The natural state is of a wealthy society with a plentiful supply of nutritious food. But, in the natural world, food comes in lumps: one day you come across a banana tree, the next some spinach. You do not therefore need to eat at regular times, nor do you need a 'balanced' diet each day or each meal. You do not need the same quantity each meal: sometimes you can eat a lot, sometimes you will go hungry. Eating in this way improves your digestive system, makes you hardy and healthy. Do you need much cooked food? No. Also, the amount of water and fluid that one really needs is a lot less than one thinks. You should preferably eat quite a number of times a day (i.e. a little at a time, even if you are not hungry). At first you may have some indigestion, as your digestive system works overtime, but again this is just training it to become strong. You can eat before exercise, before going to bed, etc, all for the same reasons. You need to disregard whether you are hungry or thirsty, to an extent.

Over the years farmers began spending many hours cultivating the fields and women would spend many hours each day putting love and effort into cooking for the family. That too is not bad, even if less healthy than before. Food given to the woman by the man as a result of his toil for her does both of them good, and food cooked with love by the woman also does them both good.

For love and happiness to develop between man and wife, and for a religious life, one should eat more rather than less, and also have plenty of sweet things, plenty of milk. The man and woman should have a similar diet. A thin person is less accomodating, less happy, on average, than a slightly overweight person.

However, modern farming methods are taking over, food is no longer fresh but is stored artificially, various chemical and other additives are used and food is both prepared and eaten wastefully and in a rush. Love is absent and commercial or materialistic interests are uppermost in mind. Besides having love and nutrients removed and pollutants added, many people are departing from traditional diets that have served their ancestors well. I am not arguing for traditional diets that were impacted by poverty, lack of knowledge or undersupply of good food, such as in Ireland in the nineteenth century with perhaps only potatoes being plentiful. Clearly, with the elimination of poverty in many sections of the community in the West there have also been positive changes.

Given that most of the adverse changes have only happened in the last thirty years or so, it is primarily future generations that will suffer. Particularly, the changes impact negatively on the possibility for spiritual and relgious development.

There are three types of food: satvic, rajasic and tamasic (see 'The three Gunas of Satva, Rajas and Tamas'). Satvic food is sweet, juicy, oily, substantial, and agreeable to the eye. It is required to develop a yogic mind. It increases life span, intellectual alertness, strength, health, happiness, and pleasure, and induces one to perform good acts. Rajasic food is bitter, sour, very salty, very hot, very pungent (unsuitable, being cold or hot), dry, burning. It increases unhappiness, pain, sorrow, disease and rajas. Tamasic food is stale, tasteless, spoiled, reeking, putrid (emitting bad smells), unclean. It is favoured by tamasic people and promotes tamas. Every aspect of food intake needs to be thought about: eating is a religious act.

One needs to be practical, but here are a few more thoughts on how to cope:

• Eat organic fresh food (avoid using the fridge and freezer and microwave as much as possible)
• Avoid fast foods and pre-prepared food with chemical additives
• If food is prepared with love cooking becomes a pleasurable activity rather than a chore. Any spiritiual or religious seeker who cooks should develop an attitude of tranquility and love whilst cooking (for example by chanting his or her mantra)
• Food prepared with love for the person who eats it feeds love into one's physical energy field. As a rule one should therefore generally only eat food prepared by one's parents, brothers or sisters, spouse or oneself. Equally, one should avoid restaurant food and food prepared by people who do not love you
• With so much starvation in the world one needs to eat with an attitude of gratefulness. One should not waste food. Food eaten in this way when prepared by someone who loves you will not harm you
• Fasting is not healthy
• The amount of vitamins and minerals needed is hugely less than you think. Therefore you do not generally need to take supplements, assuming that you are training your digestive system as suggested above.
• According to Indian philosophy, food has three components, the gross, middle and subtle. The gross part is expelled through the faeces, the middle part is used to make up one's body and the subtle part goes to build up one's mind and intelligence. The different foods and tastes are given to mankind for specific purposes far wider than just for physical or indeed mental health. A builder will need a different diet from that needed by a white collar worker
• A spiritual or religious seeker will need to take account of the concept of non-injury to living beings when selecting his or her diet. A non vegetarian diet is inconsistent with religious practice
• Avoid too much reliance on Western fads: one nutritionist will argue that one diet is suitable and another will argue the opposite. Does this take into account your constitution and current health, your life objectives, or the nature of your work, for example?