Diets, Food, and Yoga

According to yoga philosophy (and common sense) what you eat is extremely important. The yogic diet is also knows as the sattvic diet and is a large part of being healthy and including the five elements in your body through good. There are three categories of food:

Tasmasic - foods that make us feel tired, are rotten or unhealthy (fried).
Rajasic - foods that make us feel agitated or excited.
Sattvic - foods that make us feel calm, refreshed and relaxed.

A vegetarian diet is considered sattvic for the most part since fruits, vegetables, cheese, and milk are sattvic foods. Foods like garlic and onions can be problematic if you are meditating regularly, and fried foods and caffeine aren't considered sattvic either.

I realize I talk a lot about food, but food is really important because what you put in is what is used when you are going through your daily live. There's been a larger push for things like raw foods, which I think helps to encourage a more sattvic diet with less or no meat. All this came about because someone sent me some raw-food recipes to try out: link here. I haven't tried any yet, but the salsa recipe reminded me of two of my favorites which just need to have the ingredients cut and mixed together!

Corn and Black Bean Salsa
Can of Corn
Can of Black Beans
1/2 cup red onion (chopped)
1 avocado (diced)
10 cherry tomatoes (cut in quarters)
1 tbs lemon juice
red pepper flakes
salt/pepper to taste
Hot Sauce to taste

Mango Salsa
1 large mango, or 2 medium ones (cut small)
handful of chopped cilantro
1 lemon (for the juice)
1/2 cup (or more) or white onion
1/2 cup Italian or sweet peppers (chopped)
Salt/Pepper to taste