WHAT IS A CORRECT DIET?

Ayurvedic cooking and dietic approaches are mainly concerned with physical health and do not always address the issues of Sattva. Hence they may discuss certain food types that are not very Sattvic in nature. Yoga, on the other hand emphasizing a Sattvic diet, may include foods that can aggravate certain doshas. For an optimal dietary regimen one should combine a Sattvic diet with a diet appropriate for one's doshic type.

The correct diet additionally emphasizes natural foods, food grown in harmony with nature, on good soils, ripened naturally, cooked in right manner and with right manner and with right attitude of love. Such foods are carriers of Prana and consciousness. Correct diet, further, is a matter of timing of meals as well. One should avoid heavy food in the morning or in the late evening, as it is more likely to clog the system at these times. The morning meal should be light & stimulating. The main meal should be at noon (not afternoon) and in the early evening. Eating late at night, except some light food like fruits or milk, weights the body and mind down. We can divide the food into five categories in terms of the Prana – ‘the vital force'. In Ayurveda Prana is divided into five namely Prana, Apana, Udana, Samana and vyana. Each of them has different duties in our system, which in combination will energize the physical body, mind and the subtle body. Our food intake hence should be to activate all Pranas in balance. The following tabulation will give a study of activities of each prana in our system and food that would activate each prana.

CORRECT TYPE OF FOOD

Here, we have to differentiate a yoga diet and an Ayurvedic diet. Ayurveda works to improve bodily health, yoga helps you more beyond bodily limitations. For this reasons most traditional yogic disciplines are ascetic in nature including fasting and light diet, raw food and detoxification methods, as well as sensory deprivations, pranayama and meditations. All these factors not only tend to reduce physical consciousness but can aggravate Vata. Traditional Ayurveda, on the other hand emphasizes cooked food and nutritive diet to build physical strength and prevent the doshas, particularly vata, from accumulation. Hence, a correct type of food is that which balances all the three doshas and hence activate the three vital essences.

WHY NO NON-VEGETARIAN?

If you personally ask me this question the answer is “I don't want my intestine to be the burial ground of dead animals.”

Ayurveda always recommend sattvic or pure food because sattva creates, balance, eliminates harmful factors and helps reduce vitiated doshas. The basis of sattvic diet is first of all vegetarian, avoiding any products involve killing of animal, even for the sake of eating. So the meat eating violates the principles of ahimsa or non-violence.

We cannot readily breakdown animal tissues in a right components for human tissues. Instead of digesting and transforming meat in to the appropriate human tissue. ‘Its' animal energies are preserved and become substituted for our human tissues. Hence meat increases animal fire in the body bringing the tendencies of these animals to function within us. This promotes anger, lust and fear and other negative emotions. Further meat produces a heavy or tamasa type of tissue that clogs the channels that tends to make the mind dull. Not only violence and crime but also religious intolerance has been more common among meat eating groups. Even economically, the grain used to produce meat to serve one family could serve easily five families. The whole economic status of a nation can change if everybody in the country resolve to be vegetarians.