I've been thinking for a while about ayurvedas and the likes, the food they prone, etc. Then always the same question keeps coming back to my mind. Why do not they say that raw food is better for one's health? It seems so evident to me....

Vedas (ayurvedas) encourage all kind of cooked (although vegetarian) food, sugar, salt, oil, dairy, etc...

my questionning comes from the fact that Vedas are said to be the Sound of nature ( from sanskrit, chanted by pundits), directly to man. Like an invisible vibration coming to us through the holy chanting.

Anyone here knowleageble on that topic?

blessings

Cynthia

As you go backwards into history you'll find that the human body could have handled cooked foods much better than it does now. They didn't have the health problems from cooked foods the way we have presently(and that's because of a number of factors). So they wrote what they knew.
All the religious books were written by people anyway, not God. That's why there are so many conflicting ideas.(Kinda like today's diet gurus). They didn't have any special knowledge about nutrition.
That's my opinion anyway.

The Rig-Veda speaks of Soma, a ritual drink pounded from a plant:

HYMN II. Vâyu.
1 BEAUTIFUL Vâyu, come, for thee these Soma drops have been prepared:
Drink of them, hearken to our call.
2 Knowing the days, with Soma juice poured forth, the singers glorify
Thee, Vâyu, with their hymns of praise.
3 Vâyu, thy penetrating stream goes forth unto the worshipper,
Far-spreading for the Soma draught.
4 These, Indra-Vâyu, have been shed; come for our offered dainties’ sake:
The drops are yearning for you both.
5 Well do ye mark libations, ye Vâyu and Indra, rich in spoil!
So come ye swiftly hitherward.
6 Vâyu and Indra, come to what the Soma-presser hath prepared:
Soon, Heroes, thus I make my prayer.
7 Mitra, of holy strength, I call, and foe-destroying Varuṇa,
Who make the oil-fed rite complete.
8 Mitra and Varuṇa, through Law, lovers and cherishers of Law,
Have ye obtained your might power
9 Our Sages, Mitra-Varuṇa, wide dominion, strong by birth,
Vouchsafe us strength that worketh well.

[www.sacred-texts.com]

..Soma was prepared by pounding the plant with stones or made by the millions of doses in grinding mills, seems to me a raw green drink spoken of very early in the Vedas, and believed to be drink of the Gods, or to give one the strength of Gods.

The Rigveda (8.48.3, tr. Griffith) states,

We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered.
Now what may foeman's malice do to harm us? What, O Immortal, mortal man's deception?

[en.wikipedia.org]

I think they based that on a bias for cooked food because they are very good cooks and really enjoy seasonings.
I think health considerations took a back seat.

EZ has it right but to expand on that further....

If you take yourself a globe ..or a flat map of the world and you start at the equator where the world typically tends to be warmer in climate. if you spin around the globe and note in your mind the countries and cultures along that line you will see a trend .. most of these places tend to have spicy foods normally. the further north and south you spin the less spicier you get . (the northest northern countries diet is typically blander then the diet in india for example)

some things to note the reason for this.
A)spices and condiments were (and still are in some places) used to overpower the taste of slightly off foods
spices and condiments were (and still are in some places) used to preserve food because of lack of refrigeration

alot of the cultures had the hurdle of once obtaining food , how to preserve it, how to make it taste better once used

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2009 05:34PM by Jgunn.

Jgunn,

I will add:

C) spices and condiments added to heated food become more volatile, inducing sweating, which cools the surface of the skin--in a hot climate, a must!

If we acknowledge the vedas as the vibrations of nature itself, then we should find the ultimate truth in it.
Of course any written book has its author's color and preferences, and depending of times, it can say everything... BUT the vedas are not supposed to be man written (ok, now they have been put down on paper , and translated, I meant at the start. Maybe the flaw creeped in from ordinary man who better loved cooked? ).

At a given point in the past, man has started to cook his food thus becoming more and more stranger to Nature and to his own Self. Then came spices and condiments,so that cooked food keeps up longer.

I just can't imagine nature itself recommanding to cook our food. Seems odd to me.
The missing link so would be WHEN that event took place?

> If we acknowledge the vedas as the vibrations of
> nature itself, then we should find the ultimate
> truth in it.
> Of course any written book has its author's color
> and preferences, and depending of times, it can
> say everything... BUT the vedas are not supposed
> to be man written (ok, now they have been put down
> on paper , and translated, I meant at the start.
> Maybe the flaw creeped in from ordinary man who
> better loved cooked? ).
>
> At a given point in the past, man has started to
> cook his food thus becoming more and more stranger
> to Nature and to his own Self. Then came spices
> and condiments,so that cooked food keeps up
> longer.
>
> I just can't imagine nature itself recommanding to
> cook our food. Seems odd to me.
> The missing link so would be WHEN that event took
> place?

Re the natural, India is tropical but also a vast country with complex geography and climate. Somewhat comparable to Genesis of the Bible where plants and fruit are suggested as food but later meat is allowed, the Rig-veda suggests ritual Soma (plant juice and milk) be eaten with clipt grass..

3 Nâsatyas, wonder-workers, yours are these libations with clipt grass:
Come ye whose paths are red with flame.
4 O Indra marvellously bright, come, these libations long for thee,
Thus by fine fingers purified. (Hymn 3)

..the problem I see is the tradition was forgotten. Nobody knows the original ingredients and it would be laborious and expensive to live on fresh plant juice and milk, not to mention unsustainable for a large population. To survive year-round in diverse landscapes people needed to be able to eat sub-optimal food like seeds, roots, preserves and not-so-fresh vegetarian foods. In my opinion this was the case especially 500-1,500 BCE when the Vedas were written. Ideal foods were written of, as well as those to endure hardships and thrive.

When cooking was needed was when people moved out of the 'garden' to sub-optimal locales, seems to me. 'Heat' added to foods was seen as an essential element (pounding the plant with a stone produced "heat". I don't know if that meant enzyme killing temperatures, just that life on earth was thought to need heat from the sun or food to sustain.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2009 12:32PM by loeve.

Soma, as written and explained in the Vedas, seems a plant or something like that but this a litterary expression. Soma, say some wise persons and holy men, is the by-product of our own digestion, when of course our body is completely purified and holy temple of god. Then the fine perceptions come to us. That's all I know. My questionning is how could we expect to have or develop that fine level of funcionning (body wise) if the vedas do not make the distinction between raw and cooked.

then the last inquiry but not the less : is raw important for spiritual growth?

I don't know, maybe something is lost in the translation like you said earlier, Cynthia.

Ann Wigmore drew inspiration from the story of a mad king of about 500 BCE:

Nebuchadnezzar was cast out from among men, he ate grass like an ox, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle, and his nails like the claws of a bird. (Daniel 4:30)

..eating grass "like an ox", while not quite the same concept as 'Raw vs. cooked' (eating grass in this way would also have been humbling for him), the account was a blessing for Wigmore.

I believe it's possible to take the most obscure of ancient textual passages, as Ann did, and run with it.

As for Raw's importance for spiritual growth, I would say yes, and BTW the story of King Nebuchadnezzar was one of spiritual growth as well as bodily strengthening.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2009 09:04PM by loeve.

Cynthia,

My sense is that the Vedas are a work of their time--people were eating cooked food for a few thousand years by the time the earliest Vedas were written, about three thousand years ago, if I am not mistaken, so that would have been the prescription for sustenance laid out in the books. All religious texts are filtered through the "known" of the authors. I, too, am disappointed that the Raw isn't in evidence in more ancient sacred texts. Perhaps some of us should codify the Raw Way ritually for future millenia?

I agree with Tam. Even the most 'enlightened' books are something of a product of the age they were written in....and the people they were meant to address.....although truths can shine through the window of many texts....into the time we live.....it is through our own windows of capabilities that we must research and shine. So: just because eating healthy.....the way many can do now....might not be specifically mentioned in the Vedas...or the Bible....or the Koran....or another text....does not mean that you should not take advantage of that tool....or that the religions/religious texts are wrong...heh..heh.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

I think many food treatments can be used fresh raw and be even more effective. A good example of this is the antiviral properties of Olive leaf.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2009 01:35PM by EZ rider.

> Soma, as written and explained in the Vedas, seems
> a plant or something like that but this a
> litterary expression...

Soma refers to a plant which is pressed for its juice, and also can refer to the God, Soma. I believe the Rig-veda is eloquent in it's description of soma as a literal drink prepared within a liturgical context. Many hymns write of it's properties though the botanical identity of the plant is mysterious. Again, "clept grass" and milk were also mentioned in the Rig-veda along with soma, all sounding like Raw food.

The Vedas are a vast literature and so there are many opportunities to use soma in an allegorical sense, but this does not detract from the literal description of soma in the opening hymns of the Rig-veda, for me at least.

I suppose an every-day healthy food would have been called something other than 'soma' out of respect for the religious usage.