Article - Respect food, don't waste it!

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PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA on Respect food, Don't Waste It! OVER EATING is a modern disease. People think that it is better to eat more vegetarian food. Let us be clear here. Over eating any food is bad. Be it vegetarian or meat. It creates a lot of problems for us. We have never learnt to eat only what we need. We should be firm on eating only what we require and how much we need. Overeating is an expression of greed. We overeat as a substitute to fulfill other unattainable wants. Often, we have no idea of what we eat. When we eat we talk, we read, we watch TV and we do many other things. We do everything except focus on the food we eat. We have little respect for the food we eat. Then we wonder why we accumulate fat. Vegetarian food is the best for people interested in spiritual practices. It digests easily and promotes good energy in our body. It helps in gentle energy flow connecting all the chakras or energy points in our body. The compassion of Buddha led to the wide acceptance of vegetarian food. A further refinement of vegetarian food is dining on what is called as sattvic food. People on sattvic vegetarian diet avoid jalapeno peppers, onion and garlic. These vegetables contain steroids. They are all right as medicines and ingested in small quantities once in a while. Regular intake of these vegetables interferes with the energy flow in the chakras. Overeating has the same effect as eating jalapeno peppers, onion, and garlic. When we overeat, we stuff food and make our body a trash bin. Added to it, we will waste a lot of our body’s resources in processing it. My devotees consider it a privilege to feed me. They pile my plate with many varieties of food. They expect me to eat it up! They advise me not to waste it! They expect me to clean up the plate! Be clear: wasting food outside is better. It is better to leave the food outside our body than getting the food inside our body and wasting us from within. When we decline the food on the plate or in the dish, food remains outside. We are only wasting excess food. It can be fed to others. But, if we stuff ourselves with food, we are serving ourselves a double harm. The excess food is wasted in the body. Our body has no use of it even as it sits in our body. We are exhausting our body’s resources in processing it. If we overeat, food becomes a waste. Food can become a poison. It is better to decline excess food than to consume it. Be aware of what and how much you eat! If you respect food, your body will respond by being respectful to you!