Mahatma Ghandi Diet

Ingredients

It took Gandhi 35 long years to evolve a healthy diet that helped him to keep fit and wage a war that required all his energy and determination. The diet consists of these ingredients:

• 1 litre of goat’s or cow’s milk
• 170 g cereals
• 85 g leafy vegetables
• 140 g other vegetables
• 30 g raw vegetables
• 40 g ghee
• 60 g butter
• 40 g jaggery or sugar
• fruits according to one’s taste and purse
• 2 sour limes (juice taken with vegetables or in water, cold or hot)
• salt according to taste
  

Goat's milk

For Gandhi, food was an integral part of shaping the human consciousness. Which is why he carried out a number of experiments over many years to find the perfect diet. Though Gandhi is associated with vegetarianism and milk, he actually abstained from milk for a period of six years, considering it an animal product. In 1917, when he was bed-ridden, doctors compelled him to take milk. He, however, did not want to break his vow of not consuming cow's milk. Thus began his now-famous goat-milk diet. According to a comparison made by Dr P.P. Bose, who has been studying dietary habits, the xanthine oxidase in cow-milk is capable of damaging the heart and arteries. On the other hand, glycerol ethers are higher in goat's milk, which is an important source of nutrition for an infant. Goat's milk also has greater amounts of vitamin A, as well as minerals, calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, chlorine and manganese.

Wheat & Rice

Gandhi emphasised wheat and rice in a diet, with cereals holding the second place. He felt that cereals should be taken relatively dry for mastication and proper digestion. This was followed by fruits and vegetables. He stressed that fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables should be eaten raw.

Jaggery

"Gandhi," explains Dr Bose, "was far ahead of his time. What he proclaimed 50 years ago is now being promoted as the ideal diet pattern." Gandhi expressed his preference for jaggery over sugar. Because, as Dr Bose explains, "sugar goes directly into blood, raising the sugar level, and the excess sugar gets converted into calorie or fat. Jaggery, however, takes more time to masticate, thus resulting in a slower rise in sugar level".

Ghee

Gandhi did not think it necessary to eat pulses if milk was included in the diet. "He consumed small quantities of pure ghee," informs Dr Bose. "Since this was derived from milk, it was more like an unsaturated fat, which is not cholesterol forming." For Gandhi, the welfare of people living in the villages was the first priority. So, he worked with many nutritionists to derive a diet-chart that gave maximum nutrition at minimum cost. Even Gandhi's concept of fasting, which revolutionalized non-violent resistance, had its health benefits.

Fasting

"Occasional fasting," says Dr Bose, "is indeed beneficial for the body and restores normal functioning of the digestive system."
Gandhi said: "When food submerses the body, and through the body the soul, its relish disappears, and then alone does it begin to function in the way nature intended it to."