Food For Healthy
Diet Sanathana Sai Sanjeevani
LIGHT AND LOVE
The Sanathana Sai Sanjeevinis is the complex healing system where the prayers connected with Sanjeevini Healing Cards, vegetarian diet, lifestyle and Ayurvedic wisdom. Swami has explained and completed this system, especially the part, what concern to diet, sathwic food and lifestyle.
Sai Sanjeevinis has paid a significant attention to vegetarian diet. Without the vegetarian diet and lifestyle this system of treatment is not productive. Some advices and explanations concerning vegetarian diet has submitted.
By Sai Sanjeevinis wrong diet and lifestyle are often the cause of many ailments.
Humans' food habits are guided by sense of taste and instinct. Habits humans have received in childhood also play an essential role. The large role has consumer-society advertisements directly from media or by different 'studies' about good for health products full of different artificial additions. Often even the medical profession serves commercial interests. There is a lack of awareness about the harmful effects of such foods - but what is most disturbing and unfortunate is that even those who are aware continue to serve these indigestible foods.
Humans taste as all other senses are provided by God to be used for receiving balanced food what is easily ingested and gifted health and harmony with nature. However, today's general tendency is that senses are out of control and all balance has been lost. Humans are as slaves to their five senses and tongue has lost the discrimination - that instinct - to eat only what is good food for health and what may firmly dedicate to God. There are no doctors among wild animals. The instinct tells them what to eat and how to cure the diseases. Human beings have the same instinct, but it has hidden under the layer of delusive senses. When human beings are not in harmony with nature, when they are violating God's bounty at every step, when the mother Earth, the animals, the underprivileged, are all crying out at the abuse heaped on them by humans' for their own selfish ends. In such conditions instincts slowly die.
"Vegetarian food helps to human beings to return to harmony with nature and with themselves. "Sathwic (pure, health promoting) diet does not mean simply the food we take through our mouth but also means the pure air we breathe through our nose, the pure vision we see through our eyes, the pure sounds we hear through our ears and the pure objects we touch through our feet and hands. All that we take in through the doors of our five sense organs may be described as diet. Listening to bad sounds, looking at bad sights, touching bad things do not constitute sathwic diet."
BHAGAWAN SRI SATHYA SAI BABA
The consequent parts are about strange for human body properties of non-vegetarian food by Sanatana Sai Sanjeevinis and own insights. This theme has properly studied in our teacher's environmental scholarship, as vegetarian food is a base for spiritual enlightenment and ecological consciousness. Several points of view of modern science what reached nearly to the same standpoints.
Seven parts of mails are the explanations why vegetarian food is healthy mainly by Sanatana Sai Sanjeevinis, but not only. (This site is very large and includes the healing methods. The compilation from this site by additional notes seems to be more clear explanation for the benefit of vegetarian food). The other parts include Swami's quotations and recommendations about the quality the food and personal experiences how in conditions of long cold winters to prefer vegetarian food. The last part would be about standpoints of modern science concern to vegetarian and non-vegetarian food.
(By the way, from history is known that many worldwide famous persons were vegetarian. In italy Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) would often buy caged animals at the market just to set them free. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) turned vegetarian at age 25. About them in the last part).
Non-vegetarian foods including meat, fish, eggs putrefy within a few hours and so the putrefaction takes place within human body, what carrying around decaying corpses and toxins from them.
Eggs too rot as fast as meat and fish. Eggs provide the largest quantity of cholesterol. Besides, the eggs are full of chemicals. The hens are kept in the most shocking conditions - never allowed to roam free in the sun, always sitting in one position to produce "assembly line" eggs. They are fed hormones (for better produce) and artificial yellow colour (which is one of the worst offenders in children's behavioral disorders) to make the eggs look more appetising.
(Those eggs are "nuggets of concentrated nutrition" is a myth. One egg contains almost zero iron, 1200 IU of Vitamin A, a large quantity of Vitamin D and is loaded with Cholesterol. Compare that to 6000 IU of Vitamin A in a small bunch of drumstick leaves and 10,000 IU in an even smaller bunch of coriander leaves. Both these are also very rich sources of iron as are all green leafy vegetables. Vitamin D is available from the sun - it is formed directly on the skin by the action of the sun).
Countries where meat and other non-vegetarian food is consumed in large quantities have the highest rates of colon cancer. The animals are fed all sorts of hormones and drugs to fatten them up - these are also recycled to humans and result in severe hormonal disturbances in men and women. Antibiotics are a routine part of their diet. Ingesting these will make us immune to their action should we ever need to use them.
Human's stomach has to produce a lot more acid to digest non-vegetarian foods. They themselves contain of uric acid. It is one of the causes of suffering from ulcers, arthritis, psoriasis and other skin problems, etc.
The adrenal glands or stress glands become very active in the animal during captivity and during the butchering process. The adrenal so produced is recycled to humans thus causing unnecessary panic, stress and fears.
Many diseases (ulcer, arthritis, eczema, asthma, psychiatric, heart, blood pressure, cancer, and kidney cases) can wholly or partially cured when all non-vegetarian foods have eliminated from the diet.
If we wish to live long and be strong and hardworking let's learn from nature. The elephant, the bull, the horse (we measure power as horsepower) are all vegetarians. The elephant lives 100 years and more. The lion and all other carnivores on the other hand live only 15 years. The lion is vicious and violent and works hard only to kill for food. The rest of the time it spends sleeping (20 hours per day).
It is known that to produce one pound of meat 12 to 20 pounds of vegetable products as animal feed is needed.
It takes 60 litres of water to grow 1 kilo of wheat, 200 litres to grow I kilo of green beans, 3000 litres to produce 1 kilo of eggs, 8200 litres to produce 1 kilo of chicken 16400 litres to produce 1 kilo of pork and 50,000 litres to produce 1 kilo of beef (Look: Higher Taste 'ISCKON' -Published by Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. ISBN 0-89213-128-4).
Morally and spiritually, there is only one God. How a human being can dedicate actions to God when he/she ruthlessly and needlessly kills and harms His animated Creation.
By Sanatana Sai Sanjeevinis not only meat, eggs and fish but also refined sugar, sweets, chocolates (prepared from refined products), bottled drinks, aerated water and juices with artificial additions are not welcome.
These products consist in "empty calories" for the body. The so-called "juices" and "fresh juices" in packets have made from concentrate and/or pure chemicals - they contain water, sugar, artificial flavor citric acid, preservative compounds.
Sugar by its properties is near to acid what may damage inner tissues. The process of refining requires several corroding chemicals have added to the sugar. The number of diseases, which are caused/aggravated by sugar, would fill a book.
Sugar unbalances human being and can cause brainstorms. People suffering from psychiatric disorders, depression, phobias, fears, paranoia, compulsive behavior and epilepsy must omit refined sugar and other products containing much sugar from their diet.
Many people like to add sugar to their tea by eating sweets and chocolates, gulping down colas and other bottled "soft" drinks. An eight-ounce "soft" drink contains 8 teaspoons of sugar; one square inch of chocolate can contain up to 20 teaspoons of sugar. Besides sugar, 'soft drink' (Cola, Pepsi) contains phosphoric acid, which is corrosive and prevents calcium from being utilized in the body. It makes mush out of children's teeth and can actually retard their physical and mental growth. Drinks containing caffeine (all colas) are addictive and can ruin our kidneys. Several 'light' drinks contain no sugar but other sweeteners, which are so dangerous that they require a statutory warning in some countries (like cigarettes). Soft drinks are dangerous especially for children.
Not welcome to healthy diet are packaged foods -chips, soups, sauces, cornflakes. They all contain many artificial additions. Most additives are well known carcinogens (cancer promoting). MSG (monosodium glutamate), which is added to most of these foods, is responsible for nerve impairment, can, and does retard mental growth of children. It is responsible for hyperactivity, loss of concentration, headaches and neck pains.
Cornflakes contain 80% sugar and refined flour. The remaining 20% are chemicals with different c names. "Vitamins added" is another gimmick in fact these are in a form, which is impossible for our bodies to assimilate, and end up being treated as toxins by human’s body, which of course means that one’s liver and kidneys take a beating.
Nota Bene! Cornflakes and snacks prepared from natural products by soft technology without chemicals and refined flour, sugar and artificial trans -fats 'transforms' to healthy diet products. However, it is easier to produce the junk food than near to natural dietary products. Especially in India there are many plants as natural additions for health and taste what is possible to add to this products.
Such is brief information by Sanatana Sai Sanjeevinis about danger for health caused by junk food, what is popular among consumer-society includes children. Swami in his Works has explained the same in more detail years ago.
It is interesting to underline that to the same position has reached the modern science. The latest science news (Sept 2003 - May 2004) from different groups of researches warning the parents that junk food is the source of several diseases of children and adults.
Click to the site http://www.cspinet.org/ and be convinced of this truth through scientific discoveries when Vedic's and Swami's wisdom is not enough clear. News in May 2004 what this site reflects on governmental level USA, Canada, concern to refined sugar, flour and not healthy artificial additions in snacks and soft drinks. 75 % of drinks and 85 % of snacks are unhealthful, declares CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest).
Another latest research is about dangerous properties trans-fats what is widely used in cookies, chocolates, trans-fatty margarines, snacks, and other kinds of fast foods. Nutrition experts call for ban on hidden food villain
(Many analyses have made by Elaine Turner at the University of Florida and by nutrition expert Alice Lichtenstein of Tufts University in Boston. Yet in 2002, a US expert committee charged with making nutritional recommendations concluded that there was no level of trans-fats in the diet that could be deemed safe. In 2003, the Danish government issued regulations slashing the amount of trans-fats allowed in foods).
Trans-fats are received by special technology - adding hydrogen to unsaturated oils. The process rearranges the hydrogen atoms around the double bonds so they are on opposite sides of the carbon chain. The artificial solid or partially solid trans-fats (margarines) are formed. Such fats are preferred by industry because they are versatile and last longer. Human body does not accept trans-fats. However, they are world widely spread in our food.
Small quantities of trans-fats occur in meats and dairy products, but most arrive in our stomachs through processed foods.
Nutrition experts say trans-fats are disastrous for humans' health. Whereas saturated fats raise both 'bad' low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) and 'good' high-density lipoproteins (HDL), trans-fats boost LDL without affecting HDL, increasing the risk of heart disease.
Nutritional guidelines have long advocated cutting back on the saturated fatty acids found in meat and dairy products, and boosting unsaturated fats abundant in nuts, seeds and vegetable oils. For healthy life, it is important plant oils rather than even butter.
(Fatty acids are the building blocks of fats, and the different types are distinguished based on their chemical structure. All are made up of strings of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms attached to them. In saturated fats, each carbon atom is bonded to as many hydrogen atoms as it can hold.
Unsaturated fats contain fewer hydrogen atoms, and one or more pairs of carbon atoms are linked by double chemical bonds. A fatty acid with one double bond is called monounsaturated; those with more than one are called polyunsaturated).
Additional brief information one can receive from 'Nature. Science Updates' Article by Helen Pearson "Trans-fats come under fire." 19 May 2004
LIGHT AND LOVE
By Sanatana Sai Sanjeevinis milk, processed cheese, milk based sweets are not welcome for healthy diet. Theoretically, it is understandable, but according to today’s conditions, it is hard to follow. Today there are many different standpoints by science. Several of them are controversial. About them in the following parts.
Let us look at it using our common sense - is there any other animal in nature that drinks another animal's milk after it has weaned away from the mother's milk?
The calcium in milk is bound up in casein. Casein and lactose are broken down in our body by rennin and lactase respectively. Both these enzymes are all but missing from the human body by the age of 3 - in many cases even earlier. (There is 300 times more casein in cow's milk than in human milk). Casein in milk remains undigested in our body where it sticks to the mucous membrane of the intestines. The intestines react by secreting more mucous to wash it off. Soon it begins to degenerate and putrefy due to the bacteria feeding on it. This putrid matter is then pushed around in the body - never able to leave and causing more and more mucous to be produced which the body endeavours to throw out through its orifices. Ones who suffer from tonsilitis, bronchitis, sinusitis, ear infections, asthma, discharging eyes, vaginal discharges, amoebiasis, migraine, colitis try not to drink milk.
The truth is - the more milk we drink, the more we are likely to suffer from calcium deficiency! The high phosphorus content in milk upsets the delicate balance which the blood maintains between phosphorus and calcium. Due to the high phosphorus content, the blood is forced to draw calcium from healthy bones and teeth - so drinking milk can actually cause osteoporosis (brittle bones) and can cause teeth to decay.
The excess calcium so carried by the blood is then deposited in soft tissues causing tumors, cataracts, kidney and gallstones, spurs and bony growths, spondylitis, sciatica, thyroid problems, prostate problems, atherosclerosis (deposits in arteries), etc.
What is the first thing the body does when the milk is ingested?
The body produces acidic enzymes in order to curdle the milk so that it can stay longer in the stomach for digestion.
In fact, lemon water and tamarind water are both powerful antacids. (This may sound peculiar when doctors keep telling us that these two items are acidic). What we view under the "microscope" in the laboratory is not necessarily, how the inside of our body views it.
Inside the body both, these remove acid. Take a cue from our traditional eating patterns - our chutneys, chaats, sambars, rasams - which are "hot and spicy" - always use tamarind in the recipes to antidote the ulcer causing chillies.
Another thing that antidotes the chillies are pure desi ghee (clarified butter). South Indian food -rice is liberally "garnished" with desi ghee to antidote the chillies in the "hot" sambars and rasams. People with operable peptic and duodenal ulcers have been saved from the surgeon's knife by the help of two things.
A. Giving up non-vegetarian foods, eggs and dairy products except ghee (cooking everything in ghee - no oil) butter and homemade yoghurt (curds).
B. Introducing fresh lemon and water into their early morning regimen on waking (honey may be added but no salt or sugar).
During two weeks, one can have the results. After a month, one will feel like a new person as organism has purified from toxins and various unhealthy products.
There may be weight loss. (Many people are aware that at the age of 40 being overweight is not good - but by views of Vedic wisdom and modern science the roots of foundation "fat" are in childhood. Many diseases starts with wrong eating patterns acquired through childhood conditioning.
What concern to milk then cow gives it to human beings at the cost of her own babies.
About modern dairy in very brief.
Anyone knows how cows are treated. Over fattened with drugs, cows as principal herbivores are fed chicken bones in its feed. Cow's udder is hooked to a machine. She stands long hours parting with milk in this crude way all the year round. Her milk is produced at the behest of hormones. (Hormone oxitocin is used during childbirth in women where the contractions of the uterus are insufficient. Oxytocin produces contractions in the uterus).
In India, the same hormone has injected to cows and buffalos twice a day because this causes the milk to flow faster.
(Oxytocin is a "banned" drug worldwide for animals, but is available at a throwaway cost in India and almost every milkman uses it. Besides the fact that this hormone causes several disorders in humans when they drink this milk, it causes acute torture to the animal.
Indian milkmen push an iron rod into the uterus of the cow and crudely shake it about to cause pain, which they believe will make the milk flow faster. What kind of milk a cow that goes through this kind of torture, will "gift" us)?
The spiritual consciousness is closely connected with ecological one. How can a human being to obtain a spiritual/ecological consciousness when he/she is regularly uses and produces junk food, by methods hostile to the nature, plants and animals? It is actual global problem. For human society’s enlightenment, there is a need to entwine spirituality, science and ecological consciousness. The basic role here plays Swami's wisdom gifted to humanity.
"Eating food is a holy ritual, a yajna. It should not be performed during moments of anxiety or emotional tension. Food has to be considered as medicine for the illness of hunger and as the sustenance of life." Sai Baba; Natural, pure food, received by friendly to nature technology is instead of medicine and sustainer of life towards spirituality.
This part is about refined food products. In refined products, their natural state of the products have been changed by removing the nutrients and adding several chemicals that the product's life would be longer and taste better.
Among these products is refined oil. Studies have shown that the chemicals added to the oil during refining may promote cancer. Such oil is no better than butter and ghee in preventing heart disease. Unrefined oil is a much better, be it bet mustard oil, coconut oil, sesame oil, olive oil, etc.
Sea salt and rock salt was provided by nature and that is the way they must be had. Is there a need to add iodine to salt at any case? "Commerce scientists" have declared that thyroid problems are a result of a lack of iodine. In fact, those thyroid diseases have increased today in spite of the most thyroid patients answered that they have been using always refined with iodine salt. Salt is an essential product for human body, but it has to be under control as senses. Iodine salt one can use as medicine, but in some cases.
Refined salt has more than natural one a property of water retention. It causes that tissues to become clogged, capillaries, arteries, and veins to get choked and leading to high blood pressure. High blood pressure patients are given diuretics. However, such organism has several acid waste products what irritate skin after taking diuretics. This is the waste products which trying to excrete itself through the skin. Many such patients also end up damaging the kidneys.
Wheat and rice are nutritious as widely spread food. When they are refined all the goodness is removed, but in such state flour and rice can last longer on the supermarket shelf. Flour with artificial vitamins and other additions cannot be fully absorbed by body. Healthy diet product is whole-wheat.
It is quite easy to make bread with whole-wheat flour, without preservatives, eggs, color, milk. Brown, unpolished rice is nutritionally sound for them who can digest it.
(Many people today are allergic to wheat and others who convert every grain of wheat they eat into mucous which causes several disorders like chronic sinusitis, pus in the ears, bronchitis, etc).
By Sanatana Sai Sanjeevinis there is an advice to remove cooked tomatoes from food, as they turn acidic. Healthy food is ripe uncooked tomatoes. (In India, tomatoes have entered into diet some hundred years ago and replaced tamarind). Tamarind has a unique quality of binding fluoride and removing it from body thus preventing fluorosis in populations where concentration of fluoride in drinking water is high.
By healthy diet customs, by Swami there is no place for alcohol, drugs, and tobacco products for people who are on the way towards spirituality.
"Research has revealed that non-vegetarian and alcoholic addicts are more prone to heart ailments than vegetarians. If the vegetarian food that is consumed should be balanced and wholesome, it should contain liberal doses vitamin C and vitamin E, which are available in vegetables like carrots. The presence of these vitamins prevents hearts ailments in a large measure.... Birds and beasts do not suffer from cardiac and digestive ailments to which man is prone. The cause can be traced to the natural food, which animals consume, unlike human beings who consume all sorts of fried and cooked items of food being slaves to the palate. Modern man consumes many artificial foodstuffs and variety alcoholic drinks, which are injurious to health... When man observes moderation in diet he can be saved from most diseases." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. "Sathya Sai Speaks." Vol. 27, Chapter 3).
In addition to the food unhealthy qualities caused by humans' not complete, far from nature-friendly technology and ignorance the natural style of life, Swami stresses to the important method of purifying the food
There is a wish to share it as a special part of this serial about diet.
"Realising that man's attraction for sensual pleasures is due to the kind of food that he takes, the ancients devised an easy and sacred method for purifying food before eating. They used to sprinkle some water on the food and utter the mantra: "Annam Brahma! Raso Vishnuh! Bhoktaa devo Maheswarah!" (The solid food is Brahma, the liquids are Vishnu and the enjoier of the meal is Maheswara). The sprinkling is done with Sathya and Rita (Truth and the Cosmic order which together sustain the universe). In performing this rite, the partaker of food is praying to the trinity to protect him with "Sathya and Rita." ...By this rite the food was being sanctified. The intellectuals of today, full of pride in their knowledge and skills, are ignoring the potency of Sathya and Rita." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. "Sathya Sai Speaks." Vol. 23, Chapter 17).
In the previous parts, mainly the negative properties of non-vegetarian food and refined food products with unhealthy chemical additives to them were considered. It is a general outlook. Each organism has created little differently from others and has the specific bents for food. Everyone would pick up such food that is more suitable to his/her organism. Swami's explanations concern to food precisely observes distinctions of everyone's needs in food what by Swami is as medicine
However, in reality nearly not anybody can completely avoid refined food products with chemical additives. Today part of vegetarian products is produced by gene technology. By my opinion for most people today is no need absolutely to avoid relatively ecologically clean diary products and unfertilized eggs. It seems that for someone even little amounts chicken, little quantities of coffee or tea can serve as medicine and to use them is probably better than artificial chemical drugs.
There are two similar rules for all peoples on the Earth. It is to adhere to moderation at partaking of food and to dedicate the food for God mentally and/or through prayers. (Ancient Estonians devoted to the forces of nature through their deity Taara, did not have their meals without prayers of gratitude to the nature, which gifted them their meals. Thanks, prayers from heart in any form purify the food through sacred vibrations. Even some modern researchers start to find this and have reached to the hypothetical explanations. (About it I try to note in the next part). Here is nothing has said about drinks with alcohol and other drinks with artificial chemical additives. They are not food, but poisons for human body.
By Sanatana Sai Sanjeevinis is healthy to add to the diet different natural products and additives according to season.
It is useful to add:
1. Water (especially spring water), fresh seasonal fruits, fresh seasonal vegetables, gur (jaggery), butter, pure ghee, home-made curds (yoghurt), butter milk.1. Water (especially spring water), fresh seasonal fruits, fresh seasonal vegetables, gur (jaggery), butter, pure ghee, home-made curds (yoghurt), butter milk.
2. Whole grains (according to season) eg. wheat, jawar, bajra, barley, parboiled and/or unpolished rice.
3. Lentils, dals, beans, grams. Nuts and seeds - sesame, sunflower, almonds, walnuts, pistas and coconut.
4. Dry fruits (in winter)
5. Fresh lemon water (without sugar).
6. Tamarind - to lentils (to prevent flourosis and acidity).
7. Sprouted or living foods.
8. Wheatgrass and Rejuvelac.
9. With fried food is recommended to use only unrefined oil.
For children's food is useful to add milk made from sesame seeds, sweet melon seeds, soya beans, wheat, coconut, almonds, peanuts combining with dates and honey, flavouring with cardamom (ilaichi), saffron (natural kesar - not artificial flavour), kewra, natural vanilla etc. These can be given to newborn children also (diluted) where mother's milk is not available for some reason.
The addional explanations concern to protein, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin B12, iron by Sanatana Sai Sanjeevinis:
1. Protein comes from amino acids - everything that grows on the earth has amino acids. Where does the elephant, the cow, the horse, the bull get its amino acids? From grains and grasses! All grains, lentils (daals), all vegetables are rich in proteins.
2. Calcium - nature abounds with it and in readily assimilable form with phosphorus and magnesium in the correct ratios - in all green leafy vegetables and nuts especially sesame (til) seeds and almonds. Even to tiny babies is good to give milk made from sesame seeds, coconut, wheat, almonds, soya bean, if for some reason mother's milk is not available.
3. Vitamin A - green leafy vegetables and naturally yellow fruits - mangoes, papayas, carrots, peaches - are rich in vitamin A. The drumstick plant - its leaves, flowers and fruit, coriander leaves, fresh mint - all these are the richest sources of vitamin A.
4. Vitamin B12 - it has explained by science that it comes from animal sources. It is true – it comes from animal's residing in humans' intestinal tract - the friendly bacteria, when antibiotics have not killed them. If it so, then it is good to take homemade yoghurt freely (never after sunset) and Rejuvelac. However, health body knows how to balance itself.
5. Iron - All green leafy vegetables are full of iron as are dry fruits and most fruits (especially the ones that turn brown if left exposed after cutting or pealing). That milk, meat, or eggs are essential to fulfill our iron requirement is a story of commercial interests. One humble bowl of spinach (palak) contains as much iron as 60 gallons of milk. In eggs, there is no sufficient concentration of iron.
separate chapters about 'Wheatgrass and Rejuvelac' and "Alternate" Recipes' not observed in this serial.
The final part of the serial is about culture of dietary, what in general is in accordance with explanations by modern science. There is a tiny collection of Swami's quotations on this theme. As there was sent to 'saibabanews' several mails about experiences and Swami's explanations and advices concern to the food, I tried not to repeat them and therefore little changed the construction of serial.
Eating is a sacred action for everyone. Every human being from whatsoever nation has to eat in silence with awareness to be grateful for food to God. Healthy eating is starting by prayer to God.
Sanatana Sai Sanjeevinis recommend chewing food properly. Juices, buttermilk etc. must be had very slowly drink and moved around in our mouth so that they combine well with the saliva and then swallowed. Solids, on the other hand, must be first be liquefied by chewing well, and then drunk. A great deal of digestion, especially of starches, takes place in our mouth
It is healthy to eat only half a stomach. The remaining space is for the "cooking" of food with digestive juices.
It is healthy to eat only half a stomach. The remaining space is for the "cooking" of food with digestive juices.
The note: What has given in this chapter is one of the points of views. Please accept it only if it appeals to your common sense - otherwise reject it. These recommendations are only a beginning in one's quest for being in accordance with Nature. Health is in everyone’s own hands.
There are many arguments about whether human being is herbivore (vegetarian), carnivore (meat-eater) or omnivore (one who can eat and digest both). In fact, there is mounting evidence to suggest that a human being was a fruitivore! It is possible to live only on a combination of fruits and nuts and never suffer any malnutrition.
Most people eat fruits:
A. after food,
B. combined with milk for dessert,
C. cooked, stewed, or baked.
This is not right. Fruit must eat on an empty stomach. Fruit must never combine with milk or grains. Fruit must eat uncooked.
After being chewed well in the mouth, fruit enters the stomach for 15 -20 min, 30 min for bananas and then proceeds to the intestines where it digests itself with its own enzymes. If it is eaten after a meal it sits on top of the food and ferments because it does not get a clear passage to go down to the intestines. Not only is the fruit rendered useless - it can become a cause of acidity, indigestion, gas, colic, constipation and other diseases.
For this same reason, it must not be combining with any other foods. The other foods need to sit in the stomach for several hours for digestion.
Cooking the fruit destroys its self-digesting enzymes and it becomes a burden for the body.
In fact acidity, colic, indigestion, constipation can all be helping substantially by eating fruits at least 1/2 hour before food. Chronic sufferers of these problems should abstain from having any cereal, bread, roti or paratha for breakfast - they must have only fresh fruits.
Fruits are the best bet when there is a severe hunger. They provide energy very quickly and efficiently without using up valuable energy reserves of the body. Other foods use massive amounts of energy in the process of digestion.
1. "It is the best to preserve one's health by good thoughts and good deeds. It is best to be vigilant about food habits. Coconut kernel, coconut water, sprouting pulses, cooked or half cooked vegetables, and greens are good for health." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. SSS. Vol.15, Chapter 21).
2. "Food habits are of primary importance when health has to be secured and maintained. When these are not regulated, health suffers...Among the eight million four hundred thousand species of living beings, all except humans live on food as provided by Mother nature.... one should realise that food materials, as offered by nature, are really more beneficial." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. SSS. Vol.15, Chapter 54).
3. "The mother must herself prepare food for the home; for food, that is prepared with love and served with a smile is much more sustaining and strengthening than food cooked by a hired woman and served by a disgruntled refractory kitchen boy." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. SSS. Vol.9, Chapter 13).
4. "The food consumed by man should be proper, pure and wholesome. But nowadays people eat whatever they get and wherever they get it, and thereby spoil their health. Food plays a major role in the preservation of health. Care should be taken to see that the food consumed does not have much fat content, for the fats consumed in large quantity are detrimental not only to one's physical health but also to one's mental health." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. SSS. Vol.27, Chapter 3).
5. "By regulating your diet and avoiding certain bad habits, you can preserve health. Moderate food, and food of the Saathwik type, will promote mental poise and also physical happiness... Many people consume more than necessary quantity of rich food and such have to practice moderation." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. SSS. Vol.1, Chapter 28).
6. "But I hope you learn also about the distinction between the Saathwik (calmness promoting), the Raajasik (emotion producing) and the Thamaasik (sloth encouraging) types of food and of the effect of these on character. The mind is the key to health and happiness and so, food must be chosen that it does not affect the mind adversely, along with Saathwik food, the mind must also be given special diet like Dhyaana, Japa, Naamasmarana, etc. to keep it sound and steady." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. SSS. Vol.9, Chapter 13).
7. "The type of food that you consume decides the degree of concentration you can command; its quality and quantity decide how much your self-control is lessened or heightened. There are four pollutions against which man has to be vigilant - of the body (removable by water), of the mind (removable by truthfulness), of reason (removable by correct knowledge) and of the self (removable by yearning for God)...God is the doctor. Seek Him, rely on Him, you will be free from disease." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. SSS. Vol.14, Chapter 31).
8. "Though men are all equally subject to birth, life and death, though all are one kind, why they allow the Aanandha which is the right of each to slip away through hatred and conflict? Why is the demon prevailing over the Divine in man? The answer has been deluding man for ages.
Well! Aham (ego) is the cause. The narrow limited self, the ego, is the root of the evil. Probing the problem a little deeper, I would say that the nature of the food relished is primarily responsible. Food is of three qualities Saathwik, Raajasik, and Thaamasik (leading to purity, passion and inertia)... Since food alleviates or arouses, prevents or promotes emotions and passions, it moulds the behaviour, conduct and attitudes of men." (Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. SSS. Vol.16, Chapter 19).
By Swami (it is in accordance with modern science) the food plays significant role for mental and spiritual life of humanity. Therefore, the science about qualities, properties and technology of food would be a part of ecological and spiritual culture. For spiritual development, it is not enough to study spiritual scriptures, Swami's Works, to meditate, have the faith to the God: the results are poor when one forgets about Saathwik diet of food as sustainer the body, adobe of Atma. It seems, one of the purposes why ecological and social problems are so sharp and demonic today, is the production of 'technological' food with artificial additives where pictorially to say, has done all to kill the natural properties of food. Is it lacking of spiritual and ecological consciousness?
Seems, it is the the purpose why Swami in many His works repeatedly pointed to the significance of humans food habits and culture of dietary.
9. A simple, clear and brief explanation about forms of food by Swami is in the book: Sri Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba. SSS. Vol.11, Chapter 8, "Forms of food."
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