Yoga's View of Nutrition

The basic principle of nutrition, from the yoga perspective, is to eat small quantities of high quality foods. The high quality foods are those which promote the life force of the body without producing toxins. The recommended foods are fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts.

Incredibly, yoga's principles of nutrition are very similar to what modern science has discovered in more recent times.

Meat

The yoga advises to be cautious of eating meat. Not all yogis are vegetarians, but they all recommend eating meat in strict moderation. According to yoga, the meat, being animal flesh, has a low vibration rate and will lower the life force of the person eating it. This will cause a reduction in vitality and slow down your progress from yoga. Meat also contains toxins, especially lactic acid, which is a waste product of muscle metabolism.

We now know that meat contain fat, cholesterol and other substances that are toxic to our bodies. Thus the advice to eat meat in moderation is certainly well taken.

Fruit

The yogis' favorite food is fruit. They consider fruit to possess the highest life force of all foods. Fruit is also very nutritious. They can be eaten raw or unprocessed and are easily digested. It provides a quick and sustained source of energy with no toxins. It is no wonder the yogis favor fruit.

Vegetables

The yogis consider the green vegetables such as lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and so on, to have the highest life force of all vegetables.

Fresh Food

Yoga also stresses that food should be as fresh as possible. This means we should rely more on fresh fruits and vegetables than on frozen or canned foods. Frozen food is not so bad, since the enzymes are preserved, but canned food has been preheated, which destroys a lot of the vitamins and minerals and the enzymes.

Raw Food

The yogis also state that the greater proportion of our food should be eaten raw; for example, fruits, salad, raw nuts and sprouted grains. They consider that the cooking of food causes it to lose a lot of its life force, as well as its flavor. Because of this we need to add salt, spices and sauces, which often create more problems. Modern science is in complete agreement with this.

Food Temperature

The yogis state that food should neither be too hot nor too cold. They claim that very hot or very cold food or drinks can cause harm to the tissue of the throat. Modern science also agrees with this and considers that food and beverages which are too hot or cold may irritate the throat sufficiently to predispose it to cancer.

Alcohol

Yogis do not touch alcohol, since they consider it to lower the vibrations of their subtle body (astral body). This defeats the purpose of yoga, which is to increase the vibrational level so they can gradually unfold their Higher Self.

Yoga also considers alcohol to have an adverse effect on the central nervous system, and in particular the brain. The integrity of the central nervous system is considered very important by the yogis, since one of the goals of yoga is to improve the health of this system, and much of the progress of yoga is achieved via this vital communication system.

Modern science agrees with yoga on this point, since alcohol is known to first stimulate and then shortly afterwards depress the central nervous system.

Alcohol also causes poor sleep. Alcohol cannot compare with the effects of yoga. Yoga produces a natural stimulation without the depressing after-effect. Yoga also produces a general feeling of elation. The increase in life force produced by practicing yoga cannot be duplicated by drugs.

Eat Slowly

The yogis place great emphasis on eating slowly. It is more important than on the type of food eaten. They claim that even nutritious food is not properly digested if eaten quickly. This means that, as well as not extracting all the nutrients from the food, you are also creating toxins in the body.

Even if you eat food which is not very nutritious, if it is eaten slowly and your digestive system is in good health from yoga exercises, your body will extract every last nutrient from the food, as well as eliminating all the toxins. Of course the intelligent way is to eat nutritious food and chew it slowly.