Food Habits

Generally, animals enjoy good health because they consume nutritious food in the uncooked form. We, too, can enjoy perfect physical and mental health provided we include raw food in our diet. Appetite control precedes and enables mental and emotional control.

Naturopaths have found through research that raw food is the panacea for many human ailments. Raw food diet ensures retention of all nutrients and vitamins, which promote good health.

In the AGY program, food is classified into four categories:

• Positive Pranic or energy giving food.
• Negative Pranic or energy draining food.
• Zero Pranic food.
• Food that should be avoided for a short period by those who suffer from respiratory problems such as sinusitis, wheezing, and asthma.

Raw food helps in producing less acidity and more alkalinity in the blood and helps to calm the mind, thus lessening the impact of stress. Cooking or preserving destroys the natural energy present in the food in the fresh raw state. A raw food diet utilises the subtle energies of living plants and plant enzymes to ensure good health.

Doctors are waking up to the benefits of a high fibre diet in preventing a range of disorders from heart disease to bowel cancer.

The theme of a raw food diet comprising 75 percent raw food can not only reverse the bodily degeneration which accompanies long-term illness but can also retard the rate at which you age, bring you apparently boundless energy and even make you feel better emotionally.

Scientists have found that a variety of chemicals, between 50,000 and 100,000, go into making and running the human body. They interact with each other in ways so complex that even the world's most advanced computer can be of little help to doctors in deciphering the various interactions.

Raw food provide nutrients that favorably influence the immune system. Zinc, Vitamins E, C and A, and many from the B-Complex Group present in the raw food strengthen the immune system and prevent premature aging.

As cooked food damages proteins, we are obliged to eat more of it to get the amino acids we need. High protein consumption causes early aging and the development of certain degenerative diseases. Thus, its maintenance mechanism impaired, the body loses its resistance to stress, fatigue and illness.

Naturopaths have found that uncooked food can successfully cure resistant illnesses such as heart diseases, hypertension, kidney and blood diseases, alcoholism and arthritis because they raise micro-electric potentials throughout the body. Increased electrical potential in the tissues is a direct measure of the "liveliness" or how alive the cell really is. Thus metabolic functions heighten - congestion and swelling in tissues decrease, cell respiration and oxygenation increase, the body's overall resistance to illness improves and the healing process gets accelerated.

Plant Hormones and Enzymes

Plant hormones have beneficial effects on the human immune system, particularly the gibberelins and abscisic acid.

Enzymes are powerhouses for good health. Cooking destroys the plant enzymes. Enzymes are essential triggers for the metabolic machinery of every living creature. There are numerous enzymes in the human body—some 50,000 in the liver alone - breaking down the food and assimilating it, building new tissue and repairing damaged ones and helping in the manufacture of more enzymes which help vital body processes to continue. The enzymes in raw food are important as they help to support the body's own enzyme systems.

Raw food not only helps in acquiring good physical health but also good mental health. It is said that the 'Mind makes you a Buddha or a Beast'. Therefore, a raw food diet ensures an effective preparation for Meditation.

Some common and useful raw food recipes are given below.

Raw Food Preparations

1. Sweet Flat Rice
2. Flat Rice - Savoury
3. Carrots and Sprouts
4. Beet Root - Sweet
5. Cabbage and Knol Khol
6. Ash Gourd with Curd
7. Natural Flavour Coffee Powder

1. Sweet Flat Rice

Ingredients:

Thick Avval (Flat Rice)	1 kg
Jaggery	½ kg, powdered
Coconut	One, grated
Cashewnut	100 gms
Kismis (Dry Grapes)	50 gms
Seedless Dates	100 gms
Cardamom	a little

Soak the flat rice for half an hour in water and then drain the water. Mix the grated coconut and powdered jaggery with soaked flat rice thoroughly. Add the other ingredients and mix well.

2. Flat Rice - Savoury

Ingredients:

Thick Flat Rice	1 kg
Capsicum	100 gms
Pepper and Salt	To Taste
Coriander Leaves	One cup, chopped
Fried Groundnuts	200 gms
Lemon	10 nos.

Soak the flat rice for half an hour in water and then drain the water. Mix with grated coconut. Mix the other ingredients thoroughly with flat rice. Add the juice of 10 lemons and mix well.

3. Carrots and Sprouts

Ingredients:

Carrot	1 kg
Sprouted Green Gram	¼ kg
Coconut	½ kg
Jaggery	½ kg
Lemon	5 nos.
Capsicum	50 gms, small dices
Coriander Leaves	One cup, chopped
Salt and Pepper	To taste

Mix the grated carrots and sprouts. Mix separately the grated coconut and powdered jaggery. Then mix the carrots and sprouts with the coconut and jaggery thoroughly. Add finely chopped coriander leaves and diced capsicum and mix.

4. Beet Root - Sweet

Ingredients:

Beet Root	1 kg, grated
Coconut	½ kg, grated
Jaggery	¼ kg, powdered
Ginger	50 gms
Soaked Groundnuts	200 gms
Lemon	5 nos.

Mix the grated coconut and the powdered jaggery with grated beet root. Add the soaked groundnuts and juice of five lemons and mix well.

5. Cabbage and Knol Khol

Ingredients:

Cabbage	½ kg, chopped finely
Knol Khol	½ kg, grated
Coconut	¼ cup, grated
Ginger	50 gms
Coriander Leaves	1 cup, finely chopped
Lemon	10 nos.
Capsicum	50 gms, chopped
Salt and Pepper	To taste

Mix grated Knol Khol and Cabbage cut to fine pieces thoroughly. Add grated coconut, finely cut coriander leaves and chopped capsicum, juice of 10 lemons, salt and pepper.

6. Ash Gourd with Curd

Ingredients:

Ash gourd (White Pumpkin)	a big o ne
Curd	Four litres
Flat rice thick	¼ kg
Coriander leaves	One cup, finely chopped
Capsicum	100 gms, chopped
Pepper and salt	To taste

You may also add a small quantity of seedless grapes and pomegranate, and mango ginger during season.

Grate the ash gourd, squeeze out the water and keep the pulp. Add curd and mix. Soak flat rice for half an hour and mix with this. Add chopped capsicum and coriander leaves and mix thoroughly. Add pepper and salt to taste.

7.Natural Flavour Coffee Powder

Ingredients:

Sugar	1 kg
Coriander Seeds	1 kg
Cummin Seeds	¼ kg
Pepper	¼ kg
Dry Ginger	100 gms
Turmeric	50 gms

Dry all the ingredients except the sugar in the sun for some time. Grind the sugar separately. Grind the other ingredients thoroughly. Sift the seed powders. Mix all these except the sugar thoroughly. Finally add the sugar and mix well.

Serving

a.   Add half a teaspoonful of powder to one glass (200 ml.) of water and boil for one minute. Filter. You may add sugar or preferably jaggery to taste and serve. You may also add some lime juice.

b.   Add half a teaspoonful of powder to 50% milk and 50% water to make a glass (200ml). Heat for a minute. Filter. Add sugar or jaggery to taste and serve.

c.   Add half a teaspoonful of powder to one glass of water and boil with jaggery and some mint leaves after some time. Filter and add a little lime juice and serve.

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