Yoga Teacher Training Forum

Namaste,

The last days I've been thinking about my diet.

Until now, my diet has been based on the five elements theory - which says, a balanced meal contains each element (focusing on the element "earth"), and food is also divided into energetic "hot, warm, neutral, cool and cold", and they advise you to eat mostly the neutral ones, combined with warm and cool, but avoiding hot and cold, as this will cause an imbalance in your body.

There is also the theory that there is prenatal and postnatal Qi. Which means that we are born with a certain amount of Qi that can't be increased and there is also a Qi that we add to our body through the food that we eat. If we provide the body with enough postnatal Qi, the prenatal Qi is consumed much slower. So, it takes more energy of the body (more prenatal Qi) to digest raw food - compared to cooked food, where you add postnatal Qi to your body. The energy your body gains is more than the energy that is needed for digestion.

There's of course much more to say about the five elements theory, books are filled with it, but that's the basic concept.

In this theory you are not advised to overcook things, but you should eat a lot of grain (millet, rice, polenta,...) and - as a vegetarian - legumes, and the vegetables and fruits should be lightly cooked. The raw things you should eat is leaf salad, fresh herbs, sprouted seeds and things like that.

There are similarities between the sattvic diet and the five elements theory, both include the body and the mind, but there are also quite a few differences.

All this confuses me now... While the sattvic diet says you should eat all fruits and vegetables mostly raw, five elements tells you to cook it lightly.

What was also new to me is that eggs are rajasic. What is wrong with eggs? As I am living as a vegetarian now for many years, I always heard how healthy and important eggs are.

Whereas with dairy products, I was never feeling so comfortable (except butter) because my body is producing a lot of mucus then...

But what surprised me is that according to a sattvic diet, you should not include onions, garlic or vinegar. Aren't there also healthy substances in onions and garlic, e.g. garlic as a natural antibiotic...

And it says, that tamasic food is "fermented foods" - so is miso also tamasic?!

This got quite long now...

Maybe you can tell me about your experiences with different kinds of diets and yogic food (and if you sometimes feel like a cup of coffee or a glass of wine or pasta with tomato sauce and garlic )

All the best,

Carina