The Three Modes of Nature in Food

According to Chapter Fourteen of the Bhagavad Gita, there are three modes that dominate material nature. Like a painter's pallette, goodness, passion and ignorance color every activity and entity in the creation. The choices of foodstuffs that we partake in daily influence the quality and duration of our lives.

Sattvik foods, dear to those in the mode of goodness, increase the duration of life, purify one's existence and give strength, health, happiness and satisfaction. Such foods are juicy, fatty, wholesome, and pleasing to the heart. These include grains, herbs, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products.

Rajasik foods, that are too bitter, too sour, salty, hot, pungent, dry and burning are dear to those in the mode of passion. Such foods cause distress, misery and disease. Onions, garlic, chilly (pepper) and hot spices come in this category.

Tamasik food, which includes food prepared more than three hours before being eaten, food that is tasteless, decomposed and putrid, and food consisting of remnants and untouchable things is dear to those in the mode of darkness. Such foods lead to lethargy, forgetfulness, ignorance and disease. Such foods include stale food, eggs, poultry, meat, fish, sea-food, and fungi (eg. mushrooms).

Partaking in foods saturated with the mode of ignorance is participating in a conpiracy of violence against helpless animals and thus curtails spiritual progress.

Refraining from animal flesh out of compassion for innocent creatures is certainly a praiseworthy sentiment, but when we go beyond vegetarianism to a diet of prasadam (spiritual food offerings), our eating becomes helpful in achieving the goal of human life -- reawakening the soul's original relationship with God. Eating only food offered to Krishna is the perfection of vegetarianism. In the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna says that unless one eats only food that has been offered to Him in sacrifice, one will suffer the reactions of karma.

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