What Is A Sattvic Diet
In the ancient ayurvedic texts it is stated that the kind of food you consume changes your behavioral attributes and influences your mood. This classification is not spiritual, but rather a scientifically-backed claim. Almost all the foods consumed by us, depending on the ingredients, can be classified into the following three categories: Sattvic, Rajasic, Tamasic.
It is believed that Sattvic foods are the simplest, well balanced and most nutritious of the three. It instills a sense of calmness, bliss and purity in you, all attributes which are generally associated with hermits. Meanwhile, Tamasic foods on the other hand are bound to make you lethargic and weak, while Rajasic foods leave you overly restless and stimulated at all times.
Sattvic foods include the likes of fruits, vegetables, sprouts, honey, whole grains, nuts are such similar low calorific high nutrient diets. This diet helps in increasing strength, mental health and helps longevity due to its healthy composition of micronutrients. This diet is thus void of any animal products, sugar-rich foods, fried foods, alcohol, or any vegetable from the allium family.
Following a purely sattvic diet has numerous health benefits. People who consume sattvic foods automatically eliminate meat from their diet. This reduces their fat consumption to a great extent, which typically results in a much lower body mass index. It also helps significantly in losing weight, since the foods used are rich in fiber and are low in calorie count.
Not only is it limiting the storage of excess calories in your body, but the fiber rich foods also fill you up easily and won’t leave you starving. There are plenty of other protein-rich vegetables and nuts to replace animal products as well.
If you want to find out more how to lead a Sattvic diet, make sure to check out my article on the topic here!
Why Garlic & Onion Are Considered Non-Sattvic
Among the wide list of common ingredients in Indian recipes, garlic and onion make it into almost all the spicy and savory dishes. They are especially widely used for their distinct flavor and how their mere presence significantly improves the taste of any dish. They have considered super-foods thanks to their numerous health benefits but are strictly considered non-sattvic.
Garlic makes you Rajasic which leaves you constantly tired or sleep-deprived, while onion makes you Tamasic which makes you irritable even for the slightest and silliest of things. Hence, despite the positives of using them, the negatives cause a hindrance to your way of life.
Scientifically speaking, onions and garlic are rich in short-chain carbohydrates like fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols or in short FODMAPs. These also include sugars, etc. FODMAPs are a group of carbs that are not easily digestible by our body. Like lactose intolerance, the FODMAPs in garlic and onion are poorly absorbed by the small intestines of a significant number of people.
Thus eating a lot of garlic and onions by these people can give them sensitive intestinal linings or cause an irritable bowel. In extreme cases, it causes acid reflux in their body or results in gastrointestinal distress in their GI tracts, which like a chain reaction leads to bloating of the abdomen, constant constipation or even diarrhea in some cases.
Spiritually, even while making offerings during festivities or while offering food to god in temples, the person makes sure onions and garlic are not added. According to the Puranas, onions and garlic increase anger and decrease knowledge.
Hence, fearing the wrath of the god, the devotees prepare sattvic foods to keep the gods calm and happy and not enraged. There are several instances of these in spiritual and mythological books where even the moods of god are determined by what they had consumed.
Alternatives To Using Garlic & Onion
First, let us consider the sattvic alternatives to garlic and onion. Firstly, the way to recreate the garlic flavor or to compensate for it is the use of spices. The best part is you even get premixed sattvic spice mixes online which recreate the garlic flavor.
With the replacements for onions, things get a little trickier. Unlike garlic, onions also contribute to the texture of the dish. Hence you need a replacement that not only tastes like onions but also feels like onions.
You also get pre-mixed sattvic onion substitute spices at the stores. If that is not available, you can make them by mixing simple spices using online recipes. But to enhance the texture of the dish, you have a few vegetables you can add to the list, like celery, napa cabbage, fennel, bok choy, lemongrass, etc. You can finely chop these vegetables and add them as an onion substitute. You can use any of the above-mentioned vegetables, depending on their availability in your locality.
Although it is not easy to completely quit using garlic and onion at once, you can start by slowly reducing the quantity day by day. Give yourself a few weeks and drastically cut the level to zero eventually. You are doing yourself a massive flavor by opting for a healthier lifestyle.
If you are not very sure about letting go of the taste and flavor, the next best thing to do is using garlic infused oils. These oils do add the taste of garlic to your food while negating the drawbacks of the actual vegetable. Here the garlic is soaked in oil, preferably olive oil or sunflower oil. The flavors of the garlic are then imparted into the oil, while at the same time having a much lower to pretty much non-existent FODMAPs level.
Are Garlic & Onion Bad For Your Health
Certain foods that are rich in nutrients like protein, carbohydrates and fat often upon breaking down after digestion liberate immense heat as a product of the chemical reaction. This heat is not usable and is harmful to the body.
Although the presence of body heat in small quantities is essential to keep us warm during cooler climates, excess body heat leads to various health problems and discomforts. It makes people easily irritated, constantly restless while also being tired at the same time. These are all attributes one associates with Tamasic and Rajasic nature.
Onions are an excellent source of vitamins, potassium and folate, while garlic is a good source of vitamin, calcium, phosphorus, copper and many other micronutrients. They also reduce the amount of salt used in the preparation of a dish. It inherently has a tinge of salty flavor to it. This is extremely good as the use of excessive salt increases your blood pressure and gives you other cardiovascular problems.
The same can be said about using butter as well, as the addition of garlic and onions reduces the need to use butter to give flavor to the food, thus curbing the overall fat content. Garlic is also consumed raw because of its benefits when sick, but people are advised to leave it out for about 10 minutes before cooking or directly consuming it. The enzyme-catalyzed reactions reduce the overall heat, thus curbing the levels of body heat it adds to when eaten.
People know the health benefits of onion and garlic. They do not dismiss it or avoid it, but there is a certain benefit of each kind of food to suit different lifestyles. The food of a sage in bliss and that of a warrior preparing for war isn’t going to be identical.
Several traditional ayurvedic medicines do integrate garlic in their list of ingredients. Thus, Ayurveda does recommend having garlic and onion. Several other vegetables like leeks and shallots are also used for their medicinal properties.
Allium vegetables such as these are key ingredients in diets that reduce cholesterol levels in your body. But it requires you to ration the quantity you consume to a bare minimum. When you miss these vegetables solely for their taste or how they enhance the flavor of the dish, it is advised to strictly replace them with the viable alternatives mentioned above. This is key to staying healthy because it all eventually comes down to how well the onions and especially the garlic is cooked and is broken down as it is being heated.