Feature
nourishment. But it should not be a daily food
that you eat when there areother choices.
There are many ways to look at this.
One thing is animalshave the intelligence to
know in the last few moments that they are
going to get killed, no matter how cunningly
or how scienti¿ cally you do it. Any animal
that has the capacity to express some kind of
emotionwill always grasp when it is going to
be killed.
Suppose all of you come to know right
now that at the end of this day,you are going
to get slaughtered. Imagine the struggle that
you would go through, the burst of chemical
reactions within you. An animal goes through
at least some fraction of that. This means
when you kill an animal, the negative acids
and whatever other chemicals are in the
meat. When you consume the meat, it creates
unnecessary levels of mental À uctuations.
If you put people who are on
antidepressants on a conscious vegetarian
diet, in about three months’ time, most of
them will not need their medication anymore.
We have seen this with many people who
have come to the Isha Yoga Center.
For most of those who have become
mentally ill, the illness has been cultivated
there is nothing pathologically wrong with
them. Such a large percentage of people cannot
be mentally sick unless we are culturing it
within our social fabric. We should never
let commercial forces determine the quality
of our lives. Commerce is there to serve
humanity. But right now, we have structured
the economic engine across the world in such
a way that human beings are here to serve
the economic and commercial process. You
were mentioning the World Economic Forum.
When I was there a few years ago, everyone
was referring to India, China, and other places
as emerging markets.
I said, “Please don’t refer to people as a
market. If you saw them as human beings,
maybe you would get the right idea as to what
to do with them. If you see them as market,
you will do a different thing! This is not a
market. These are people.” If you don’t see
people as people, if you don’t see life as life,
you won’t care what you stuff into them.
You will want to sell something that makes
maximum money for you.
Mark Hyman: Yeah. It’s true. A number
of years ago, I wrote a book called The
UltraMind Solution, which is about how the
body affects the mind. I had seen that a lot of
mental illnesses and cognitive problemswere
shifting as I began to treat people’s overall
health. What I do is something called
functional medicine. It is about the science
of creating health, which is very much what
Sadhguru teaches.
When I began to do that and I saw people’s
information; we are not getting the truth.In
fact, we are not getting policy changes.
Sadhguru: Actually, it is a 4 trillion
industry – one trillion food and another 3
trillion medicine.
Mark Hyman: Exactly. It’s huge.
Michael Bloomberg tried to change some
policies in New York [when he was the
Mayor]. For example the soda tax – he could
not get it passed. He alsowanted to do a study
to see what happens when you limit the use
of food stamps for soda. Food stamps pay
for four billion dollars in soda every year for
the poor in America –on the front end.And
on the back end, the government is paying
for Medicare and Medicaid [due to medical
conditions resulting from the consumption
of soda]. The USDA agriculture department
would not even let him do a pilot study.
So, he has gone to Mexico to help them
with some key policies, such as a soda and
sugar tax, junk food taxes, and food labeling,
so you can actually know if food is good for
you or bad for you: green
– good; yellow – caution;
red¬– probably it is
Making The Right
going to hurt you. They
The type of food we eat has
Choices
alsoaim at emptying
a huge impact on the mind.
Sadhguru: I think we need
of any foods that
an effective campaign for
An average American is said schools
harm kids, and at ending
food, like the anti-smoking
to consume 200 pounds of
the marketing of what is
campaign in the US. In the
meat per year.If you bring it
not real food.
70’s, in any public place in
down to 50 pounds, you will
These are policies
the United States, you had to
see 75% of the people will
that could work across
wade through smoke. Then
not need antidepressants
the globe – in different
they started an active and
ways
in
different
anymore.
Meat
is
a
good
successful campaign that
countries. But we are
food
to
survive
if
you
are
out
cleared up the air. Today, you
allergic to such changes
in the desert or the jungle.
can walk into a restaurant,
in this country because
and there is no smoke.
of the food lobbying. Yet
But still there is carbon-
if each of us advocates
dioxide in the drink! At one
for it and makes changes in our own family,
time,smoking was not just a necessity for a
in our own communities, among our own
whole lot of people, it was fashionable. It
friends, we can begin to see a global change.
was the right thing to blow smoke into other
Sadhguru: It is not in the hands of
people’s faces.
the
politiciansand policymakers alone.
With the right kind of campaign, within
If
everyone
realizes their physical and
one generation, this situation has changed
particularly
their
mental health improveswhen
completely. Today, you see less tobacco
they
change
what
they eat and how they eat,
smoke in America than in many other
we
will
also
change
the politicians.
countries in the world. A similarly successful
Mark
Hyman:
Absolutely. We have to
campaign is needed about what we eat and
change
our
food
system
because the solution
what we drink.
for
health
is
not
necessarily
healthcare¬– it
Mark Hyman: Yeah. Each of us
is
actually
our
food
system.I
think
addressing
making those choices and talking to our
both
together,
that
is
creating
a
mindful
nation
local politicians makes a big difference.
and
changing
the
food
system,is
the
answer.
But the problem is the kind of impact the
Ranked amongst the ¿ fty most inÀ uential
food industry has. It is a one-trillion-dollar
people
in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic,
industry that determines a lot of policies.
visionary
and bestselling author. Sadhguru
To a large extent, food guidelines and the
has been conferred the “Padma Vibhushan”
FDA recommendations [Food & Drug
by the Government of India in 2017, the
Administration in the United States] and
highest annual civilian awards, accorded for
guidelines are actually governed by lobbying.
exceptional and distinguished service.
This means we are not getting adequate
depression go away, and their ADD and their
bipolar disease improve, and I looked at the
underlying causes, it was most often the food
they were eating. In fact, most people are
not eating real food – they are eating food-
like substances that masquerade as food. If
we just stuck to real food,downsized our
meat consumption, as Sadhguru says, and
had a mostly plant-based diet, I think most
of our chronic diseases, including mood and
neurologic disorders, would go away. I have
seen this over and over again.
Often, I was not actually treating the
mental problems, and yet,they went away
as a secondary effect. I think it is really a
shame that in this country, we do not have
an understanding of this connection, and that
doctors are still challenging the idea that food
actually has an impact on our health other
than making us overweight, that it can be
used as a tool for healing. But it really is the
most powerful tool. The quality of the food
we eat, and how we eat it is more important
than anything else.
GolfPlus
NOVEMBER
2018
19