Stay Signed In
Do you want to access your site more quickly on this computer? Check this box, and your username and password will be remembered for two weeks. Click logout to turn this off.
Stay Safe
Do not check this box if you are using a public computer. You don't want anyone seeing your personal info or messing with your site.
Rajasic foods are bitter, sour, salty, pungent, hot, and dry. These foods create sensuality, sexuality, greed, jealousy, avarice, anger, delusion, conceit, fantasies, egotism, and irreligious feelings.
Rajasic foods are tasty only if a taste for them is developed, otherwise, they are not palatable. They need to be fried and then treated with spices before they can be served. These are foods for people who wish to have material prosperity and who take part in the race of greed and competition.
We are living in a world that demands that we work to generate the mechanism of supply and demand. In all our concerns, earning money is of considerable importance. We cannot spend all our time in ecstasy, bliss, prayer, and meditation—we need to struggle for material existence. Nature is not kind everywhere. We need technical help to keep our homes warm and cozy. We have responsibilities, and we owe something to society, which provides us with social security. Therefore we cannot afford to eat only sattvic foods, as did the saints and seers of ancient India. We need a certain amount of rajasic energy to survive. This is why we need spices and foods that sustain our energy level, enabling us to keep pace with the changing world. This does not mean, however, that rajasic foods are the only foods we must eat. We ought to keep a balance between the sattvic and rajasic foods, and try to avoid tamasic foods as much as possible. As rajasic foods produce excitement, we should take the necessary precautions to avoid overexcitement.
Foods fried in oil, sweets sold in shops, spicy foods, stimulating vegetables, salted bread, biscuits, sodas, homogenized milk, and all aphrodisiacs are rajasic in nature. Sattvic foods become rajasic if they are fried in oil, overcooked, or treated with pungent and sour-tasting spices. Sattvic foods cooked in ghee are not rajasic, but sattvic.
Rajasic foods increase the speed of the human organism. Rajas is synonomous with motion and activity. Rajas gives sorrow, pain, and also involvement. Therefore rajasic foods create disease, sorrow, melancholy, helplessness, and exhaustion. In small amounts, liquor, wine, beer, coffee, and tea are rajasic. Taken in excess, liquor, wine, and beer (not tea and coffee) are tamasic. Drugs, such as marijuana, hashish, opium, cocaine, and heroin, are tamasic because they disturb body chemistry, dull consciousness, and obscure perception of reality.
Onions and garlic are blood purifiers. Ayurveda classifies onions as tamasic, but garlic, because of its medicinal qualities, is considered rajasic. Garlic is hot and unctuous. Excessive use can create dryness. Garlic increases longevity and produces muscular strength. It also increases semen and the glow of the skin and gives digestive power to the stomach. Garlic subdues excess wind (vata) and mucus (kapha). Bile-dominated individuals (pittas) should avoid garlic. If it had a sour taste (thus giving it all six rasas) and did not have a bad smell, garlic would be categorized with sattvic foods.
Foods cooked in butter or ghee are sattvic, but when foods are cooked in oil they become rajasic. Raw milk that has been boiled for a long time acquires a thick consistency and becomes rajasic.
Red peppers, hot spices, pickles, oils, dry and fresh ginger, and salt are rajasic. Bread made with a pinch of salt is rajasic in nature. Foods that are hot in temperature while eaten, hot drinks, cold foods, and cold liquids are all rajasic. The temperature of food should not be greater than the temperature of the body and blood.
Back To Home Page
