Get your Goat …

goat ayurveda stew.jpg

Recently I was at the conference of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA) in Seattle. All the meals served were vegetarian & most did not follow Ayurvedic principles. There seems to be confusion over the consumption of meat in Ayurveda. Many people believe that Ayurveda is a proponent of vegetarianism. & it is true that many Vaidyas (ayurvedic doctors) & practitioners are vegetarians. But the reason for this has more to do with due to the Hindu faith, the precepts of Yoga, the influence of modern medicine, concerns over environmental impact of meat production or the quality of our meat supply. There are plenty of reasons to follow a vegetarian diet. However, Ayurveda is not an intrinsically vegetarian practice. Like neti pots, pranayama, and chakras-- vegetarianism is a concept that modern Ayurveda borrowed from Yoga & Hinduisms. Ayurveda itself precedes Hinduism as we know it & traces it's roots into the Vedic world of 5000 years ago. Meat (& other animal products) were certainly eaten by those who could afford them & are still used in Ayurvedic medicine & wellness. The intrinsic qualities of & uses for meat (everything from peacock to lion) are discussed in detail in the Samhitas (ancient ayurvedic texts).

In general meats are seen to be:

  •  sweet by taste (earth & water element)

  • energetically heating

  • heavy (hard to digest)

  • oily (unctuous).

  • Meat reduces Vata, increase Kapha & Pitta.

  • Meat increases shukra dhatu (reproductive vigor)

  • increases strength

  • increases urine (nope. can't explain that)

The texts say that the best meat comes form animals that lived in the wild. The closest that most of us can come to this is ranch raised.

The best meats come from desert regions: goat, deer, rabbit, maybe ostrich. These meats are lean and dense -- indicating that they are light to digest & yet nourishing.

Goat is the one of these meats that most of us can get readily. Having grown up with goats I will also confirm that goats do not tolerate the kinds of chemicals, drugs, hormones that are found in other commercial livestock. They just keel over & die rather than be polluted. So the goat you find in a Mexican or Halal market will be pretty healthy as a rule.

Animals that spend their time in swamps or water will be heavy & quickly lead to obesity, diabetes, & other Kapha disorders.This category includes pork & water buffalo.

Beef is heavy & when eaten by those with even slightly weak digestions will cause agni to be extinguished.

Chickens are stupid, & eating them will make you stupid (OK this is actually my personal feeling). Their meat is aphrodisiac, heavy to digest & will lead to obesity. I have also heard chicken is tamasic-- leading to darkness & lethargy of the mind.

For those of us with meat-eating ancestry, who grew up with meat on the table, eating meat is satmya (what we are best nourished by). We will feel better if we have some occasionally & if we find ourselves in a sick or weakened state meat broth is often just the right thing to rebuild strength. But please consider these statistics: in 1970 the average American ate a total of 168 pounds per year of Beef, Chicken, Pork, & Turkey. This was when the move towards vegetarianism was first coming on the scene. In 2005 the average  annual meat consumption per capita was 185 pounds. 

We live on a world that can nary afford us to be wasteful of resources & meat production is immensely wasteful. Thank the gods that India is 80% vegetarian & China still thinks of meat more as a flavoring than anything else.

It is clear that being a responsible global citizen means we keep our meat consumption to a minimum. Hard core vegetarian politics have done nothing to slow the consumption of meat (the killing of animals for food) in the US.  I feel another tactic would work better.

  • Use meat in a way that respects your body & the lives of the animals that die for your nourishment.

  • Use meat as a medicine when weak

  • Have meat extra nourishment when doing a lot of physical work

  • Add meat as a minor element in dishes to add flavor (salt pork yum!)

  • Make meat a food for celebrations and special occasions, not everyday eating.

Source: Savour


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