How Fresh & Junk Foods Affect Your Health | Processed Food

In an event hosted by Global Food Regulators Summit in July 2023, Sadhguru offered a profound and unique insight into the types of foods that are most supportive for the human system, and explained why what we eat as well as how we eat matters. He delved into the biggest challenges facing our food systems: unbridled commercialization and rapid degradation of soil across the world. He also explained why food regulators must step up to address these critical issues.

Transcript

Most of the population is consuming only 12 to 15 varieties of plant life.

This variety is not enough to sustain human life.

If they contaminate the food by 1%,

They may make billions of dollars.

These are dangerous things.

On a daily basis,

If we are consuming this,

We will come to lots of troubles.

Cognition levels can be greatly enhanced by just changing the way we eat.

Rabbits were fed with very high cholesterol food.

All of them had developed cardiac issues except one group of rabbits.

The cholesterol content in the food did not affect them.

We have moved,

Western countries particularly have moved strongly towards food processing.

Right now,

India is making huge steps to set up food processing industries because food is a perishable item and people want to store it and use it tomorrow.

So,

As a policy,

As a philosophy,

As a social consciousness,

We must understand that eating food in its fresh condition is the best way to eat.

But there are extraneous situations in one's lives where you could be in places where such a thing is not possible,

Then processed food and frozen foods are okay.

But on a daily basis,

If we are consuming this,

We will come to lots of troubles.

You know,

In the yogic philosophy,

Always it's like this,

If you have to eat a vegetable,

It should be plucked today from the plant.

Within a few hours,

It must be cooked.

Once it is cooked,

Within a maximum of ninety minutes,

You must consume.

You never eat old food because all living things… food is a living thing.

If it is not living,

It wouldn't support us.

It is the basis or is the life-making material for us,

It's not just another product.

So all of it is moving from life to death or from death to regenerating to life.

This is happening all the time at every level of life.

The whole process that we call as life is a cycle between life and death.

We refer to life as a dynamic process,

Death as inertia.

If one becomes inert right now,

If we poke them and they become active,

Then we say they were sleeping.

If one becomes inert,

If you poke them,

They don't wake up.

But with lot of medical attention,

They wake up,

Then we say they were unconscious or they were comatose.

But if one becomes inert and whatever we do,

If they do not come back,

Then we say they are dead.

So essentially,

Death is inertia.

Everything in life is constantly battling between dynamism versus inertia.

So we call this inertia as tamas.

So once you allow food to stay,

Especially cooked food,

If it remains for a period of time,

Then it gathers inertia.

You may not feel anything,

It's just that your sleep quota may improve.

That is,

You may sleep for more number of hours and everybody is going about saying that the more you sleep,

The more healthy you are.

Of course,

Because if you sleep through your life,

You may be healthy,

But you just may not have a life.

Right now,

It's being recommended,

Everybody should sleep for minimum eight hours for health and well-being.

Eight hours means it's one-third of our life we must sleep to be healthy.

This is lot of servicing to be done for any machine.

If it's of any good quality,

It should not need that much of maintenance.

But right now,

One important thing is,

Food is contaminated.

When I say contamination,

It is not only that it is poisoned by somebody by intent.

No,

It is contaminated by lacking the necessary nourishment in it.

And most of the time,

The food that people are eating,

Buying from a supermarket,

Maybe a month,

Two months or three months old,

And even they bring it home and again,

It stays there.

And today,

There are many,

Many studies to show this,

Because I'm particularly stressing on the fresh food,

Because using processed food and food with very high level of inertia within it causes constipation.

Today,

Many universities are studying this and they're saying constipation and cognition issues are very related.

But there have been doctors and certain publications which we've been going about saying,

This Victorian idea of emptying your bowels on a daily basis is not really necessary.

If you.

.

.

If your bowel movement happens once or twice a week,

It is good enough.

Well,

These are dangerous things to say.

It is just that you may not die,

But everything will decline in the body if waste material stays in the body for too long.

You eating highly processed food,

Very large percentage of meat in the food,

All these things will bring constipation.

And today,

World is suffering from various kinds of psychological derangements.

And cognitive decline is a huge challenge in people over fifty,

Sixty years of age.

The neuronal regeneration and cognition levels can be greatly enhanced by just changing the way we eat.

And the system will not degenerate at the pace at it will,

Because the regeneration process will be very high if the food has a certain level of sattva or a certain level of aliveness within itself.

There is a lot of evidence accumulating that Parkinson's starts in the gut and that the microbes have a big role in first interacting with the enteric nervous system,

The little brain we have in the gut.

You know,

In Alzheimer's disease,

It is equally complex.

But there is now pretty strong evidence that these interactions between our gut and the microbes that live in it,

And then,

You know,

You can extend this further,

And the kind of food we eat and the environment where we grow this food in,

That there is this connection to some of the most serious diseases that we're going to be face.

.

.

Facing in the next fifty years,

Because people are getting older and the rate.

.

.

The prevalence rate for these chronic neurodegenerative diseases is increasing.

Sadhguru Not only this,

How we consume food also becomes an important aspect.

If we do not take necessary attention as to how we address the food that we eat,

This also has impact.

There are some wonderful studies in some of the United States universities showing this.

This is way back probably in mid-eighties,

When they made this study,

That different groups of rabbits were fed with very high cholesterol food.

They wanted to see if they will develop cardiac problems and stuff.

And when they checked them,

All of them had developed cardiac issues,

Except one group of rabbits.

Then they started studying this group,

What was so special about them.

Genetically,

They were the same,

In every way they were the same,

Same level of activity,

But they were not affected.

Then they discovered the person,

That one person who was feeding to this group of rabbits,

Always spoke to them,

Whistled at them,

Talked to them,

Petted them and then they gave these carrots or whatever else he gave.

And these rabbits were happy,

Because they were happy when they were consuming,

The cholesterol content in the food did not affect them.

So this is something we must know,

How we address the food,

Because there is an intelligence within us,

Which builds this whole body.

This body and brains was built from inside.

The bread that we consume becomes body and brains.

So there is an intelligence like this.

To be in touch with that,

To address everything from that reflection will make a huge difference.

So what kind of food we consume,

Where we consume,

How we consume,

How we are when we consume,

All these things have an impact upon food.

I know only some aspects of it can be handled by regulation,

Rest has to be by human consciousness.

But the regulation part of it is equally important,

Because today food is being handled by massive agencies.

When I say agencies,

Large businesses,

Very large commercial enterprises,

Where if they contaminate the food by one percent,

They may make billions of dollars.

When that kind of proposition is there,

There is always a propensity to contaminate food in various ways,

Either with… by aging,

Or by reducing the temperature at which they are stored,

Or actually adding something to it.

All these aspects are there.

But the most important aspect is,

At the very source it's being contaminated,

We have to address that.

Contamination is happening at the product… production level.

Not only at the production level,

Even at the base production level,

Which is soil itself is contaminated.

So when we have reached this point in the world,

Where very source of our life,

We have managed to contaminate in many different ways,

Or deplete in many different ways,

A time has come when regulations on… upon food definitely should consider the way of production,

The means of production,

And the source of production has to be brought into this ambit.

Today,

The nutritional value that is expected out of the food that we consume has gone down significantly,

And because we are a market-ruled economy,

Commercial forces rule us.

Because of this,

The number of various types of species of plant life that we were consuming has narrowed down to just twelve to fifteen.

Just about hundred years ago,

We were consuming anywhere between two-hundred to two-hundred-and-thirty species of plant life.

Today,

Our largely most of the population is consuming only twelve to fifteen varieties of plant life.

This variety is not enough to sustain human life.

It's come to a place,

Everybody has come to the conclusion that without supplements,

You cannot really live,

Because food is not good enough.

Yes,

One part of it is true,

Food is not good enough,

Unfortunately.

This is because soil is not good enough,

And when soil is not good enough,

We must understand,

Soil,

Food,

Body are three variants of the same thing.

They are not different.

So,

Regulators have to enhance the ambit of regulation,

And also raise human consciousness to become very conscious about these things,

So that more than regulation,

If the market becomes conscious,

It naturally regulates the production units in many different ways.

Market rejects anything that is not well-produced or is of good… not good quality.

That is also part of it.

So,

Regulation should not just remain with making rules and regulations,

It should also move towards educating the public in a large-scale public education,

So that regulation can happen from the market end,

From the consumer end,

Also regulation can happen.

Reviews

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Thank you for this informative meditation Sadhguru, namaste 🙏🏾☀️

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Inspired & inspiring! www.gratefulness.org, ahimsa www.compassioncourse.org

Interesting conclusion and concepts 🙏Metta