You are what you Eat - Conscious Choices for a Good Diet: The 5 secrets of Dietary Success (Part 2)

Perhaps it’s obvious that just as the environment affects our food (droughts and floods, or alternatively, sun and moderate rain bring us less or more food) our food habits affect the environment. Though these points may not seem as essential or immediate as food nutrition and food budget, which we discussed in the first food blog, they are important factors.

Thus, here I’ll write about:

• How your food choices affect the environment 
• How your diet affects other living beings 
• How suitable your diet is for your mental balance and for your peace of mind.

There is of course just a limited amount of land on which we can grow our food. As I note in my book, Mediation: Searching for the Real You, if land is used to grow plant-based protein, rather than raising cows for food, we save a lot of land. If we give a steer one acre of land to graze on, that land will produce less than one-half kg of protein from the steer. Planting soybeans on that same acre can produce eight kg of protein. On top of that, Dr. Jean Mayer of Harvard estimates that reducing meat consumption by just 10% would release enough grain to feed 60 million people.

As well as affecting the health of the land, our diet also affects other living beings. Much of the modern vegetarian, or plant-based movement has been built on concern for other beings.  This attitude has a long history:in Europe, philosophers as far back as Pythagoras (born about 570 BC) and Plato, Plutarch & Epicurus took up vegetarianism as a statement against animal sacrifices of the day. They believed in the kinship of all beings and saw this diet as part of their search for principles of cosmic harmony.

In recent times, plant-based diets (especially veganism) have become popular for a variety of reasons. Bill Clinton took it up for health reasons, Paul McCartney and Morrissey more for ethical reasons and Al Gore, (Clinton’s Vice President) for ecological reasons. And no less of a modern philosopher than Jay Z, who along with his wife Beyoncé, took up veganism as an experiment. He said, regarding the benefits of the diet: "Foods… should satisfy not only the body, but also the spirit. We believe that the right attitude and approach to healthy living can positively affect the world."

Food affects the mind as well as the body. “You are what you eat” suggests to me that our mental balance or harmony is affected by food.Yogis, who tend to be aware of the flow of the mind, have studied the food-mind relationship for eons and through experience and research they developed a diet that works for both physical health and mental balance. As one modern Indian yogi wrote: “The types of food a creature eats varies in proportion to its evolution.” Thus, he notes, lower developed insects or animals can easily digest garbage or rotten food. The higher the evolution, he says, the more subtle their food needs.

Thus, as written more extensively in my book, eating foods that support both our mental development and our overall health are the best. The best diet, called ‘sentient’ (‘aware’) are foods that support us in moving toward greater consciousness and refinement.The good news is that sentient foods are also good for physical health, taste great and are available anywhere.  Sentient foods include virtually all grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts and dairy. For more information about sentient, conscious food choices you can see my book, or various websites such as: 

http://www.gemstories.com/vegetarianism_b.html
http://kitchenoflove.org/sentient-vegetarian-diet/the-three-food-categories/
http://amwellness.org/articles/vegetarianism

Being vegetarian or vegan will put you in the company of a steadily growing number of people worldwide, including more than a few people you’ve probably heard of, such as Natalie Portman, Jared Leto and Thom Yorke of Radiohead.

Namaste,
Dada Jyotirupananda