The Yoga Method of Diet by Paramhansa Yogananda
Praecepta Lessons, Volume 3 (1938): Praeceptum #68
THE YOGA METHOD OF DIET
The following menus are given for the general health, expulsion of hidden poisons from the body, for reducing or growing tissues, and for helping in the healing of diseases through the proper diet. If used judiciously, they will eliminate poisons from the body and bring perfect health, strength and vitality.
Try out the various breakfast-lunch-dinner recipes and follow what best suits your individual health. You should eat like a normal individual, respecting and gradually molding special hereditary eating habits. Habitual vegetarians, or people with vegetarian heredity, may do without meat or fish or chicken, eating only plenty of nuts and cheese, instead of meat; or milk or fruits as meat substitutes.
You must positively stop eating all forms of beef, veal, and pork products. Do not make a habit of eating any kind of meat. Gradually learn to get used to more ground nuts, bananas, fruits, milk, and raw vegetables.
Remember, it is not always that which goes into you, but that which comes out of you, that makes you what you are. Some people may eat meat and still be holy and self-controlled, and some may eat only vegetables and fruits and be knaves and lead uncontrolled lives. Eating boiled vegetables for dinner with raw uncooked food is light, devitalizing, and weakening. Be sure to eat more Nature-cooked raw vegetables, fruits, dates and nuts.
Above all,eat rightly, think rightly, and meditate and live in Divine Joy, night and day.
IDEAL BREAKFASTS
(1) Orange juice and ground nuts.
(2) Grapefruit and ground nuts.
(3) Two hard-boiled egg yolks in orange juice.
(4) Tomato juice and egg yolk.
(5) Watermelon juice and ground nuts. (For laxative effect)
(6) Bran, milk, honey, and ground nuts.
(7) Cantaloupe and bran and milk and ground nuts.
(8) Berries, ground nuts, cream, and honey.
(9) Pineapple juice, cream and honey, ground nuts and chopped pineapple.
(10) Glassful of milk and honey.
(11) Ground almonds and honey mixed in glassful of water.
(12) Use quantity of these according to appetite.
For Vital Strength:
Eat four tablespoonfuls of thoroughly ground almonds and two oranges, or eat three slices of fresh pineapple plus a handful of ground pecans. Or drink a glassful of milk with a handful of soaked raisins. Or eat one banana with one tablespoonful of ground pecans, or six unsulphured prunes with one tablespoonful of any ground nuts, or eat a handful of any ground nuts and water.
Daily eat one orange; eat one carrot daily; eat a few (6) unsulphured dates or figs with breakfast; eat a tablespoonful of ground nuts.
Fast one day every week on orange juice and take some suitable purgative. Fast three consecutive days every month on orange juice, using some suitable purgative.
Sleep for six hours every night.
Breakfast alone or in peaceful company after meditation.
Eat very lightly of starches and cereals.
Do not overeat anything. Omit breakfasts often.
Walk briskly a mile a day. Keep company with cheerful people.
LAXATIVES
Best of all non-habit forming nutritive laxatives is the natural “Nutritive-Lax.” All fruits are laxative in the following order: Prunes, watermelons, cantaloupes, passion fruit, tomatoes, figs, raisins, grapes; olive oil is very good.
Breakfast for Thin People
Eat a carrot with a little of the stem. Drink a pint of raw milk (certified), or drink one big glassful of orange juice with four tablespoonfuls of ground pecans. Or take three yolks of hard-boiled eggs in a big glassful of orange juice, or drink a pint of milk with two tablespoonfuls of honey. Or eat a bowl of oatmeal with cream and two bananas, and a tablespoonful of honey. Drink a glassful of water with each breakfast, or drink a glassful of cream with two bananas and a tablespoonful of honey, or eat a handful of soaked unsulphured raisins and a glassful of cream mixed with a tablespoonful of ground pecans.
Every week fast one day on milk; inhale, exhale deeply; walk; sleep more; drink six glassfuls of water a day, be contented and happy; eat one lemon every day with breakfast; try to have an elimination after each meal; do not drink too much water, only 6 glassfuls a day; do not eat sugar or candies except unsulphured dates.
IDEAL LUNCHES
16 leaves of spinach
3 oz. ground pecans
Any chopped vegetable (raw with salad dressing).
Or
2 head of lettuce with boiled eggs
A big salad
Hot chocolate
Or
Fish, chicken, or lamb
1/2 head of lettuce
Salad of ground carrots and dressing.
Lunch For Fat People
Eat a big salad of any ground vegetable well mixed with orange juice dressing. Eat 10 leaves of spinach with a little Thousand Island Dressing. Eat six water-soaked or dried unsulphured prunes or six such figs or dates. Eat very little or no cooked boiled vegetables. Occasionally a little piece of broiled fish if desired. Do not eat eggs. Drink no water with meals. Eat your biggest meal at lunch time but do not overeat. Eat a different vegetable salad every day. Grind vegetables and mix with orange juice. Eat no butter and no bread.
Lunch For Thin People
One tablespoonful of olive oil between meals or cod liver oil after every meal. Eat a large raw vegetable salad with cream, orange juice, and ground nut dressing. Eat one good portion of cooked food. Eat ten unsulphured figs or ten prunes or ten dates, or a handful of such raisins. Eat a piece of broiled fish or chicken, or a piece of lamb occasionally, or eat four tablespoonfuls of ground pecans with your vegetable salad. Eat a big portion of fresh cottage cheese. Drink a glassful of cream or milk between lunch and dinner. Eat two slices of whole wheat bread or bran muffins with plenty of butter (1/4 pound a day).
Diet For Reducing
One big raw vegetable salad with orange juice dressing, no butter, no starches, no cooked food. Six tablespoonfuls of ground nuts. Six unsulphured dates, prunes, and vegetables. No cheese, no eggs, no fish, no sugar, no meats.
SALADS
Blood Cleanser
Dice some Chinese water chestnuts to the size of lima beans and add to them a quarter of a heart of lettuce chopped fine. Mix with it the following salad dressing: 4 tbs. of cream, juice of one orange, 1 tsp. honey or sugar.
Nutritive and Laxative
Mash two skinned persimmons, add 4 tbs. of cream, 1 tsp. honey, and beat with an egg beater. Put on a lettuce leaf and place on top the finely chopped skins of the persimmons. Put on top of this a heaping tsp. of whipped cream.
Elimination and Health
Mix 1 tbs of bran with one tsp. of honey and the juice of half an orange. Mash one avocado pear. Put on a lettuce leaf and serve.
Reducing Salad
Dice 1/4 watermelon. Mix with 4 tsp, of lemon juice and 1/8 tsp. of honey. Serve on lettuce.
Nut Dressing
Four tbs. of grapefruit juice, 4 tbs. of cream, and one tsp. of honey or sugar makes a delicious salad dressing.
Health Pickle
Shell and seed four pieces of tamarind. Add one cupful of water and boil down to 1/4 cupful of water. Mix this with salad dressing.
DINNER SUGGESTIONS
Meat Substitutes
(1) 1 tbs. unsalted, unfried, ground, or whole pine or pignolia (pine nuts) nuts with one glassful of orange juice.
(2) 1 tbs. ground cashew nuts with one glassful of orange juice.
(3) 1 tbs. ground pecans with one glassful of orange juice.
(4) 1 tbs. ground pistachio nuts with one glassful of orange juice.
(5) 1 tbs, ground almonds with one glassful orange juice
(6) 1 tbs. brazil nuts or peanut butter with one glassful of orange juice.
Almonds give vital strength; pistachio nuts give fat; pine and cashew nuts give harmonious development of all parts of the body, peanuts for elimination and general strength; pistachio nuts for brain development and memory.
(7) Boiled eggs with half a head of lettuce.
(8) Fresh cottage cheese with half a head of lettuce.
(9) Nut loaves, nut products in general.
You can prepare gravy with white flour or plenty of ground cashew or pine nuts. Make it just the way you make ordinary gravy.
Don’t make a practice of eating meat, but eat it occasionally. Lamb is best, or chicken, and fish. Never eat meat with bread, but have 3 oz. of meat with 9 oz. of lettuce 3 times a week. Lettuce prevents the protein from excessive acid reaction, and thus avoids overtaxing and injuring the kidneys.
SOUPS
To 1/2 cupful of buttermilk or sour milk add a clove of garlic chopped; 16 leaves of spinach, a few fresh peas, asparagus tips, and 1/4 cupful of garavanza (garbanzo) beans (soaked overnight); add two cupfuls of hot water; 1/2 tsp. of salt 1 and 1/2 tsp. of sugar; boil down to one cupful.
Serve with 1/4 head of chopped hearts of lettuce or 8 leaves of parsley chopped, or 6 leaves of raw spinach chopped.
Always use sea salt or mix powdered sea kelp with ordinary salt. You can also mix ground sun-dried, pulverized vegetables with salt.
DESSERT
Soak two pieces of whole wheat bread in a mixture of 1/4 glassful of milk, two tbs. of cream, and two tbs. of honey. Add one tbs. butter and one mashed banana. Serve.
TAMARIND DRINK
(Extremely Good for Digestion)
Soak four tamarind pieces overnight in a glassful of water. Mix two tbs. of sugar and the juice of 1/4 of a lime. Shake well. Cool with a piece of ice. Slowly sip on empty stomach.
