FOR OVER 20 years now, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, the founder of Isha Foundation, a non-profit organisation that offers yoga programmes around the world, has not only been feeding the souls of those looking for spiritual nourishment, he has also been facilitating the rather everyday and literal necessity of ‘feeding’ as well. His new book is called A Taste of Well-Being and is a collection of recipes that have been perfected over 20 years. They range from healthy juices and salads to full-fledged dishes. In the yogic tradition, food is ‘alive’ and has a life force of its own.
Hence, its consumption should be carefully monitored, for what we eat impacts our body and mind. While slow food movements are all the rage now, Sadhguru, as he is popularly called, tells us how we ate much before all kinds of cuisines were accessible to us. Take, for example, the much vaunted move towards eating local. I have, in my interactions with chefs, perceived a shift in conversations. While once there was a lament over not enough international ingredients being available in India, today, they speak of using local produce and highlighting it as one of the USPs of their restaurants. It’s presented to you through all kinds of prisms—’reduce the carbon footprint’, ‘sustainable development of local suppliers’, ‘better quality control of ingredients’, ‘cost-effectiveness’, etc—but what Sadhguru’s book reminds us of, rather effortlessly, is that this has always been the way. We have always traditionally eaten what was locally available and it worked for our bodies.
Another vexatious issue of our times is the fad of ‘diets’. The last column was about actor Gwyneth Paltrow’s signature smoothie. It is made with ashwagandha, an ‘exotic’, but very familiar ingredient that is known to soothe anxiety, a modern-day malaise. The furore over this recipe and its expensive ingredients, including ashwagandha, caused a storm in the global tea cup. For those, who wish to try out the smoothie, this ‘exotic’ ingredient costs a mere Rs 68 for a bottle in India.
Sadhguru acknowledges the influence of celebrity diets that confuse and set impossible standards of adherence, pushing us back into the cycle of failure, body image issues and helplessness. Increasingly, the people who are listening to their bodies are understanding that the change has to be deeper and that we must pay closer attention to ‘what’ we eat as opposed to ‘how much’ we eat. This book attempts to explain how the food we eat impacts our body’s lifeforce, as it mingles with it. Sounds like mumbo jumbo? It’s not. The test lies in trying out the easy-to-make flavourful dishes (all vegetarian) given in the book—even an unusual combination of carrots and pears makes for a rejuvenating juice to kickstart one’s day with.
The more boring stop-gap meals of the day—recommended by even Bollywood dieticians—like a green gram sprout salad, are given a delicious and mischievous twist by Sadhguru, with a dressing made of honey, olive oil and lemon juice, making it just as healthy, but far more tasty.
This book awakens you to healthy eating, but does not demand unnecessary sacrifices and herein lies its charm. One can eat healthy, but can also enjoy a banana pancake if made the right way and with the right ingredients. The recipe includes ingredients like flax seeds, jaggery, Sanjeevani powder and cinnamon. Sadhguru also places a lot of emphasis on digestion. It’s not only about how the food tastes, but also the work it does inside the body and how much it makes your body work. All this makes A Taste of Well-Being a very wholesome recipe book, one that will complement your need to eat healthy, pranic and tasty.
Advaita Kala is a writer, most recently of the film Kahaani. She is also a former hotelier having worked in restaurants
in India and abroad
