Any query......

Vivek Anand Ganesan v_ganesan at YAHOO.COM
Thu May 16 14:47:14 CDT 2002


Hello Srikrishnaji,

--- shrI Srikrishna Ghadiyaram wrote:
> What is called 'greasy' ? The quantum of oils/fats
> used depends on each one's taste and habits.
Excessive use of oil/butter/grease is what I have called
"greasy". I am quite dismayed with the cooking habits of
most hindus today. We fry everything. My mother cannot
cook without a kadaaee ( a deep dish used for frying ).
We consider boiled food to be "pattiyam" i.e. diet given
to sick people! That says a lot about our current culture.
I don't think our ancestors consumed this much oil as we
do nowadays.

> If your
> theory is true, majority of Indians should be FAT than
> an average American. In contrast, an average American
> is twice the size/bulk of a FAT indian.
Well, we are going on a tangent. It is helpful to note that
an average Indian hardly gets two square meals a day. An
average American, OTOH, gets three square meals and most
likely consumes meat in two of those. Also, most meat in
the US has growth hormones and other chemicals which
further
add to the obesity.

> Whatever may be the food one eats, excess quantity of
> food is always tamasik, in the sense it makes one
> dull. In contrast, physical body needs some fats and
> it may not be necessary to avoid ils totally. I
> understand fats help build brain. These are the
> theories forwarded my modern science only.
I agree but to what extent? My neighbors in India are
gujarati jains. They are also strict vegetarians who avoid
even onions, garlic and other "root" vegetables such as
potatos. But, they eat sweets soaked in ghee for breakfast,
rotis with ghee + vegetables fried in dalda for lunch and
they have sweets for dessert again at night. I have noticed
similar diet habits amongst other gujaratis, marwaris etc.
Coming to the South, we eat rice, rice and more rice. Plus,
pickles floating in oil, coffee with cream milk, add ghee
to even normally healthy food such as dal and rice etc.
How is any of this healthy? It is no wonder that
upper-caste
vegetarians in India have one of the highest incidences of
diabetes, blood pressure and other diet-related diseases.

> I see some small difficulty in Jaladhar's replies. He
> probably used inadvertantly used the owrd
> 'consciouness'. It should have been, like this: 'the
> plants do not have mind' (not the word consciousness).
> The concept of HIMSA comes with MIND only.
But, why don't plants have a mind? It seems to me that they
have some intelligence otherwise they wouldn't naturally
grow towards sunlight, grow thorns etc. to protect them and
other self-protective and self-promotive behaviour in
common
with "higher" life forms. The gradation of life forms is
based on the notion of intelligence which is highly
subjective. For instance, an American can say that
intelligence depends on analytical ability of the GRE and
GMAT exams. But, a non-english speaker would not understand
any of these exams but neverthless could be quite
intelligent. So, on what basis do we construct the
hierarchy and how can we verify the basis?

Regards,

-Vivek.

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