The Complete Yoga Community

What do we understand by the term “conscious yogic nutrition”? What you eat, how you eat, where and when you eat, all have a direct influence on your mind, body and spiritual awareness.
Most yogis will agree on vegetarianism because one of the Yamas is Ahimsa where we practice non-violence and not killing, hurting or harming anybody or any living thing. We all try to do our bit in creating a peaceful society and so we should naturally consider vegetarianism as a start in allowing us to become more subtle, harmonious and healthy. We are beings of light and so it is unnatural for us to consume too much meat.

Yogic food is pranic. Prana is essential for our living. Sunlight, air, water and food yield us prana, in this sucession. We can do without food for quite a while, but we need water and air to live. Fresh, fully ripe fruits and vegetables are full of life force and energy sustaining goodness. An abundance of prana gives us resistance to disease, a good nervous system, lots of energy, and an aura that can help others heal.

A friend who wrote a cookbook and ran a vegetarian restaurant once said that she regarded every food as grown by Mother Nature, and used to ask the food to yield to her its special qualities and medicinal properties. Yogic nutrition looks at the healing qualities of food and how certain foods can help to strengthen our bodies in the areas that we need it.

Here are some suggestions:

• Eat only as much as you know you can properly digest and eliminate. Eat only when hungry and eat exactly until the “first” hunger has been satisfied (the second hunger being the appetite). Eating to satisfy the hunger and not the appetite is a supreme exercise in trusting that the universe looks after you and will provide the next meal. Imagine that your stomach has four rooms: for air, liquids, food and some space for peristalsis and digestion. Chew liquids so they can be better digested, and chew food until it has become liquid.
• Foods are classified by where they grow in relation to the sun and earth. Foods that grow higher than one metre above the ground absorb maximum energy from the sun, like fruit. Foods that grow closer to the earth have more earthly vibrations and are grounding. Roots are cleansing and useful for healing purposes. Carrots, beetroots, radishes, ginger, garlic and onions are examples of such root foods. They are so cleansing they even “cleanse” the soil of chemicals. Therefore it is better to have only organically grown root foods.
• Eat less and meditate more. Guru Nanak’s simple wisdom in the 15th Century was: “Eat and sleep little”. Yoga and yogic nutrition are complimentary. Cooking will make food more digestible if your digestive “fire” is weak, or you are convalescing or pressurised in any way. Spices are appreciated as medicinal ingredients.
• Strong yoga helps to synthesise and assimilate micro nutrients and minerals from your food. You may be on the best diet in the world but, if you don’t exercise, much of it will be wasted.
• Fruit and vegetables should not be eaten in one meal as they require different digestive juices, as do starches and proteins. Basic food combining should be observed.
• A beautiful experience in cooking is starting off with a prayer, an attunement so to speak. Then, cook meditatively as a token of reverence and make yourself a channel of light.
• If you get up before sunrise to do yoga and meditation, it is best to avoid food in the evening. Eating a large dinner seems to be the norm for many people but it is better to have your main meal at lunchtime, when the sun is highest and we have lots of energy to digest our food.
• Stimulants make us grow old prematurely and rob us of youth, beauty and radiance.
• Don’t eat tamasic food. Tamasic food is simply old food that’s been sitting in the fridge for five days, or again, animal flesh. Tamas is the principle of inertia and tamasic food can make us feel low and depressed. Some rajasic foods like certain spices are good for us as it gives us “go”, but best is sattvic food: fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes and some dairy, prepared, cooked and eaten in the spirit of goodness and sharing.

  By Pritam Khalsa