More than a generation ago, M H Tester, a spiritual healer and author of The Healing Touch, complained that some of his patients put better quality fuel in their cars than they did in their bodies as food – and that was when petrol was not unleaded. Yet even in those days, many still lived on home-cooked meals with only the occasional Chinese take-away or fish and chip supper. What on Earth would he have said about today’s obesity crisis and many people’s daily diet of junk food? We seem to have forgotten entirely the old adage that ‘we are what we eat’.
Throughout history there have been many references to food in a spiritual or ethical as well as a culinary sense. The ancient Chinese oracle I Chingspeaks of ‘nourishment’ as cultivation of the character. Meanwhile, most Hindus, Jains and Buddhists came to practise ahimsa, the avoidance of harm to any living creature. Some Greeks, especially the Pythagoreans, embraced the similar concept of apoche empsyuchōn, or abstinence from eating beings with a soul, whilst in China there was a vegetarian tradition that began in the two thousand year-old, Han Dynasty. In the Old Testament, Yahweh tells the Hebrews, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole Earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.”
There is, however, one text that gave specific instructions for nourishing the subtle (spiritual) body as well as the physical. This is theBhagavad Gita(or ‘Song of God’), an ancient Hindu treatise on yoga, probably dating from the second century BCE. In Chapter 17 of the Gita, different types of food are equated with the three gunas, or qualities of consciousness.
- Sattvais the quality of pure consciousness and goodness.
- Rajasis associated with energy and passion.
- Tamasleads to inertia, decay and ignorance.
In his discourse, Sri Krishna describes how people are attracted to different foods, each according to their prevailing level of consciousness:
- “Foods that sustain life and impart energy,
happiness, satisfaction and wellbeing
and are juicy, sustaining and oily
are beloved by the Sattvicperson.”
- “Foods that are either bitter, sour or salty,
dry, pungent, burning or excessively hot,
thereby causing disease and misery,
are palatable to the Rajasic.”
- “Foods prepared more than three hours in advance
which are tasteless, bad-smelling or putrid,
or leftovers or adulterated –
all these are favoured by the Tamasic.”
In the first line above, the words ‘life’ and ‘energy’ imply prana, the vital life force in all living things, equivalent to chiin Chinese philosophy. Fresh vegetables and fruit have living cells containing pranawhich energise the subtle body, and this is said to be ‘the highest form of food’ when eaten raw.
Other whole foods such as cooked vegetables, brown rice and wholegrain pasta, nuts, cereals and pulses, whilst not actually living, nevertheless contain energy. These are ‘the second highest form of food’ and can also be classed as Sattvic. Asian foods such as curries made with fresh whole food and freshly prepared are in this category. Moreover, the spices used also have medicinal properties.
The typical take-away, however, even if marketed as vegetarian or vegan, is usually made with pre-cooked or processed vegetables and is therefore Rajasic. Such meals are characterised by excessive salt, hot sauces and additives intended to enhance the otherwise tasteless food. As the second verse above suggests, it can result in indigestion or worse as well as ageing the body. Oil-soaked stir-fries with starchy white rice may be initially filling but they contain little nourishment and soon leave you feeling hungry again! Authentic Indian and Pakistani cuisine is very different from restaurant frying pan cookery, taking longer to prepare and always including fresh ingredients. Likewise, a traditional Chinese meal with plain rice and local ingredients bears little relation to the average High Street take-away.
Also in the Rajasicclass are the supposedly fresh supermarket ready meals. By the time we buy them, they are days old and, in any case, contain colourings, stabilisers, emulsifiers, flavour-enhancers and preservatives. The same can even be said, ironically, of some of the newer vegan products. A plant-based diet should be healthy, yes, but how can it be if it is fattening, ultra-processed and loaded with salt and sugar? And let’s not even mention those greasy meals ordered by ’phone app and delivered to your door, probably cooked in a so-called ‘dark kitchen’ under the arches with no inspections or hygiene certificate…
How accurately the Gita, in that final verse, describes modern junk food!
The worst example of it is complex food such as burgers. They, and the accompanying bread, are saturated with chemicals and about as Tamasicas you can get. Incredibly, many of the people who eat them regularly not only claim to enjoy them but become addicted. There are photos on the Internet of burgers and fries that are ten years old or more and still look edible, but they are so adulterated that even the flies won’t touch them.
Human beings are naturally herbivores and have a gastrointestinal tract many times the length of the body. Burgers take up to three days to pass through it. By contrast, nature’s carnivores have a much shorter tract to enable rotting meat to pass out quickly.
If we wish to nourish our spiritual as well as our physical body, we can surely do no better than heed the ancient wisdom, even if that means cooking everything ourselves as our forebears did.
© Graham Adrian, 2020
Graham Adrian is a regular contributor to Mind, Body & Spirit publications.
He is also the author of Two Sisters, a spiritual novel.
Please visit www.local-legend.co.uk
