Food is technically ‘dead’ as the plant was first killed, brought to the market, thus to the kitchen. When the body dies the pran/vital energy from it slowly leaks out over a few hours. The fresher it is the more pran it will have thus will be more beneficial to your body. This is the real reason fresh fruits, vegetables and salads are more nutritious.

We use our hands for cooking, obviously, and the energy (atma-tej) of the conscious human person is focussed at the finger-tips. So the dominant thoughts and tendencies of the cook are absorbed in the food. The more he ‘handles’ the food, more the physical contact, more energy is transferred. See the vegetables are losing their original vital energy with time and are more than able to pick up this energy of thoughts from the cook. These energy imprints then are consumed by us. Thus we are affected by the mental state of the cook! If someone who loves you has cooked for you, it tastes better as you feel the love from the food. If it is prepared by an irritated professional chef, it might look awesome but when you eat it, would fail to satisfy.

Not just hands, vision is also a very important way where energy is transferred. Your thoughts are also a reflection of your personal energy. Everyone likes to eat. Food articles, sweets etc are often kept on display and everyone can see them. These articles can attract negative energies. e.g. small children or someone who cannot afford buying them crave them and such suppressed desires can spoil the energy levels of such food. If you eat such food repeatedly, you can actually fall ill!

If you are interested in real deep spiritual practice, you need to take these precautions with the food you eat.

Avoid table ware and cutlery used by others, especially if they are made of metal. These articles pick up the energy impressions from other people very easily and retain them for longer periods. If you have to eat out, preferably use biodegradeable plates and cups.

• We Indians prefer eating food served on banana leaves or in leaf cups/plates. No traditional puja will be complete unless we serve the food/prasadam in these leaf plates.
• And we still prefer drinking tea from public tea stalls which is served in an earthen cup. It tastes really good.

Then fire and heat can neutralise the energy impressions from others to some extent. Thus it is advisable to have the dining area within the kitchen itself where the cooking fires burn.

• In traditional Indian households the household deities are placed in the kitchen area. If not the entire puja ghar, then a small image of Annapurna Devi (the Devi who gives food/energy), is always installed in the kitchen. After cooking everything, the cooked food is offered to the Devi first so that positive spiritual thoughts enter the final cooked food.
• Then during the 5 days of the monthly cycle, women are supposed to rest and not cook or enter the kitchen. The internal chakras are moving anti-clockwise in their bodies, as internal destruction is taking place. Exposure to this energy can actually spoil food. (Try setting curd when you are in this phase if you don’t believe this.

Entering the kitchen only after washing up and changing the clothes worn outside the house is advisable. Foreign energy impressions adhere to the clothes and hands as our clothes brush against random people and we touch so many things with our hands/fingers.

People serving the food should not touch it with their hands. If possible the people involved in cooking and serving food, should have their food before they serve others, so that they don’t long for the food they are serving. Food served by an unhappy, hungry waiter is not good on the energy levels.

The best food that you can eat, is the food which you cook yourself for yourself. Next would be the food prepared by someone who genuinely loves you or thinks on the same wavelength as you do.

The more liquid a food has, the more easily it will pick up energy impressions. Milk and dairy products pick up energy very easily. This is the reason we use milk and its products to prepare prasadam for the pujas that we perform. The positive energies generated from the puja/ mantra/ homa etc are absorbed in the milk which is kept in a silver cup and it is distributed to people using a silver spoon.

Then non vegetarian food can never be energy rich in the real sense. At the moment of death, certain stress chemicals are produced in the body of the animal which are retained in its flesh. When the jivatma/soul leaves the body of an animal there are certian energy changes which occur. If anyone eats this flesh, this will upset their energy balance. (will write a separate post on the moment of death).

Now to the question which I received in the contact form.

Cow’s milk, is also a non-vegetarian product, and we Indians use it in all its forms. It is an essential ingredient in our lives in every way. But you might be surprised to know that the milk we buy from our local dairy is not what our ancestors used. The real milk from cows kept in individual houses is very very different from the milk produced from commercial dairies. I have seen both types of milk and can sense the difference.

We think of our cows as mothers, it’s not a joke, we actually do. But this cow has to be a desi Indian cow, means it has to have a well-formed hump. If a family keeps cows, these are family members, not ‘pets’ or as ‘cattle’. In fact the cow does not allow any random person near her. She generally has one favourite person who is allowed to milk her, anyone else and she will attack and kick. If her favourite person approaches her with affection, the milk let-down is natural not forced. She gives willingly and with love and after her calf is satisfied first. That is the difference. And that person has to take care of her. Taking care of a cow like this, is a very intensive job, the diet, the cleanliness, and the health care requires hard work. The cow has to be healthy and content. The energy quality of such a cow’s milk is beyond description. Unfortunately in today’s world, very very few people must have actually tasted this.

Drinking milk and milk products from commercial dairies where the cows are forced to give milk is of little use from the energy point of view. More so if the cow is ‘hybrid’, without a hump. Such milk and milk products actually harm at the energy levels.

There was a reason for all those traditions which developed over generations, and it is almost lost now. You will never get the perfect food with perfect energy on your plate now. But then all cultures have this system of praying over the food before it is eaten. You should pray over your food as per your culture/religion with gratitude and love in your heart. Or if you wish you can make a chi ball of golden/silvery light over your food to increase its vital energy. It works.

We recite this shlok number 15.14 from the Bhagwat Gita before having our food. This is in Sanskrit, so cannot be translated fully, this is less than 1% of its meaning.

OM aham vaishvanaro bhutva praninaam deham-ashritah
praanh-apaanah-samayuktah pachami annam chaturvidam OM

“Om, I am the complete, omnipresent Eternal Sun (seen at the third eye during Dhyan). I Exist (there is no other definition, just that It Is!). I temporarily occupy this manifested form of a breathing sentient being. The subtle energy of this food is composed of Pran and Apan (two types of opposing vital energies, which need to be balanced before the  kundalini can enter the Sushumna during Dhyan). I Illuminate the subtle energy of this food in all the four ways. (refers to the 4 states of existence – awake, dream, deep sleep and Bindu/Reality which is represented by OM). Om”

 

(I had written on food and its energies earlier in my posts, but there was a request for more on this topic and specifically on the milk. I hope this post was of some use.)