Doing More Harm than Good?
July 15, 2010 
Carrisa 
Ahimsa. The practice of non-harming. For many Yogis, we believe this holds true to all living creatures. From the cockroach that just jumped out of nowhere, to the big brown-eyed Betsy that was just served to you atop of a bun with ‘the works’ and a side of fries.
For years, I was a vegetarian for this exact reason. I couldn’t bare the thought of consuming something that was once a beautiful, living creature. I watched the PETA videos, encouraged others to watch them as well, and converted my meat-and-potato hubby to a veggie-lover! I was a ‘Vegetarian Times’ Beater (that was my Bible). So since we didn’t eat meat, we had to eat something else. We filled our bodies with pasta, breads, rice, beans, and frozen products in the red box and green box designed to look and taste like meat… ya know, the processed crap. Quick question: How do you start with a happy little green bean (edamame/soybean) and process it to the point that it not only resembles a boneless chicken wing, but taste like it too. That can’t be healthy. Soy, Wheat and their bi-products make up a majority of meat-less products. After years of our meatless meals, it began to take a toll on my family’s G.I. system. We found a resistance building within our bodies to Soy and Gluten (aka. wheat).
For anyone who isn’t familiar with Gluten Intolerance, this includes: Pasta. Rice & corn pasta is gluten free, but again, another processed food. Breads. If you want to taste something gross, try gluten-free bread. Gluten is even found in places that you would never imagine like potato chips, soy sauce, salad dressings, and most soups. It is in just about everything. Many people have an aversion to Gluten, but do not even know it. If we stop to think about what we are eating, if it has gluten or soy then it is processed. Processed foods are something that Mother Nature did not intend for us to eat.
So by practicing Ahimsa in its truest form (again, non-harming) are we actually harming ourselves?
Stay tuned! Next, we are going Paleo…
Namaste’
Carrisa
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You are raising great issues! Thank you!
As a health practitioner for the past 17 years, it was hard for me to decide to be vegetarian, since all my training emphasized the importance of protein for balancing hormones and metabolism. But it happened almost in spite of myself, though my yoga practice. I had already eliminated gluten and soy for health reasons. After a few years, though, I came back to feeling that I was not getting enough protein to sustain my Ashtanga practice plus 8-10 clients a day plus being a single mom, homeowner, and business owner. So I began eating fish again. When I am on vacation, in a stress-free zone, a vegetarian diet is sufficient, but with the normal level of stress in life, it’s not. And it’s not bad stress at all, just the stress of a typical 21st century life.
It is certainly possible to be a gluten free soy free vegetarian and even vegan, and eat no or minimal processed foods, and I help my clients to do that if they so choose. But it is NOT possible to be healthy if you are eating foods that you are sensitive to, and at least 30% of people have a genetic predisposition to gluten sensitivity. 90% of them don’t know it. And soy is suppressive to the thyroid, and estrogenic in not particularly good ways.
I’ll look forward to hearing about your experience with the Paleo diet!
Hey, I really like this blogpost, because this is one of the things which I often have in my mind.
I am vegetarian and now I really couln`t imagine to eat meat.
But even if I take the way of Yoga and ahimsa as serious as I can, I also ask myself if I break this “rule” with eating no meat. I often become warned by people who were vegetarians for years and then they really became health broblems. When they ate meat again, they felt better.
Its really a interesting question.
What I want to say is, that I don`t judge people or yogis for eating meat.
There are so many discussions in the internet where vegetarian yogis are so mean to yogis who eat meat and tell them they weren`t real yogis.
Everybody, even in Yoga should decide for himself without being judged.
Yoga practice, particularly meditation, makes you more aware. If you listen your body will tell you what it needs. Sometimes that may be raw food, sometimes vegan, vegetarian or sometimes animal products.
What works at one time in your life may change and you need to be flexible enough to change with it. That flexibility of the mind is more important than flexibility of the body.
Yoga is a lot more than a series of physical exercises. EveryOne is welcome to practice yoga no matter what they eat, or what habits they have, that which is harmful will drop away by itself just from the practice of yoga and meditation itself.
Peace, Love and Harmony,
OM