Food- Fundas

I was born in a vegetarian family; in fact our entire neighborhood was vegetarian.  Until I joined college, I didn't personally know anyone who ate 'animals'.

In college, I made a friend whose family cooked and ate chicken. These chickens were raised on their own farm. On Sundays, the male members of the family cooked some birds (usually male, who couldn’t produce eggs) on an open pit (chulha), in the backyard, using utensils kept exclusively for this purpose. My friend always awaited Sundays with great anticipation. In fact, she would sing such praises for the ‘heavenly’ taste that I became intrigued enough to join her for lunch one Sunday. However, neither the look of the dish, nor its aroma did anything to make me appreciate its taste. I dipped a tiny piece of chapati in the gravy and could barely swallow it. The entire family laughed at my ‘brahmin’ background and I thanked God for sparing me from puking out!

That day, I thought that I was done with eating any meat for life. But when I fell in love with a Bengali boy, my love encompassed the entire package of family, language, and cuisine; and what is a Bengali cuisine without Maach (fish) and Mangsho (meat)?

I relished eating, cooking and serving all kinds of meats (and when I say all kinds, I mean ALL kinds) until I got into spirituality and began questioning killing someone’s life to sustain my life. I also began wondering about the ‘food farms’ where animals were kept and killed in most pathetic and filthy conditions. I learnt about the hormones that were injected/ fed to fatten them.

While I decided not to eat any meat, I couldn’t stop cooking it. After all the rest of my family couldn’t think of a meal without ‘protein’, as they call it. And much to my discomfort, I found that at times I too craved for it. Sometimes I resisted this craving but sometimes I gave in to it. I justified my actions by saying, ‘I mustn’t deny my body.’ But the problem was that I couldn’t distinguish between the language of my body from that of my mind.

This see-saw continued until one fine day when our 19 year old son read ‘The Auto-biography of a Yogi’, and gave up cigarettes, alcohol and meats- on one fine evening- just like that!

His will-power and resolve made me strengthen my resolve. But I still had to cook for my husband. Since I completely believed in not imposing my own path on any other member of my family, I did my duty calmly, with detachment. My pain/ unrest came from the fact that I was still confused about ‘Right Nutrition’.

That’s when I attended a residential program on ‘Re-nutrition’ conducted by the fire-brand food crusader Dr. Vijaya Venkat from Mumbai. She convinced us that while animal food in any form, including dairy products, was definitely a no-no, there were other culprits like white sugar, white flour, regular salt, and water. I agreed with all other items whole-heartedly, but water??? That was a bit too much to agree to, even though Mrs. Venkat was armed with a whole lot of convincing research to back her claim!

Thus started my experiments with gluten-free, dairy-free diets! My kitchen was a crazy place as I cooked different things for each resident.

I braved on despite being the odd one out in all social-dos- including family get-togethers. But I was still not clear about ‘right nutrition’.

As the years passed and I became more aware of ‘Consciousness’, all my reasons for not eating animal food fell by the way side. Plants too have life. Vegetarian food too is laced with chemicals. The energy of greed is very much present in the way grains/ vegetables/ fruits/ nuts are grown. Not a single food item/ condiment in my kitchen was free from all that I was shunning by not eating meats/ dairy etc.

Luckily, I lived in houses with kitchen gardens and fruit orchards; so ‘home-grown’ fresh food became my latest savior. But I couldn't grow everything, could I?

Recently, in 2013, as though by magic, a great deal of clarity has dawned on me, about many subjects, including food/ nutrition; and it has truly shattered many of my older beliefs.

My new beliefs are based upon the simple premise/ truth that LIFE CAN ONLY BE SUSTAINED BY LIFE. Hence, we need to ‘kill/ destroy’ some life in order to live. There are no two ways about it. BUT, and that is a big but; we can choose the ‘least-violent’ ways to do it.

While we can't ask an 'Eskimo' to not eat sea-life (poor chap has no other choice),  we can choose (without putting ourselves in a labeled-box) to eat the least-damaging 'live' foods.

As of now sprouts, fruits, nuts and seeds top my list of favorite foods!! What about you???

However, my personal experience teaches me that we can't suddenly change our dietary habits. It is a gradual process. As the body takes its own time to re-adjust itself. After all, we can't change a 'coal-fed production unit' into a 'nuclear-fuel-fed plant' over-night! Can we??