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Part 1: A Holistic Perspective on Nutrition Hari Om, very good morning to all. Let me welcome here Mr. Škvařil, who is going to tell us something about healthy eating. Thank you so much, and thanks to Swamījī who gave me the trust to talk to you today. For the beginning, I would like to tell you one thought for a good mood. I was given a task to talk to you about nutrition, and I would like to tell you something from a better, higher perspective. There are four parts and four qualities that we should follow. The first one is the quality of energy and all the vitamins and nutrition that there should be. The second part is the individual part of the nutrition: not to eat too much, that we eat as much as we need, but not more. The third part is that the food should have enough vitality that we feel comfortable, nicely. The fourth part is not individually about the food, but it’s the surroundings around the food. That means if you pray before eating, or what mood the people who cook the food were in. And that’s it, very easy. What prevents understanding of nutrition is the angle of perspective from which we look at food. 99% of the nutritionists speak about a certain amount of feeding, let’s say. That means how much minerals and vitamins you need in order for your body to work properly. Nobody really understands that we have not only physical needs, but also mental needs. And we know that there are Praetorians, who are people who eat only, or they live only through prāṇa, so we can see that the mental, psychical need is more dominant. I would dare to say in the field of yoga that God gave us the nutrition and food only to observe ourselves, to get to know ourselves. So the key point of view is not to eat so we can move, but to see the food as a means of getting to know ourselves. Most of the energy that we have is not from food. And the Praetorians show us that we don’t even have the nutrients that we seem to have. We don’t have to have them. The body is so brilliant that it can process or transform the nutrients from the environment, from the energy, directly into the body. And Praetorians show us that we do not really need the nutrition from the food, but we can perceive the nutrition from the surroundings, from prāṇa. That does not necessarily mean for us that we should become preterians, but it is just enough to realize that we do not need that much food. We need more prāṇa. In Střílky, if you eat the same amount as you ate at home, you will find that you are tired and exhausted. Practically, you can tell yourself, when you come to Střílky and you eat that same amount of food that you ate at home, that now you are more exhausted now when you are here. Despite the fact that the food here is of high quality. Where do you see the problem? Does that ever happen to you? Imagine that the problem could be that there is enough prāṇa, and that for you it is enough to eat, it is enough to have a little food. So, do the research yourself. If you are here and you feel tired, try to cut down on the food to half, maybe. One of the signs that this is okay is that you are not hungry. So I will now come back to the quality. It’s about the quality of nutrition in the food. And energy, I mean from the proteins, lipids, and saccharides. You know, the sugar and the fat. The biggest problem is that our reality point of view is completely false. What do I mean by this? For example, the statement, "Milk is good for quality bones." A lot of more causes of osteoporosis? It’s exactly the other way around. Until the year 2002, two people thought that animal and plant proteins had the same quality. If the sources of proteins are from animals, they do not have the protective part. The main protective part in this is fiber. Fiber and so-called antioxidants. These substances, for example, do not contain the animal parts. And if the percentage of animal proteins, one of which rises over a certain amount, then diseases, so-called civilizational diseases, arise. If the percentage of this income is too high, then there are certain diseases. From the scientific point of view, it’s not necessary to cut down the meat completely. The need is to reduce the animal products to, let’s say, just 10%. But from the global point of view of health, it is necessary to reuse the meal at all. It’s because of the environmental problems, that means the animal production effect on nature. Because of the pollution of the environment, the next reason is we are not able to live on this amount of production. So one way is to reduce the population of people from seven billion to just one. Or that the people became vegetarians, vegans, and they won’t be greedy. They won’t be wanting more and more. So, which of these ways are you for? This question is very broad, and you probably heard about this. What I would like to speak about is the individualization of the food. You are completely stuffed, but you greet, you want more. The eyes want more. That means the food that you ate was made of things that you needed. That’s why it’s important to have food that consists of the things you need, that you do your individual food. There are certain theories. These things? All these theories explain how to adapt the food individually. These theories clarify how to individualize the food. Yes, these three: Ayurveda, Makrobiotika. I understand. But this is all extremely complex teaching, and you usually don’t have that much time to study it all. But this is very complicated, and you usually do not have that much time to study this. That’s why we have to do it differently. The basic approach is that we try to organize the food so that we can choose. We try to organize the food that we can choose. That means a big route or talis, where you can choose what you want on bandaras that you know from India. So you choose, you eat as much as you want, and then you eat something else. And then you have the choice. When I was thinking about this, I would give bandaras to all the schools, to school canteens. They do not have to sit on the ground; they could sit at the table. Some children would serve the others. So it is a very high social impact. And it would be the same principle as in India. You will eat as much as you put on your plate. No leftovers. Do you think it’s possible? It wouldn’t be easy to change, but it’s in your head. If we changed the way we eat and said it’s important, Then everything would be fine. It wouldn’t be easy to change, but it’s all in your head, so then it would be easy. And how to do it at home? There’s a big difference if you, the family, like a woman, a mother, or when a man cooks, the one who gives food, if you put it on a plate. It’s a big difference at home, for example, as a wife or if a man cooks, if you serve it on a plate or if you just display it. All the different means, so each person can choose what they want. If you put it all on the plate, then there’s no wonder that if the child doesn’t need it, maybe it didn’t really fit him at the moment. But if you can choose, and you can put on your plate only as much as you want, then maybe you can have a second helping. Then you can put the condition: okay, what you put on the plate you are going to eat. Now imagine that actually you have to ask your own body a few times during the meal, "What would you want to eat? What do you like?" And thus, you naturally build within yourself the ability that animals commonly have. And this way, you are naturally building up the capability that animals usually have naturally. The animal looks from a distance at a meal, and he’s not going to go there because he knows he’s not going to eat it. We have the same capability, but we are under these different statements: milk is good for the bones, and we do not respect our body. There is one more thing that is connected with the psychology of nutrition. We sometimes think that the needs of the body are just the things that the body thinks, "Oh, I need this and I need this," and we are distant from it, like, "I don’t need it, and I wouldn’t eat that much sweets," for example. But the other way around is true. The body just signalizes what we need, what we gave the impact to. If you accept this thought and you are going to test it in your own life, You are going to find out something very interesting. Let’s focus, because it’s a very big secret. If you can eat as much as the body needs, the psychic needs, then you can eat basically anything. Let’s imagine you are craving chocolate. What’s the process like? You eat just one part or one line. It depends on how quickly you eat it. And you are going up with the energy. So you need one more line, one more line. And when you eat the whole bar, you suddenly feel guilty, and you go down with the energy. And you say, "Oh, one shouldn’t eat sweets, I made a sin." But the mistake was, you ate three or ten times more than you needed to satisfy your need. So let’s go back to the story and do it differently. You take only just one part, one square of the chocolate. You put it in your mouth and you are thinking, why am I eating this? Why do I have this craving? And then it may happen that you will stop with the third line. You don’t eat the whole bar. And next time, you realize you stopped at the second line. Vy máte You look all around your previous classmates, and you look, "Well, he looks like this and that." When you come home, you realize that you are not any better. And now you have five years, Simon, only just maybe in the summer for the swimming suit, and that’s it. And now, imagine that in your life, you can have a daily tool for self-reflection through food. So I recommend another point of view for food in this sense. Now, there is the part of vitality. If you want to feel very well after eating. There are certain principles that can help you a lot. For example, fruit and vegetables are cut directly before you eat them. If you can follow the level of nutrition in fruits and vegetables, you can see that after cutting, it reduces very quickly, and it’s due to oxidation. We know that lentils are full of nutrition. luštěniny dynamizovat. That means soaking. We should always pour out the water where the lentils were, because there are certain things that are keeping the seed itself sleeping, so we have to pour it out. We soak it overnight; that’s enough to dynamize. The second tool of dynamizing these lentils is that during cooking, you put some vegetables. Best is root vegetables. If you are lazy, you can put just one carrot or one onion, cut it, and put it inside. And when the lentil should be the main thing of the meal, that should have the best taste in spices. So you open the spices. Spices are on oil. You put vegetables, and then you put... Lentils, and you cook it. And then it’s very good. Lehké jídlo. Vital, it’s very light. Now we have the possibility to get oils that have very high quality. Olejnatá semena Oil seeds are very concentrated in terms of nutrition. And the same way, the oils that the seeds were pressed into have a very high nutrition level. But it’s only true for the cold-pressed oils that didn’t get oxidized. That means you took them and ate them directly. And these oils you basically cannot buy. But nowadays, there are machines that I bought myself. In the Czech Republic, it’s around 10,000 Czech crowns. Where you can press as much oil as you need directly for the food that you are cooking. I spoke about it, and they asked me, "What kind of machine is it?" Maybe it’s a special machine for yogīs. Do you know why? Y-O-D-A. Pardon, O-D-A, no, it’s not G, it’s D. Because it’s named Y-O-D-A. It’s Y-O-D-A. Try it, it’s unbelievable. Try it, it’s just imaginable. Y-O-D-A. Y-O-D-A. Now imagine you buy essential oils, you dip yourself in that freshly mixed oil, and you make fantastic cosmetics. Imagine that you have your own cold-pressed oil, and you put some essential oil in it, and you can create your own cosmetics, perfumes. There’s nothing more perfect in the world. These machines were not on the market before, but now we can use them. I don’t have to talk to you about praying before food because you are more educated than the normal population, probably. So I would give some space for questions, if you have any, to what I just said. I have a question about hṛdaya. Frying always reduces the nutrition of the food. It’s a difference if you use a fat that has a high temperature resistance and the food that has enough antioxidants. When you cook, there are certain things that are created while heating the food, which are not so good for you. And now it’s important. Which food does not contain antioxidants? As we said at the beginning, which ones are they? Which ones are these? Those are the animal products, animal meals. So if you fry it, you are on it less worse than if you cook, for example, a vegetable or fry a vegetable, than, for example, a piece of cheese. So if a person who eats normally fries a little vegetable, he’s better than if he ate beef or some kind of meat. For a yogī, it’s important: if he has a real craving for the fried stuff and he eats it, then he’s happy and satisfied. And as we said, it’s very, very important. The normal white flour doesn’t have antioxidants anymore. The wheat itself had them, but we get rid of them while making the flour. And the pea is completely opposite; it’s full of nutrition. So if you put the vegetable into the pea flour, hraška, then you feel more satisfied. And that’s the magic, that we kind of get closer to reality, and we can cope with our normal life. With Hraška, it’s easier that you can fry it at 150 degrees; usually, it’s 180 for other stuff. If you want to master these technologies well, buy a meter, the infra, it costs today from 800, but it will pay you, because you will learn to perceive what the temperature is only by looking at it. Thermometer, but it’s really good because you get to know in time, just by the look at it, how high the temperature is. So you do 20, 30 measurements, and after sometimes you already know by the way the oil smells and looks how high the temperature is. And that’s important when you fry vegetables, if you know it well. So measure it and try to view the reality. Know how it is. One more question. I would just like to ask if you could say something about soy extruded products, which are written that they are not genetically modified. What do you know? What do you think about it? Please, tell us. Thank you. If you can tell something about soy progress that is GMO-free. If they are modified or not, it’s very difficult to distinguish with the soya products. The markers that are used in the factories, if it’s GMO modified or not, are made by Monsanto. So, they decide if you will know if it’s GMO or not. I think for these things, it’s most important to get to know your own body and to have the perception, because your body is the best tool, how to say, to know if it’s good or not. It’s perfect. You have it still with you, and it’s free. So in this world where there are a lot of false things and stuff, it’s the only way to feel secure. The pressure in Europe is that there will be no new labels for GMO products, and in America it has already passed. So you will only have one choice: your own body. Try to practice yourself. I give you some ways how to do it. I wanted to thank Jarek that he’s speaking. Actually, that’s really true that our body is the main tool which can tell us how we should eat. And I wanted just to add some information which Is very helpful. It’s something called mindful eating. Which will help us to actually realize what we eat and what is good for us. It’s the way that you actually notice the food with all your senses. You look at it carefully, you eat it, and you enjoy the taste slowly, you smell how it smells, and it will actually slow down the speed at which you consume the food. Part 2: The Art of Mindful Eating and Nourishment Because you have eaten this way several times, and you have actually slowed down the process of eating—because you have not thrown the food into yourself—the center in the brain which signals that you have had enough has time to register. The food has time to really taste good and for glucose levels to rise, and so you do not eat so much. The way you consume food with many senses, slowing down the process, allows your brain's regulatory center, which is based on glucose regulation, enough time to tell you, "Stop, I'm fine, I'm finished." So, I am just adding that it is very good to use all your senses for the food. There are many aspects to this that can be scientifically proven. A lady asked about cooking instructions: when you cook a dish, the instructions say it must be cooked for 20 minutes. This is extremely important because, as we said, food contains various substances that do not benefit you. When you read the label, there are many substances unprofitable for humans. By soaking items like lentils—or, in the case of flour, by applying longer heat treatment instead of soaking—you eliminate the impact of these substances. That is why proper processing is so incredibly important. This principle applies not only to plastics but to many things. For example, in lentils, there are some particles not good for our body, and we can eliminate them by soaking. With flour, whether from peas or other sources, you do not soak it; that is why you have to cook it for 20 minutes to get rid of these particles. You have to cook it extra. Yes, that's right. Regarding cooking methods: if you want to make spinach, you shouldn't cook it at all if you want it raw. If you want to incorporate it into a cooked dish, you have to cook it separately, perhaps in a bechamel sauce, and then mix it in, heating it only as much as the other ingredients require. You've solved it very correctly. One improvement: if I want my vegetable to be half-cooked, then I need to cook the flour or thickening agent separately and then put it inside. No, no, no. In frying, we have a much higher temperature. The question is whether it's necessary to fry for 20 minutes. When cooking, the temperature is around 80 to 90 degrees Celsius, and with frying it is 180. That is approximately twice as much, which means half the time. Which oils are good for frying? There are three kinds of oils, and essential oils don't have... sorry, I don't know the word... saturated fats, unsaturated fats. These essential oils get oxidized very quickly with cooking. For example, butter burns because there are residues of proteins and saccharides. That is why the butter is overcooked. You can fry with clarified butter (ghee), because by overcooking it, you got rid of these residues of proteins and saccharides. One more thing: the monounsaturated fatty acids—olive oil and rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, and rapeseed oil—have an advantage. Rapeseed oil? No, we have to sort it out because everything is relative; this is not absolute. We said that ghee belongs to saturated fatty acids, but we have to clarify it; otherwise, it would burn even earlier than anything else. Then there are plant-based oils which have a majority of saturated fatty acids, like coconut and palm oil. Palm oil and coconut oil have the main part of saturated... and there is a negative point of view against these oils because of ecology, due to the cutting down of rainforests, etc. But where these oils are used the most is for petrol, not for food. This is not the case for coconut oil, so it's not as ecologically difficult with coconut oil as with palm oil. These oils have very good qualities for heating. Sometimes they say they are not very good for nutrition, but it's because they are compared with animal fats. Statistically, it is proven that when you consume more of those animal fats, which have those saturated fatty acids, it is related to increased mortality from so-called civilizing diseases. Often you hear that palm oil and coconut oil are not nutritionally sound, but it's because they are compared with meat oils. It's statistically proven that if you consume a lot of animal fat, it's bad for your cholesterol level. But in regions where there are a lot of coconuts and they consume a lot of coconut oil, there are not such problems like high cholesterol. So, the concern with palm oil is only about ethics, regarding the rainforest being cut down. But for cooking and frying, palm oil is very good because it takes the heat very well. So, it's relative. I just wanted to add one experience about the point of mindful eating. I was inspired for this maybe 25–30 years ago by a book by Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov, a Romanian master. The title of the book was The Yoga of Nourishment. He didn't speak at all about nourishment, only about the question: how should we eat? He simply says to take eating as a chance to meditate. That means the food is your only concentration point. No music or TV in the background, no newspaper, no conversation. Only concentrate on the food. And, of course, prepare it with a prayer, with a mantra. Then, let's say you eat a banana. You take a bite, close your mouth, and taste it. Then you think: how is the banana growing? What is all necessary? The wind, the rain, the people who are actually working for you. When it's ripe, how it's harvested, how it comes then to the wholesale market, to the shop, how it came to you. Mentally you thank all these people who worked for you. So automatically you will already think a little bit about the choice of your food. When you become aware like this—and by the way, you may become a vegetarian—because when you eat a steak and you close your eyes and think, "What is this steak? Where does the steak grow?" you suddenly realize, "Oh, it's actually a part of an animal, and I have to thank someone who is killing that animal." So it's a really spiritual process. Then, when you have chewed it, you actually stop a moment and say, "Do I need more? Yes." Then you take the next bite. So you eat much slower, and you eat much more consciously. I tell you, two results will come of that. First, this one banana, which we now consume consciously as an example, you will remember two weeks later. Because mostly we eat so unconsciously that already the next day we don't remember what we ate. The other result is you know exactly how much you need. I was practicing it sometimes, even when I was working in a job and eating in the canteen. I tell you honestly, it was sometimes like a bell was ringing, "Enough," and I looked at my plate. I had about 60% of what I had put there, and it was strange for me to stop, but my body clearly gave me a signal: it's enough. So that's my own experience with this mindful eating. Thank you. Gajānanda, thank you for such a nice talk. It reminded me of what happened to me in the 80s when I started with yoga. Not everybody understood my obsession with food, and some people said that Škvařil wants to eat himself to Nirvāṇa. And Gajānanda just proved it's possible. Concerning the amount of food, I see that's a subject interesting for you. Often we eat more than we need because of tiredness. Usually, we don't estimate very well that the tiredness is caused by a lack of a different type of energy than the energy from food. How do we recognize it? You eat the food, you put one spoon after another without a break, and you cannot help yourself. There is a weird power in you which forces you to just stuff yourself. When you already realize this, you are already pretty far. You can just make an experiment: go to the bathroom, wash your hands and feet up to the elbows and knees, and have a shower. Then you realize that you start eating slower, that you actually bite the food, and when you finish, then you use the hand to put another food in your mouth. Do you eat when you are tired? Are there any questions? It looks like there are no more questions, so I was probably a good lecturer. Thank you very much. Thank you. So there is a question: if someone cannot eat milk products—they are intolerant—but the person feels that something is missing because she cannot eat them. Can she specify if it's milk that is missing, or does she feel that something is missing generally? She feels that something is missing, not specifically milk. I also told her that it's more like for a doctor. No, no, no. Let's look at the fact that we don't want to go to the doctor. We have to look at it that we don't want to go to a doctor. I'm a doctor, by the way, so you can ask me. But if we don't want to go to a doctor and want to manage ourselves... The recommendation is that you should try a food supplement, and if you don't feel better after this, you should not use it and try a different one. But you can get overdosed. There are foods that are not sufficient for today's diet. It's a hot topic, but for us vegetarians, it can also be iodine. There are things which are missing in today's food. Could be, for example, iodine for vegetarians. In our country, we have iodized salt. And also, a lot of iodine is put into colored drinks. But if you overdose over 1,000 micrograms, it gets toxic and you can really get poisoned. There is a lot of iodine in milk because they give it to cows to reduce diseases. So if you have some normal salt, not iodized, no milk, and no colored drink, you can have not enough iodine in you. Today, it's a big problem because there is big contamination with radiation. So, I would test if you have enough iodine. If you are missing magnesium, you recognize it because you have a big sweet tooth, a craving for chocolate. So you'll find out in the end that you can't deal with chocolate, so after all, you can actually be happy that you are not sinning by eating chocolate, but doing nutritional therapy. So you do it the way that you just test what you are trying to find, and if you find it, you are happy. You feel very good. The usual mistake is that people who recommend nutritional supplements to you would tell you that you have to use them all the time. You should eat them only until you need them, and then stop. It is important that the artificial supplements are not well digestible, that they are not well made, and that it is much better to get nutrients from normal foods. Not all supplements will help you. The problem is that in those foods, the nutrients are not there. I will start speaking German soon. Nowadays, in food, there is not enough nutrition. It's like 30% less than it used to be. She did some research and found out that bio-foods have about 50-150% more of these nutrients than conventionally produced foods. About 150% more of these eco-foods than conventionally produced foods. The daughter of Jaroslav Škvařil made research and actually learned that the ecologically grown crops have much more good food supplements than the normal food, or the good nutritious content. So what is the solution? The solution is to be happy, because if you are happy, you will have so much prāṇic energy that you won't need so much food. The problems start when you get into problems in family, in work, and that's when you start to feel like there is something missing, also in the food. So there are two ways: either be happy, or have quality food, or combine both. Good noon. Life is a different life. If we are healthy, we are alive. If we are in the hospital, we are not alive, just passing the days. Only we can do for ourselves to have health, so movement and nourishment, movement and nourishment bring the brilliant ideas, knowledge. One day we will pass away. So don't think that we will live thousands of years. But if you had good nourishment, good oil—as he said today, the kind of oil; this is a commercial to make petrol, but you should eat other kinds of oil—so it is important. So if you want to live thousands of years, then follow a good diet. Your bones will remain under the earth for thousands of years. Otherwise, the bones will get rotten before your flesh. So good nourishment keeps the bones in the best quality. And when the bones are healthy, automatically all glands, nerves, muscles, ligaments, etc., will be healthy. So nourishment is that which keeps the good foundation. And strong bricks, even the cement falls down, the building will not fall down. So we thank our dear friend. He is not tired, you see. He is older than many of us, but he's acting like a 23-year-old football player. This is because of two things. First, a good wife. A good wife makes her husband's life long. And if the wife is not good... then, you know, the high-positioned officers die before their wives. Because in the office it's okay, he is an officer, but when he comes home, the wife tells, "Can you clean the dishes? I am an ambassador." That I know, but for me you are not ambassador, my husband. Can you clean it? So it is a shock: hot water, cold water, hot water, cold water. So, the husband should not show that he is the director, and the wife should not show that she is a slave. So, mutual understanding, good understanding. The wife keeps the husband healthy, happy, and long-living. And when the husband is happy and relaxed, then the wife has a long life. So it's on both sides. So our family squirrel, they have a perfect balance between husband and wife. And that you can see in the children. In Czech, mostly they say that an apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And the tree is recognized or acknowledged after the fruit. And so are all his children. They are very, very nice, very kind, and very healthy and everything. Now he has one son and five daughters and a wife. So there are two men and five women. Majority, but I think none of them consumes eggs, meat, alcohol, tobacco, etc. Otherwise, you see, your children don't follow you. They eat what they like. They do what they like. So this shows the respect and harmony within the family. That keeps long life. And the second nourishment: so, the partner is with mutual understanding, and eating is nicely balanced, then you understand what is Guru Kṛpā. So then, long, long life, called immortality, that you get through the Guru. So partner, the nourishment, and the master: Brahma, Viṣṇu, and Śiva. Perfect. Thank you very much. It was a very nice two-and-a-half-hour talk, and I was surprised. Even the translator was not tired. And listeners, of course, they enjoyed it. So now go and have your lunch. The afternoon program followed the activities, and we had a very nice program. We had a general meeting about our fellowship, Dharmālaya, about all yogic life organizations, and Śrī Svāmī Madhavānanda World Peace Council. So you will get the information. Thank you. And some are leaving today. They were waiting for a good lecture about eating. So they will go now and empty their fridge. My God, husband will say, "What is a crazy lady?" Yes, but he loves you. Or she loves you.