Food (But on a Spiritual Level)

Hey everyone, welcome back to my blog!! I completely forgot but last Friday was my 1 year anniversary of starting this blog which is INSANE. I cannot believe I have been writing this blog for a year already and the fact it was just a spontaneous decision I made on a random Thursday while working at my mum's cafe will never cease to surprise me. I'm so grateful to have a space where I can be vulnerable and also share the (very little) knowledge that I have. I am also very grateful for all of you guys who read my posts, my blog is very small, only around 200 readers a month, so thank you so much for contributing to that!!

This entire week I have been really drained because we got back from Brighton Pride on Monday at 4:45am. I was helping my parents pack everything away till 3 in the morning because we were determined to not stay another night and leave as soon as possible to avoid further delays. I SAW CHRISTINA AGUILERA AND PALOMA FAITH which was crazy, I can still hear their live singing at the back of my head. This is super off track but we had some really annoying customers complaining that our line was too long and that we should serve faster because it would be better for our business. I was literally so shocked when a person straight up told me that because we're not forcing anyone to eat at our stall and we were serving so fast that if we served any faster I'd end up throwing orders at people's faces. All in all, the festival was lovely but the crowd made me want to cry when I was already on the verge of a breakdown which wasn't so lovely. I also got told by two completely drunk gay men on two different occasions that I was their favourite person because I gave them food and they loved me. Moments like that really remind me why I love making and serving food to people. That went super off topic but I wanted to update you guys mainly about seeing Christina Aguilera, IT WAS A DREAM. She performed all her most famous songs including ones from Burlesque and Moulin Rouge which are my favourites and I still cannot get over it. Paloma Faith was also amazing, our stall was right opposite the stage so I could also see and hear all the soundchecks before the festival started which was cool. Ok I'm going to stop rambling now and get onto this week's post.

I think that food is a really powerful thing. I mean of course it is what keeps our bodies going and without food we'd essentially die but as the title mentions, I'm not going to go into the science of it but rather what I was brought up with. I have been born as a vegetarian so I don't eat egg, fish or meat. It's quite popular to be a lacto-vegetarian in India as all foods have different spiritual vibrations within them. Additionally, it just just for the ethical reasons and due to ahimsa (non-violence) which is practised in Hinduism. There aren't any sort of 'rules', people just tend to practise it because that's what they choose to do.

It can be pretty weird to grasp what I'm going to be saying so just keep your mind open when reading this. Also whatever I say on here shouldn't replace any sort of doctor's advice which you have been given, nor am I endorsing only eating fruits and vegetables. A balanced diet is what we need as humans.

There are six 'levels' of food which determine the spirituality of it, in ascending order this would be: dead flesh (meat and fish), animal discharge (dairy products), foods from the earth (root vegetables eg. potatoes), foods from trees (apples, oranges, dates etc.), superfoods (raw chocolate, spirulina, goji berries etc.) and chemical sunlight. The reason most people in India are vegetarian is because consuming high vibrational foods is good karma and this helps you reach moksha (liberation) from the birth, death and rebirth cycle. Furthermore, it is known to just be better for your body which is something anyone can vouch for. I don't know about you but I generally feel better if I eat an apple rather than fried food because chips or something like that just makes me a bit sick after a while. 

Why Foods Have Different Vibrations

Firstly, I just wanted to say that all of this has been proven by science, even though the ancient philosophies have been practised for centuries. Dr Valerie Hunt conducted a study at UCLA in 1986 and her findings can be seen here.

When an animal's life is taken, the animal feels pain. No matter how good their life beforehand was, they still suffer and that energy which is expressed when they suffer is what we consume. This can bring down our mood and make us feel not so good either. 

Highly processed foods have lost most of their energy through all the, well, processing and so they lost nutritional benefits as well as positive spiritual energy. 

Milk is a bit of a complicated one. The reason milk was consumed in India a long time ago is because cows are our holy animal. Everyone tended to have a cow in their family and this cow was considered the 'mother' of the family as they're holy. When a baby was born, a baby would have literally a drop of that milk placed on their tongue before being breastfed as it was just tradition to do so. People eventually started to love drinking milk due to the taste of it and then it became a whole industry. People now treat cows really badly and inject them with hormones so they create milk. The way the cows are treated is unholy but milk is holy. That's why there are certain places where people choose to get their milk from to ensure the cows are treated well and do not go through pain.

Transmuting Intentions

Food is also a really powerful tool to spread energy and intentions through. Even just the mood of the person making the food can be conveyed into the actual food and so when people eat that food, they also gain those intentions. You find that in temples, there is holy chanting that occurs when food is being made so that positivity is spread. Growing up, my mum always told us that if we were upset, we should calm down and not take it out on the food because then we end up consuming that energy and it leaves us feeling worse. I find that this is actually true because whenever I'm eating alongside crying, I feel even sadder afterwards.

This is also one of the reasons why I love cooking for people and handmaking things in general for people. Whenever I make food or even if I'm crocheting birthday gifts, I put so much love into it and I hope that the energy also goes to the person which I'm gifting it to.

All in all, this post isn't to put anyone off eating certain foods. I understand that for health purposes, sometimes you don't get to choose what you eat. This post is just to kind of help people understand more about Ayurveda and energy. I also believe that no matter what you eat, if it's a salad or a slice of cake, it's all about the mindset you have when you eat it. You could be eating anything but if you're telling yourself it's going to ruin your life then that's exactly what it will do. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post!! See you next week, love you guys <33