Hindu temple worship, puja, generally treats the deity housed in the temple's inner sanctum as a living presence to be cared for rather than an abstract idea to be contemplated, and offering food, naivedya, is one of the standard forms that care takes alongside bathing, dressing and adorning the murti, the consecrated image. Food prepared for offering is cooked with particular attention to ritual purity, is presented to the deity, sometimes with the murti's eyes symbolically covered or a curtain drawn while the deity is understood to partake of the food's subtle essence, and only afterward is it distributed to worshippers as prasadam, now transformed by the offering into something more than food: a physical share in the deity's grace, blessed rather than simply blessed food in a loose sense.
The theological weight of this transformation varies across traditions and philosophical schools, but the underlying structure, an offering that becomes a return gift once accepted, is remarkably stable across Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakta and regional Hindu temple practice alike, and prasadam is treated as something to be received and eaten with respect rather than declined, since refusing it can be read as refusing the deity's own gift.