleeve on its cups, because of which I can never tell how hot the coffee is when I'm sipping it.
Not sure, what the scientific basis is behind it, but now that I think about it in later life, it makes sense that I should be able to gauge the temperature of a drink before consuming it.