There are two essential factors for good health: we need to do exercise, and we need to eat well, maintaining a proper diet. The exercise part is relatively simple: anything that makes one move, like walking, yoga, cycling, or even doing house chores will help. However, when we come into diet and eating habits, things become more complicated. There is so much contradictory advice around that one will have a hard time reaching any kind of conclusion.
I did a lot of research on this area in the past and reached some interesting conclusions, supported both on the Ayurveda and by modern studies. These are rules of the thumb that you can use to maintain or to regain your health and of your family.
Actually, having a proper diet is even more essential than exercise. If one can keep a healthy diet, he can prevent many different health problems, keep the immune system working properly, and increase the longevity of the body, without having to spend time and money on different treatments.
“In Kali-yuga, the duration of life is shortened not so much because of insufficient food but because of irregular habits. By keeping regular habits and eating simple food, any man can maintain his health. Overeating, over-sense gratification, overdependence on another’s mercy, and artificial standards of living sap the very vitality of human energy. Therefore the duration of life is shortened.” (SB 1.1.10 purport)
Nowadays, most have very unhealthy diets. We can see this practically when we go to Mayapur, for example. The local Bengalis work very hard, practically every day until old age, and rarely become sick. Our western devotees, on the other hand, frequently have a hard time just functioning. One important difference is that the Bengalis have a simple diet, based on rice, dhal, and vegetables, while our western devotees tend to base their diets on bread, cakes, sweets, pizzas, and festival prasadam, with lots of fried preparations.
What we normally call a “sumptuous feast” is not always very nutritional. Quite the opposite: it usually contains a lot of refined carbohydrates, fried preparations, sweets, and so on, that may taste well, but is very unbalanced nutritionally. Once there was a special feast in a temple, with many different preparations, but I noticed that actually, the main ingredients for all the different preparations were basically the same: rice, white flour, oil, sugar, and potatoes, with a few preparations containing a little milk, paneer or fruits. The different preparations were basically just variations of the same ingredients, mixed with heaps of oil and sugar.
Most people nowadays have a diet based on white flour, rice, refined oils, sugar, potatoes, and meat. It started in the western countries, but slowly became popular all over the world. As vegetarians we of course skip the meat, but we tend to mimic most of the rest of the diet, not only eating a lot of refined, poorly nutritious, processed, sugar-coated, and deep-fried food, but also overeating. This combination of refined food and overeating wreaks havoc in our bodies, causing all kinds of premature problems. As Srila Prabhupada points out, the secret is in eating healthy, wholesome foods, and at the same time be moderated:
“People in rich nations eat more, become fat, and then pay exorbitant prices to so-called yoga instructors in order to reduce. People try to reduce by all these artificial gymnastics; they do not understand that if they just eat vegetables or fruits and grains, they will never get fat. People get fat because they eat voraciously, because they eat meat. People who eat voraciously suffer from diabetes, overweight, heart attacks, etc., and those who eat insufficiently suffer from tuberculosis. Therefore moderation is required, and moderation in eating means that we eat only what is needed to keep body and soul together. If we eat more than we need or less, we will become diseased.” (Path to Perfection, ch. 4)
In his purport to SB 4.26.13, Srila Prabhupada emphasizes that we should have a simple and balanced diet. Too much rich foodstuffs, he points out, can make one fall down, making him attracted to gross sense gratification:
“Sattvika-ahara, foodstuffs in the mode of goodness, are described in the sastras as wheat, rice, vegetables, fruits, milk, sugar, and milk products. Simple food like rice, dal, capatis, vegetables, milk and sugar constitute a balanced diet, but sometimes it is found that an initiated person, in the name of prasada, eats very luxurious foodstuffs. Due to his past sinful life he becomes attracted by Cupid and eats good food voraciously. It is clearly visible that when a neophyte in Krsna consciousness eats too much, he falls down. Instead of being elevated to pure Krsna consciousness, he becomes attracted by Cupid.”
As explained in the Bhagavad-Gita (17.8), one of the symptoms of food in the mode of goodness is that it is wholesome: pure, nutritious, and health-giving. The effects of such foods are that they “increase the duration of life, purify one’s existence and give strength, health, happiness and satisfaction”. Most food that people eat nowadays is refined, with most of the nutrients taken away, which is a characteristic of food in the mode of passion. As the Lord points out, it “causes distress, misery and disease.”
A few years ago, when I started having health problems, first I tried different doctors like almost everyone does. However, in my case, this didn’t help much. One thing I learned in this connection is that allopathic medicine is good in carrying specific diseases: if one has a bacterial infection, a doctor can easily cure it with antibiotics. If one has a broken bone the doctor can put it back in place and then immobilize it so it can heal and so on. However, when one simply has a general decline in his health, without showing specific symptoms, frequently doctors can do little about it. Unfortunately, allopathic medicine is good at interventions, but not so great about improving one’s health. Ayurveda works under the opposite principle, helping one to improve his health and thus preventing disease. It’s great when one can understand and properly follow it, the problem is that many ayurvedic doctors try to use it as a replacement to allopathic medicine, using ayurvedic medicines to try to cure specific diseases like in the allopathic medicine, without however paying much attention to the underlying causes. There are still a few good ayurvedic masters available in certain places, but unfortunately, the number of proper ayurvedic practitioners is declining. For the ones who live outside of India, the chances of meeting a qualified ayurvedic doctor are not very great.
One solution I found that is available for everyone regardless of the place of living is to change one’s diet, simply eating nutritious food at the right times. As the saying goes “Let food be thy medicine”.
The human body is a very amazing machine in the sense that it can repair itself from most damage. The problem is that to be able to repair, the body needs spare parts: different types of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that are used to build and repair different tissues, produce different types of hormones, and other important assets. Without the necessary nutrients, the repairing processes are hampered and the body starts to break down, just like a car that doesn’t receive proper maintenance. We then go to see a doctor and expect that he will be able to magically solve all the problems with a pill.
To have a proper diet is essential to keep our health. If one can keep a healthy diet, he can prevent different health problems, keep the immune system working properly and increase his longevity, without having to spend time and money on different treatments.
– This post is part of the book “How to have better health to better serve Krsna”. You can read the other topics of the book here.