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Vegetarian cooking lesson 3

A nourishing Falahārī meal is prepared, emphasizing ingredients and spices for health.

The Falahārī diet uses only fruits and vegetables, excluding grains, potatoes, and bananas. Sweet potato is permitted and supports cardiovascular health. Turmeric is essential for liver function and detoxification. Unrefined oils like olive oil are used, as some vitamins require fat for absorption. Spices such as black mustard seeds cleanse channels and stimulate digestion. Coconut milk cools the body. Pumpkin seed bread uses psyllium as a binding agent. Yellow mung dal is the only lentil allowed, as it builds bodily tissues. Tapioca kheer is made with milk and cardamom. A soup of carrots and beetroot creates strength and iron in the blood, finished with a tarka of garlic, ajwain, and cumin. A salad is dressed with olive oil, lemon, and salt.

"Turmeric is a very important spice for us because it greatly influences liver function, improves digestion, and helps clean the body from toxins."

"In the Falahārī diet, you eat only vegetables and fruits; you do not eat wheat, potatoes, or bananas. But you can use sweet potatoes because it comes from another family of vegetables."

Filming location: Vép, Hungary

Hari Om! My name is Hemvati. I come from Zagreb, Croatia, and today we are in VEP, Hungary, at the International Yoga and Daily Life Seminar. We are going to prepare a beautiful Falahārī dinner. I will speak in both Croatian and English so everyone can understand. Today we will prepare a few delicious dishes. First, we will make a very nice, thick soup that helps create fresh blood in the body, making it stronger and generating iron in the blood. We will use chopped carrots and chopped beetroot. We put everything in a pot for cooking. We add fresh water—double the quantity of water to vegetables. We also add spices. Spices are a very big topic in Āyurveda and yogic life. Later, I will say a few words about them. We add some Himalayan salt and turmeric. This is turmeric. Turmeric is a very important spice for us because it greatly influences liver function, improves digestion, and helps clean the body from toxins. It is like a pharmacy in small. Curcuma is one of the medicines in the small. It speeds up liver work and helps clean the body from toxins. It is also good for bile, just for everything. It is good for each of us to take one tablespoon of turmeric daily, either through food, or you can mix it with water or milk. It is good for each and every one of us to use at least one teaspoon of turmeric daily to help all these preventive processes in our body. Now it is cooking. The next dish we will prepare is a nice vegetable kurmā. Kurma is a traditional South Indian dish made with the help of coconut milk. For this, we will use cauliflower and sweet potato. This is sweet potato. It can be used in a Falahārī diet. As you know, the Falahārī diet is a diet in which you are not eating any grains. You are eating only fruits and vegetables, but you don't eat any potatoes and you don't eat any bananas. Sweet potato comes from a different family; it is not the same family as potato. It is very much influencing all the blood vessels in the body, helping to fight against all heart diseases. It has lots of beta-carotene and vitamin E in itself. Sweet potato is not the same family as potato. In the Falahārī diet, you eat only vegetables and fruits; you do not eat wheat, potatoes, or bananas. But you can use sweet potatoes because it comes from another family of vegetables. It has a lot of vitamin E and beta-carotene, and it helps in the fight against all cardiovascular diseases. For this vegetable kurma, we will also use chopped cashews. We will use, of course, coconut milk, and we will use onions. In the Falahārī diet, you can use oil. Many times people ask me, "Oh, can we use oil in a Falahārī diet?" Of course, because some vitamins can be melted and absorbed in our body only with the help of oil. So a little oil is good for the body, but use non-refined oils, like pure olive oil. If you can get pure olive oil, it is very good for you, also for the whole cardiovascular system, clearing up the channels in the body. And, of course, one more thing: you can fry with olive oil. In the Falahārī diet, you can use oil. Certain vitamins are melted in the body only with the help of oil. Use only unrefined oils, like pure olive oil. You can fry it a little, you can heat it at a high temperature. The whole Mediterranean is cooked from the memory of the centuries, so there is no danger of any problems. We will use this little karai. This is a special Indian dish. First, we add a little olive oil. Let's say I make this quantity for one person. This is the amount of one sweet potato and half a cauliflower. On this warm oil, first we will also add some black mustard seeds. Black mustard seeds are very useful for cleaning up and opening all the channels in the body and improving the Jāṭharāgni. Black mustard is a very important spice. It also helps to clean the body from toxins and very well stimulates our digestive fire, so all the food we eat can be digested well in the body. First, we fry the black mustard. Then we add coconut milk to the cashews, a little turmeric, a little salt, and we mix it all together. Add a little bit of coconut milk, salt, and turmeric. Mix everything together. Coconut milk is very useful during the summer months because it is very cooling for the whole body. It has natural sweetness inside, so it very much enhances the food you are eating. Coconut milk will also be very useful in the summer months because it cools the whole body. You will have that natural sweetness in you, very good for all the food you eat, especially when you are in a Falahārī diet, it is very important. We leave it just for a minute, and we will add a little onion. We add onions, but we will not fry the onions for a long time. As Vamījī said, when you are frying onions, they become tāmasic. We don't want to have tāmasic food, so we immediately add coconut milk and cashews and the spices. Now we add the vegetables: cauliflower and sweet potato. Leaves from cauliflower, so we are using all the vegetables. We're trying not to throw away so many vegetables, as little as possible. Now it is being cooked. In 15 minutes, this dish is ready, so it doesn't take too much time. If you want, you can also add a little bit of chili powder. Chili is also very beneficial for us during the summer months because it helps our skin to sweat, and our body to sweat. To sweat is also getting rid of the toxins, getting rid of some bacteria, fungus, and everything in the body that is parasitical. It is very beneficial also for general acne, but do not put too much chili that it wouldn't be so tasteful to you. It also improves the liver and cleanses the body from all parasites. So we leave it for cooking. We go to the next dish. The next dish is one specialty, my personal favorite in the last month. This is made out of pumpkin seed flour. You know pumpkin seeds? They are made into flour. Then we are going to bake a bread with this flour. We need 200 grams of pumpkin seed flour. Salt, not too much, because the flour is already salty. We add a little bit of turmeric, of course. We can also add a little bit of cumin powder. Then we nicely mix it. You can add a few drops of olive oil, not too much. The one special ingredient is called psyllium. Psyllium is a plant that is used in India, all over India, as a helper for good digestion. It can create good bowel movements in a person. It is, in fact, being used with the help of water. Psyllium and water make good bowel movements. But for us, it is very important because this psyllium helps this pumpkin seed flour and sunflower seeds to get compact. Psyllium is a special plant used in India to ensure good function of the vessel. It is used with the help of water, and then it simply turns the bowl, turns the peristaltic, and cleans the vessel. In our case, this combination is very convenient; it is necessary because it binds our whole mixture. This would not bind without psyllium. We use one and a half spoons of psyllium, and we mix it nicely. Add water slowly and mix it. Psyllium is growing and connecting this mixture. We have this mold for bread. We take it and immediately—this is very important—we immediately put it in a bread mold. Now we use our hand just to get it right. We press it with our hands. You see, it is very compact already. We leave it for five minutes to press it all together, and then we put it to bake at 180 degrees for 30 minutes. Our kurma is nearly ready. I must tell you a little bit about the Falahārī diet. This is very beneficial for us all. Swāmījī is very much, I don't want to say advertising, but making us think about going to a Falahārī diet. I myself, for two years, followed the Falahārī diet. I have to say something about the Falahārī diet, as Swāmījī has been recommending it for a few years for all of us. I have been on the Falahārī diet for two years, and I follow this diet. From an Āyurvedic point of view, for each and every one of us, it is beneficial to use one deciliter of cow's milk a day. Because milk is very much influencing all the tissues in the body, building the tissues, and very much beneficial for our joints. The milk should be organic, but the milk should not be homogenized. It can be pasteurized, but please do not use homogenized milk. Use pasteurized, not homogenized milk. The next dish will be tapioca kheer. Tapioca is a very nice plant. It is growing all over India and in Africa also. It can be called tapioca from the plant manioka. Tapioca is a special plant that grows in Africa and India, from the plant manioka. These balls are made from it, which will be used as a cure. This tapioca is also used in Falahārī. As well, you can use a little bit of yellow mūṅg dāl in a Falahārī diet, and if you like, from time to time, a little quantity of tofu. So no grains, no other lentils, but you can use a little bit of yellow mūṅg dāl. It is very beneficial. I was thinking and reading from the Āyurvedic point of view: yellow mung dal is very beneficial for the whole body, creating all the tissues in the body, except the fat tissue. I thought about it, and I read about it. Why yellow mung bean? Yellow mung bean, unlike any other mahogany, builds all the tissue in the body except for the solid tissue. So it is not fat, but it gives energy; it gives good protein. So in Falahārī, no mahogany is used except for a little yellow mung bean. Our last dish will be tapioca kheer. The first thing is to soak tapioca. This tapioca, you soak in milk for at least one hour. Our soup is also ready. In 20 minutes, it is cooked. We put tapioca for cooking and add more milk—at least three times more milk, because tapioca is also getting very much dissolved into this milk. We add twice as much milk to this soaked tapioca. We soaked tapioca for at least an hour. In tapioca, we add cardamom powder, a little. This is cardamom, but this is powder we already made. Cardamom is also very beneficial for our heart and lungs, very much creating strength in these two systems. If you want to add some natural sweetener, you can add it also, or at the end, you can add a little bit of honey inside. You must stir it from time to time. Tapioca can be glued to the bottom. We don't want this, so from time to time you have to stir it and add a little bit of milk. We cook it for half an hour to get this nice kheer. It is very good to add saffron inside; also a very good spice. Now, back to our soup. This is the first part. Now we mix it with a mixer to create this nice, thick soup. In the meantime, we create the spices. Another way of putting spices in the food is to create a tarka. We fry the spices in olive oil and put them in the thick soup at the end. You can use a small pot or something convenient for you. In the soup, we put garlic, also one famous spice we all know in our countries, very beneficial and healthy for us. We crush the garlic, put a little olive oil, warm it up, and in this soup we put ajvājn. Ajvājn is one famous spice because it is very much cleaning the slime and the toxins out of the body, and very much creating balance and working against gases in the body. Ajwain is a special spice that cleans the saliva, that cleans the āma, the untouched substance from the body, and it works against the winds, against swelling. We put one teaspoon of ajwain and one teaspoon of jīrā. Jeera, Indian cumin, is very good for Jāṭharāgni. It is very beneficial for the good absorption of all vital things from the food. Then we fry a little bit of garlic just for a few seconds and put it into the soup. We put it in the soup, which we have already mixed. At the end, if you want to garnish with a little coriander leaves or parsley leaves, very good. Today we made the bread, we made kurma, we made nice, thick soup for improving the whole system in the body and creating good blood. We made tapioca kheer, and we also have a green salad. On this green salad, we only put olive oil, a little bit of salt, and lemon juice instead of vinegar. Also, very beneficial according to Āyurveda. On this salad, we only put olive oil, lemon juice, and Himalayan salt instead of anything else, because it is a much better combination according to Āyurveda. That's it. I would like to show you our prepared meal. Of course, we prepared a little bit earlier for you to see. This is our complete meal. Here you see our thick soup for creating good blood. Here you see our tapioca kheer. Here you see our salad. Here you see kurma, and here you see bread. How to eat it? You can start with something that is heavier for digesting. According to Āyurveda, it is either salad or sweet. So, you can start either with salad or sweet, and then eat everything together. How are you going to eat this dish? This is thick soup, which creates good blood; salad; curry made from vegetables and coconut milk; and bread. How to eat it? You can start with the most difficult one, which is either salad or kheer, and then continue to combine all the flavors. Hari Om, thank you very much for your attention. We are here at the Summer Yoga and Daily Life Seminary. You are free to join us. We are here at least seven or eight more days, and we will see you soon.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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