Many of us are seeking a healthful approach to diet and wellbeing. In the United States, yoga has only recently caught on as a practice, but yoga has been around for thousands of years globally.
The yogic diet embraces the philosophies and foundational aspects of yoga and applies them to the foods we consume. So if we want to feel healthy, energetic, and connected to our bodies, a yogic diet is a great place to start. Here’s what you need to know about this mostly plant-based approach to wellness.
Yoga and Wellness
What is yoga anyway? Many of us are familiar with the basic concept of yoga as an exercise practice. An estimated one in seven adults in the United States has practiced yoga in the last year. It’s become a very popular way to stay fit, improve flexibility, practice mindfulness, and connect with our bodies through deep breathing and physical poses.
As a fitness method, yoga can improve our flexibility, concentration, and endurance. Dedicated yoga practitioners can often hold complicated poses and practice yoga for long periods.
Yoga originated in India approximately 5000 years ago, according to the Rig Veda, which is an ancient collection of Indian texts. The yoga philosophy combines breathing with the body’s movement and the spiritual practice of mindfulness and meditation. Vedic priests practiced it, and historically people considered yoga to require strict discipline.
Because yoga focuses on connecting the mind, body, and spirit, it makes sense that a yogic diet would be part of the practice. People have more recently started to embrace mindful eating as an important way of keeping our bodies healthy and connected to the world around us. When we thoughtfully consume, we may think of where our foods originate, the history of our foods, and even the work that went into collecting and preparing the ingredients.
Mindful eating helps us slow down, enjoy better digestion, and make healthier food choices. At the core, we can sum up the yoga diet as “eat healthy foods, mostly plants.” But there’s more to the concept of following the yogic diet. It’s about awareness of the origins of our food, the nutritional components, and the impact that our food choices have on our bodies, minds, and spirits.
Eating Healthy, Whole, and Plant-Based
In the yogic diet, we focus on eating all-natural foods. These foods typically are minimally processed, with few preservatives, antibiotics, and genetic modifications (GMOs). If our food was manufactured in a factory or plant, it’s probably not “real” or “whole” food. It’s been processed, synthesized, broken down, and rebuilt. On the other hand, if our foods were grown by a farmer, raised by a rancher, or sourced locally, then we’re on a better path.
In the yogic diet, many practitioners prefer to be strictly vegetarian. However, a vegetarian diet isn’t realistic for many of us, and it’s essential to recognize that it’s not entirely unhealthy to include meat in your diet sparingly. Meat is an important source of vitamins, nutrients, and protein, especially for athletes.
It’s always best to consider your body’s needs and your personal beliefs when following any diet. If you choose to include meat, then the yogic diet approach would be to consume meat and eggs that are grass-fed, cage-free, certified organic, and humanely treated. The yogic diet encourages the practice of only eating from animals that have been treated well to reduce the industrialized food practices of our modern world that are both unhealthy and cruel.
Yoga focuses on connecting us with our bodies and developing a pure, inner nature. The yogic diet follows a similar philosophy of “you are what you eat.”
Yogic scriptures divide foods into three types:
- Sattvic foods: pure foods
- Rajasic foods: stimulating foods
- Tamasic: impure and rotten foods
The yogic diet focuses on consuming pure, sattvic foods as the main components of your meals.
Sattvic Foods: The Base of the Yogic Diet
Sattva means purity. The yogic diet includes “sattvic” foods that calm the mind and sharpen the intellect. These pure foods are wholesome, naturally delicious, and free of preservatives and artificial flavorings. They are mainly plant-based and high in vitamins and nutrients.
According to the Bhagavad Gita, 17-8: Persons in the mode of goodness (sattva) prefer foods that promote the life span, and increase virtue, strength, health, happiness, and satisfaction. Such foods are juicy, succulent, nourishing, and naturally tasteful.
Sattvic foods include fresh and dried fruits and berries, pure fruit juices, and raw or lightly cooked vegetables. Salads, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds are all part of the yogic diet as well. Whole-grain bread, pure honey, fresh herbs, and herbal teas are also important to this diet. In addition, the diet includes dairy products like milk and butter (ghee).
A sattvic diet is usually easy for people to digest and supplies maximum energy. As a result, practitioners report an increase in vitality, strength, and endurance. A yogic diet helps you have more energy and can help eliminate fatigue, even during strenuous or challenging activities. For yoga practitioners, food is linked to mental purity, and their preferences may change as they develop and grow spiritually.
You may wonder if you will lose weight on the yogic diet. The answer is complicated. You may lose weight, but weight loss isn’t the focus of this healthful and mindful approach to eating. Instead, it’s about detoxifying the body and increasing our wellness.
If you’re starting on any new diet, including the yogic diet, it’s always best to include a vitamin and mineral supplement to ensure you’re getting the proper nutrients (especially if it’s a drastic change to your previous eating habits). I recommend Vitality Multivitamin and Mineral supplements from Melaleuca. Their products are very pure, natural, and safe and align with the yogic diet approach to nutrition.
The yogic diet also brings about sattvic behavior. When we’re focused on our health, we often experience clarity and calmness. The yogic diet is soothing and nourishing to the body, promoting cheerfulness, serenity, and mental clarity. Many people report feeling less anxious and more emotionally even throughout the day.
Foods to Avoid on the Yogic Diet
The yogic diet tells us to avoid rajasic and tamasic foods. Of course, you can enjoy most foods in moderation, but if you’re starting the yogic diet, it may be best to avoid rajasic and tamasic foods, at least for the first weeks, as your body adjusts to the new, healthful approach.
What are rajasic foods? Rajasic means overstimulating. Rajasic foods include onions, garlic, coffee, tea, and tobacco. Heavily spiced and salted foods are also considered rajasic, including fast foods, processed snacks, and other “junk foods.” Refined sugars, soft drinks, and chocolate are also regarded as rajasic.
According to the Bhagavad Gita 17-9: Foods that are too bitter, too sour, salty, very hot, pungent, dry, and chiliful, are dear to persons in the mode of passion (rajasic). Such foods produce pain, grief, and disease. It is thought that rajasic foods arouse “animal passions” and bring about a restless state of mind that makes us feel overactive. These foods are said to destroy our mind/body balance and interfere with happiness. They may increase our mental stress and encourage circulatory and nervous disorders.
Anyone who’s had too much sugary soda, or experienced jitters and anxiety from coffee, may be familiar with the hazards of rajasic foods. Of course, we can enjoy these foods in our diet, but when you start the yogic diet, you may want to detox, cutting them out for several weeks to start.
Tamasic foods are also avoided in the yogic diet. Tamasic foods make us feel heavy, tired, and lethargic. These substances include meat, fish, eggs, drugs, alcohol, overcooked, and over-processed foods. Tamasic foods include fermented, burned, fried, barbecued, and reheated foods, stale items, and those that contain preservatives. Mushrooms are also considered tamasic because they grow in darkness.
Foods that are overcooked, stale, putrid, polluted, and impure are dear to persons in the mode of ignorance (tamasic): Bhagavad Gita, 17-10. Tamasic foods are said to neither benefit the body nor the mind. They make us feel dull, lazy, and lacking in motivation. Overeating is considered a tamasic practice. Tamasic eaters suffer from chronic ailments and depression.
While some of these philosophies may sound unusual to our western minds, studies have shown the dangers of overprocessed foods, overcooked meats (which can contain carcinogens), and too much alcohol. So in many ways, this wise and healthful way of eating aligns with science and common sense.
The Yogic Diet Philosophy
The yogic diet, focusing on plant-based foods and moderation, promotes serenity, balance, and health. If you’re already practicing yoga, then a yogic diet likely aligns with your overall approach to health and wellbeing.
There are several guidelines for the yogic diet:
- Eat on a regular schedule. If you don’t feel hungry at mealtime, fast until the next meal.
- Eat slowly and mindfully. Savor your food, chewing it thoroughly. Digestion begins in the mouth.
- Eat only four or five different foods per meal. Complex mixtures are harder to digest. Don’t snack between meals.
- Don’t overeat or overload your system. Instead, fill half the stomach with food, a quarter with liquid, leaving the rest empty.
- Maintain a peaceful attitude during mealtime–even try to eat in silence, when possible.
- Change your diet gradually over time.
- Before you eat, remember the Creator, who dwells in all food and who bestows all bounties (in other words, practice gratitude).
- Try to fast one day per week.
- Eat at least one raw salad daily.
- Eat to live, don’t live to eat.
As you review these rules, you might see that many of them align with the way you eat already. With a few adjustments, you can easily shift to a yogic diet and see immediate benefits.
So why eat a primarily plant-based diet? Yogis see the body as a vehicle for the soul and treat it with the utmost respect and care. Yoga includes respect for life, unity, and the diversity of life within the world. Therefore, simple, vegetarian food is often the focus of the yogic diet.
Does science support this viewpoint on a plant-based diet? The human body functions well on a diet mainly focused on vegetables and fruits. Individuals who are vegetarian or mostly vegetarian often have lower cholesterol levels, fewer heart problems, and a lower rate of many diet-related diseases. These individuals may have a lower incidence of some types of cancer as well. Vegetarians also may experience lower rates of obesity, diet-related diabetes, high blood pressure, food poisoning, and other ailments.
Plant-based foods are often lower in fat and cholesterol, especially when compared to animal products. They contain high levels of vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Organic fruits and vegetables are lower in pollutants, especially compared to foods higher up the food chain. In industrialized agriculture, chemical pesticides and antibiotics are heavily used.
There are also ethical reasons for a plant-based yogic diet. When practicing yoga, an important principle is “ahimsa,” or nonviolence. Nonviolence toward fellow beings and noninjury toward the environment are tenants of yogic philosophy. It takes only a cursory look at modern industrial practices to see the impact and destruction they can have on our planet.
Similarly, meat production is an expensive process both financially and from an energy standpoint. Converting grains and legumes into meat by feeding them to animals results in energy loss. The price of meat reflects this difference, especially compared to the cost of basic, whole, plant-based foods.
There’s also the concern of world hunger. About 9 million people die each year from hunger and related disease. At the same time, people spend enormous sums of money every year on dietary products and medicine to combat the effects of an unhealthy diet based on animal products.
Because yogic practices entail looking at our role in the universe, it’s important to consider the impact of our diet on the world around us and our bodies. Following a yogic diet doesn’t need to mean drastic change, either. You can slowly implement more yoga-friendly practices, plant-based ingredients, and healthy whole foods into your meals.
You may discover that you feel better, have more energy, and enjoy greater physical, spiritual, and mental health when you make dietary changes. Ready to begin? Here are the basics of the yoga diet plan. In the meantime, I’d love to hear what you think of switching to the yoga diet. Let me know in the comments below!
