The state of our bodies is genetically destined to some degree. 

The rest we construct ourselves, largely from the food we 

eat. Experts and mock experts debate ceaselessly about how we 

ought to feed ourselves, and diets go in and out of style more 

rapidly than hemlines or hairdos. Yoga philosophy, however, 

which has always had a lot to say about living physical life in 

accordance with spiritual laws, hasn’t changed its basic dietary 

recommendation for over two thousand years. It is: Choose pure foods, and enjoy them in moderate amounts. 

The yogis classify foods, and everything else for that matter, in groups called gunas, the basic characteristics of creation. The three gunas are tamasic, the quality of gravity; rajasic, the quality of motion; and sattvic, the quality of light. 

Tamasic foods are those considered lifeless. They include anything stale or tasteless; leftovers of more than twenty-four hours and anything that’s been in the freezer for a long time; also aged cheese, alcoholic beverages, deep-fried fare, and all highly processed foods with chemical additives. The teaching is that too many of these promote lethargy and fatigue and lessen our sensitivity to beauty and virtue. 

Rajasic foods–meat, eggs, refined sugar and soft drinks, stimulants like coffee, and dishes with fiery spices and lots of salt–set our body rhythms at full speed ahead. When taken in excess, these can add to our stress levels and make us driven and high-strung. 

Balancing these two extremes are the simple, natural 

sattvic foods, including fresh fruits, raw or lightly cooked 

vegetables, whole grains and brown breads, beans, nuts, 

and raw honey. It is believed that eating 

predominantly sattvic foods is healing and calming, sharpens 

the mind, supports spiritual growth, and keeps the body’s 

channels clean. This produces the glow of good health as evi- 

denced by radiant skin, a strong, flexible body, and a well- 

functioning immune system. The ancient Indians had a name 

for this glow, ojas, which they defined as the physiologic 

expression of bliss: a nonstop, underlying happiness that per- 

sists even through trying times. Foods said to be especially 

ojas-producing include: 

Barley: You can buy whole barley at a natural food store 

and prepare it as a hot cereal or use it in soup to replace 

rice or noodles; 

Basmati rice: An aromatic, nutty-flavored rice available 

in both brown and white varieties at most supermarkets; 

Mung beans:The bean sprouts used in Chinese cooking 

are usually mung bean sprouts; you can also buy quick- 

cooking mung dhal,split mung beans, at Indian markets 

and some grocery stores; 

Sesame seeds: Toss a tablespoon into a smoothie or 

sprinkle some on a salad; discover tahini (sesame butter) 

and halvah (sesame candy) at health food stores and in 

the foreign foods aisle of the supermarket; 

Blanched almonds: Buy them already blanched (they’re 

sold inexpensively in the bulk barrels at many natural 

foods stores), or buy plain raw almonds, cover them with 

boiling water, let them sit a couple of minutes, and pop 

off the skins yourself; 

Fresh fruits, particularly dates, figs, and oranges: Buy 

organically grown fruit whenever you can; grapes, peaches, 

apples, pears, and berries tend to be heavily sprayed and 

should be organic if at all possible. When you’re buying 

dried fruit like figs, look for the kind that have no sul- 

phur added. Because dried fruit is very sweet, you may 

want to soak it in pure water for a few hours so it more 

nearly resembles its fresh state when you eat it. 

Good food choices are half of the yogic dietary equation. 

The other is moderation. A commentary on the Bhagavad Gita 

reads, “Even nectar becomes poison when eaten too much.” 

Modern science concurs, noting that a common theme among 

people who live healthfully into their nineties and beyond is a 

lifetime of moderate eating. Moderation is actually the flip side 

of dieting, that is, imposed deprivation. It is instead choosing 

foods that are so delicious, so delightful to look at and to smell, 

and so satisfying to the appetite and to the body’s trillions of 

nutrition-seeking cells that the need to overeat can be arrested 

at its source. 

An additional way to guard against eating to excess is to 

give your body digestion time between meals. Nonstop eating 

causes more than weight gain: it causes energy loss. Digesting 

food is an energy-intensive process. Piling more food on top of 

what hasn’t been digested yet hinders the process, causing 

fatigue. Some people have medical conditions that require them 

to eat frequently, but the rest of us would do well to take the 

yogic path and stick with three meals a day. “Nothing in 

between?” I asked my first yoga teacher, somewhat shocked, 

when she suggested this. “Living in between,” she told me. 

An excerpt from Lit from Within, (c) 2003, Victoria Moran,

publisher: HarperSanFrancisco, an imprint of 

HarperCollins