Foods rich in Ojas

[kralaro]

That's amazing Miss Hepburn. Yeah i feel that raw fresh foods like fruits, salads have more prana (life force) in them.

[Gem]

We tend to find that people who take radical approaches to food such as all raw etc. suffer adverse health affects after a while, but we only really hear about miracle-like stories, while the disasters don't see the light of day. However, statistically, disasters significantly outnumber positive outcomes.

When people take radical approaches to food, be that raw vegan or full carnivore, claims about wonderful health benefits and inexplicable cures abound, and where the contradiction between veganism and carnivorism is complete, the claims about health outcomes are about the same. The negative outcomes are far less reported, but there's a ton of them on You Tube.

One of the very advanced kandalini-bliss spiritualists I know only eats animal products, no plants, so even the 'spiritual story' about food doesn't actually hold water. I doubt meat is thought of as a oja food.

One of my nieces started having a lot of illnesses, was in hospital, and her nutritionist excluded all veges from her diet thinking she's reacting to her food, and presto, all good. Before her illnesses started she was full vegan (very oja apparently), which somehow led to her having numerous allergies and general ill-health. Now she's all better, she's adding veges back into her otherwise animal based diet one at a time, but there are a lot of plant foods she can't take anymore.

Don't be bamboozled. A healthy relationship with food is important, and more you get ideas about spiritualism and notions of 'toxins' etc, the more disfunctional that relationship becomes, and if you look at anyone with any kind of disordered eating, they'll tell you quite the story about food.

If you listen to people who are healthy, fit and strong, they'll just say they don't eat too much over processed rubbish, consume mostly whole nutritious food and don't under or over-over eat. I'm pushing 60 and have been through it all, from regular 3 veg and meat, to vege, to vegan, and back to the standard fare, and my health isn't perfect, but I'm practically a human bulldozer. I don't eat a lot of processed food. I eat meat, veges and rice, and fruit in my oat smoothie, I love coffee, and I love crisps, so it's not a health freak diet, but it's a good diet and I'm strong as an ox. Thus I don't have any negativity toward food at all, and I only think about the fuel I need to do all the things, but I imagine it as calories, which is the energy that food contains and the energy that the body spends. Call it 'prana', but the energy in an apple is actually sugar burning and snapping APT molecules causing billions of tiny explosions all through the body every second. Imagining that as 'prana' is very positive.

It's not really about the food you eat, but how you think about and relate to food. If you imagine food has a special light energy to it, that's a good way of imagining how you relate to it, but if you also imagine ugly muck with regards to some other food, that's a negative relationship.

I know this is unexciting and nothing special and it also flies in the face of the mystical narrative, but health and fitness comes from consuming the appropriate calories and good nutrients from a balanced diet of fresh wholesome food. Some individuals don't like vegan ways of eating, some like mostly veges, others like meat, so we can't rightly say this or that way to eat is the grand poohbah, but different individuals can have positive relationships with food in the different ways that they approach their nutrition.

[ajay00]

Originally Posted by Gem

Before her illnesses started she was full vegan (very oja apparently), which somehow led to her having numerous allergies and general ill-health.

Your understanding of Ojas is inadequate. Dairy products like milk, ghee (clarified butter), yoghurt , butter milk are considered to increase Ojas and are recommended. Ayurveda has a vegetarian context, not vegan.

On the other hand alcohol, frozen, stale or processed foods with preservatives are found to lower Ojas.

Ojas is defined as vigour in Ayurveda and there are certain foods that help increase Ojas while certain foods reduce it.

Ayurveda has a 5000 year old timeline, and just like Indian mathematics, Ayurvedic medicines and surgical procedures and tools had been adopted by the Arabs and Europeans later on which does indicate its efficacy.

https://journals.lww.com/prsgo/fullt...story.4. aspx

Ojas has been explained in the below article

https://www.keralaayurveda.biz/blog/ojas-in-ayurveda

Prana, Ojas and Tejas are also perceptual. I have noticed a decrease in prana and increased irritability after taking processed foods and other junk food.

Eating raw fruits I have also seen tangible increase in depth of meditation later on.

So these are good lifestyle choices anyone can make after researching it.

[sky]

@ajay00.
Thanks for your informative Post, very interesting for one who knows zero about Ojas.

[kralaro]

Yeah Ajay it's like if someone asks that what are some calcium rich foods but someone else who has no understanding of the topic at hand replies that it's not healthy for everyone to be on a milk only diet.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by ajay00

Your understanding of Ojas is inadequate.

I'd never heard of it before this thread.

I think a vegetarian diet is sensible as a way to approach nutrition, but the key is more like a range of fresh whole food with minimal processing. Nutritionally speaking, snap frozen veg can be more nutritious than fresh food after a few days off the vine, and I personally go for frozen veg because quick and easy is my thing.

I have several nieces, and although one deteriorated on a vegan lifestyle, another of my nieces became very ill in her late teens with chronic fatigue. After normal nutrition and I guess some medicine failed to improve her, she went to an Ayurveda practitioner who started her on that diet, but It was vegan and all, like, oat milk etc. It fixed her up, and she's still vegan now, but it's probable she could do much better as a vegetarian.

Anyway, because one niece was healed by going full meat and the other was healed going no meat, I too have inexplicable healing stories that typify the lauding of diets, when in fact, two very opposite diets suited two quite different situations. I wouldn't describe either girl as vigourous, though, mainly because they aren't particularly active.

Another niece never got sick or bothered with this or that diet, and just ate food and enjoyed outdoor activity, surfing, hikes, biking etc. That one is a strong, fit girl that could only be described as vigourous. I'm similar, just eat proper food (and coffee) and stay physically active - and I'm no slouch if I do say so myself.

I agree that what you say represents good life style choices, and my opinion is, imagining food has oja is nice way to relate to food.

Back in the day, the 70's when I was a wee lad, we were brought up on meat and 3 veg. No one knew anything about nutrition, but we still know what was good for growing humans on from the generations of ancestral knowledge. It's just in my culture food is a certain fare, and other cultures knew the same things, but have totally different edible things and ways of making food. Hence the culture where Ayurveda comes from will say the same things as my grandmother did about what's the best way to eat, more of less.

Later in life I studied nutrition scientifically as part of my fitness qualifications and found out that grandma was right. It's just that from a nutritional standpoint I can apply the same principles to all sorts of dietary preferences, and I bet I'd nail Ayurveda when it comes to vegetarians without knowing the first thing about it - though I'd have no access to such cultural conceptions. That's my way of saying Ayurveda is good.

OK... I'll read the articles now, cheers.

[ajay00]

Originally Posted by Gem

I have several nieces, and although one deteriorated on a vegan lifestyle, another of my nieces became very ill in her late teens with chronic fatigue.

A vegan lifestyle, if not properly researched, is bound to result in vitamin b12 and iron deficiencies leading to chronic fatigue.

Rice is a poor source of iron and vitamin b12, but both are exponentially increased in fermented rice along with other minerals as well.

Fermented rice is used to make popular Indian dishes such as Pazhankanji, idli and dosas which are consumed on a daily basis and known for its high nutrition and taste. Same goes for fermented dough where the nutritional content increases substantially.

I think these are cheap and easy to make options vegans can explore.

A good chef with good knowledge of cuisines and dietetics can make delicious food necessary for his or her bodily needs accounting for all nutritional components with easily available and cheap local food.

[Gem]

The second article was designed to get you interested and believe you were learning something, but it all led to selling supplements, and I can tell you for free, that is an advert. It doesn't matter because if you are led down a garden path like this, there's no way out, and it has to run its course.

This is not me saying Ayurveda is scammy or in any way bad. I'm saying it's good. It's just that the nutritional industry in general lacks integrity, is riddled with scammery, and has become quite the joke

The second article was much better, though not about nutrition, and I didn't read it all.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by ajay00

A vegan lifestyle, if not properly researched, is bound to result in vitamin b12 and iron deficiencies leading to chronic fatigue.

Rice is a poor source of iron and vitamin b12, but both are exponentially increased in fermented rice along with other minerals as well.

Fermented rice fermented dough where the nutritional content increases substantially.

I think these are cheap and easy to make options vegans can explore.

A good chef with good knowledge of cuisines and dietetics can make delicious food necessary for his or her bodily needs accounting for all nutritional components with easily available and cheap local food.

My niece wasn't a vegan when she got sick, but going vegan under an Ayurveda practitioner (qualified dietitian) made her better, but I suspect veganism will create other problems long term, and vegetarianism is way better.

My way of looking at it is a five step priority.

1) Are you taking appropriate calories?
2) Does your calorie distribution include adequate protein and essential fat?
3) Are you getting a full range of vitamins and minerals from food?
4) How are your meals timed throughout the day?
5) Are there shortfalls that can be supplemented (E.g. B12, D3 etc)?

This order of priorities can be generalised to diverse personal preferences and suits near enough all human beings. Hence, if I were advising a vegetarian, I bet it would look very Ayurveda, but after the advert parading as an article, I feel I should say, if the first 4 priorities are well in hand, there will be very little need for supplementation.

I think fermentation is a good idea. I eat day old rice every second day (1 pot for two days), and never imagined it was 'fermented'.

[ajay00]

Originally Posted by Gem

The second article was designed to get you interested and believe you were learning something, but it all led to selling supplements, and I can tell you for free, that is an advert.

These popular herbal supplements like Chyavanprash and Aswagandhadi Lehyam have a very long history in India and that is why they are mentioned in the article. They are just being portrayed as being rich in nutrition and ojas and it is usually the Indians who buy them.

In an another forum, I found a Britisher saying that amongst herbal tonics, he got the best results with Ashwagandha which has proven health benefits.

It's just that the nutritional industry in general lacks integrity, is riddled with scammery, and has become quite the joke.

The industry suffers from lack of quality control so it is safe to stick with branded or reputable ones which can be easily researched.