Thursday, November 18, 2010

Love Your Food and Your Food Will Love You

Sometimes I can talk Roland into inviting a work associate (friend? peer? dude?)  home for dinner. This week was one of those times. Roland has been telling me how awesome this guy is for months now.


Prasad Kaipa. He works with Roland as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership. He is also a professor at the Indian School of Business, and does Executive Coaching. He is a good photographer. He has a lovely wife and 2 beautiful children. And to my great pleasure he is a wonderful conversationalist who isn't at all afraid to talk talk talk. We talked about lots of interesting things but I want to share with you our conversation about food.

He is vegetarian and so he appreciated my meal of vegan lasagna, fresh baked french bread, big green salad, and apple sauce. We talked about how after a meal like that you feel satisfied but light. He told us that you must love your food and treat it with respect and care. He said when we eat the food meets 3 main needs: 1) emotional/spiritual edification, 2) physical/nutritional rejuvenation, 3) the elimination of that which is not of use. He said when we carefully prepare and consume our food with love it does a better job of meeting all 3 needs.

Eat with love.

I think this is why a bowl of watermelon is so much more satisfying than a bowl of cold cereal. And imagine the satisfaction emotionally and nutritionally of eating a watermelon you have grown and nurtured with tenderness.

He encouraged me to read a book called Messages from Water written by a Japanese researcher who studied the effects of music and words on the growth of water crystals. It is on my reading list.

He told us that 30 years ago only 20% of people in India ate meat and today 70% of people eat meat causing a huge spike in diet related illness in India. It's because they are adopting the standard American diet.

We talked about lots of other amazing things. I wish you all could have joined us. When he finally left Ike said he was a pretty cool guy. High praise from a 14 year old!

Links to Prasad:

3 comments:

Emily said...

I loved reading this post, and would have so much enjoyed dining with Prasad Kaipa. What a great place to work, Roland is richly blessed!

*~Barbie Miller ~* said...

I LOVE your blog!! I am 90% raw vegan and love your writing about the transistion from SAD to a more plant based one. I had exactly the same experience. I especially love your label "Plant based diet" I plan to use it myself! Please keep up the great blogging!

Maxine said...

Robin, Thanks so much for the kind words and for the very interesting and funny blog. Loved you post about Prasad Kaipa, and the book he told you to read "Hidden Messages of Water" is fantastic! Wow!! Talk about thought provoking! You will thoroughly enjoy it. "As a man thinketh, so is he" should be the theme of the research.