NYTimes: Is yoga for vegetarians only?

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Excerpt from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/dining/27yoga.html

January 27, 2010

When Chocolate and Chakras Collide

By JULIA MOSKIN

" Nowhere is it written that only vegetarians can do yoga, " she said in an

interview. " We do not live in the time of the founding fathers of yoga, and we

don't know what they wanted us to eat. "

 

Ms. Taylor said that it was once difficult to reconcile her commitment to yoga

with her love of good food. But in the Upanishads, the sacred Hindu texts, she

said, she found an aesthetic philosophy in which the appreciation of worldly

things is not only acceptable, but necessary to achieve true understanding.

" Until you appreciate the fullest taste of a vegetable, you don't know the truth

of it, " she said. " And you bring out that truth by cooking it, making it

beautiful and delicious and appealing to the senses. "

 

Mr. Howell, a lifelong vegan, is also a yoga teacher and a musician (Russell

Simmons, the music impresario and yoga ambassador, has Tweeted glowingly about

Mr. Howell's salad of chili-crusted tempeh pieces with a creamy peanut

dressing.) Part of his role as a teacher, he said, is making it possible for

others to imagine a richly pleasurable life as a vegan, tempting them toward

that path.

So cooking might be yoga, but can bacon be yoga?

Clearly not, most yoga teachers say.

" The very first teaching of yoga forbids us to eat meat, " said Eva Grubler,

director of training at Dharma Yoga in New York, one of the most venerated yoga

centers in the country. In the Yoga Sutras, a primary text of yogic philosophy,

ethics are broken down into five yamas (things to not do) and five niyamas

(things to do). Ahimsa, the first yama, is a prescription not to harm others.

But the definition of " others " — whether it includes all animals, or only

people, or should perhaps extend to the plant kingdom — is in debate.

Ahimsa is now interpreted by some American yogis to allow meat, if it is

humanely slaughtered. Many teachers say that they have adopted a " don't ask,

don't tell " attitude about meat, and Mr. Romanelli says he eats meat when he

knows its source (and sometimes when he doesn't). Bacon, he said, is a yogic

teaching tool, providing an opportunity to contemplate principles of attraction

and revulsion, desire and self-denial, and why we are so attracted to things we

know to be unhealthy. (It also, of course, provides priceless shock value.)

" This is the hottest of all hot-button issues in yoga, " said Dayna Macy, a

managing editor of Yoga Journal, who recently attended the slaughter of five

steer at Prather Ranch, an organic, certified-humane cattle ranch in Northern

California, in an attempt to resolve her inner turmoil about eating beef.

Several prominent American yoga teachers like Ana Forrest and Bryan Kest have

recently acknowledged eating meat. In an example of how yogis have adopted the

language and ideology of foodies, Mr. Kest calls himself a " selectarian, " one

who chooses everything he eats.

Many American yogis are so particular about what they put in their bodies that

they make Alice Waters look like Paula Deen. Sometimes, even an all-vegan,

organic, low-carbon-footprint diet is not pure enough: each vegetable must be

grown in an atmosphere of positive energy. Steve Ross, an influential teacher in

Los Angeles, says in his book " Happy Yoga; 7 Reasons Why There's Nothing to

Worry About " that yogis must ask themselves this question in the produce

section: " Are the farmers full of gratitude and love, and do they enjoy growing

food, or are they angry and filled with hate for their job and all vegetables? "

Mary Taylor, the student of Julia Child, says she seeks a " middle path " ; she

follows a vegan diet but refrains from judging those who don't. " If we become

aggressive and intolerant towards those who do eat meat, is that an act of

kindness? " she said. " If your grandmother is making a wonderful meat dish that

you have loved since you were a child, is it yoga to push it away? "

Many would say yes. Sharon Gannon and David Life, the founders of the

influential Jivamukti style of yoga, admit only vegans into their prestigious

teacher training program. The same rule applies at Dharma Yoga.

" Ten years ago we would not even be having this conversation, " said Ms. Grubler,

who added that a vegan diet was a given for her. " Yoga used to be much quieter,

but now there are more people, they are more activated, and they are questioning

everything. " She says that the true yogic path gradually and organically frees

people of desire for meat, dairy, caffeine and alcohol.

" A pure yogic diet is one that is only calming: no garlic, onions or chili

peppers, nothing heavy or oily, " said Ms. Grubler. " Steamed vegetables, salads

and fresh juices are really the ideal. " Yogic food choices can also influenced

by ayurveda, a traditional Indian way of eating to keep the body healthy and in

balance. Some yogis determine their dosha, or dominant humor, vata (wind/air),

pitta (bile) or kapha (phlegm), and eat accordingly. Foods are invested with

properties like warming or cooling, heavy or light, moist or dry.

Mr. Romanelli says that such ideas about food are aspects of yoga that most

Americans find forbidding, unrealistic and generally, as he puts it, " woo-woo. "

One man's woo-woo, of course, is another's deeply held belief system.

Mr. Romanelli believes that any profound pleasure of the senses — a live Bruce

Springsteen track, an In-N-Out burger, the scent of lavender gathered in the

French Alps — can bring on the " yoga high " that is a gateway to divine bliss.

" What yoga teachers do and what chefs do is not so different, " he said. " We take

everyday actions like moving and eating, and slow you down so you can appreciate

them. " Achieving stillness and peace amid the distractions of life, he said, has

always been the higher goal of yoga.

Back at the Exhale studio, wandering among the supple bodies of his acolytes,

Mr. Romanelli talked about his recent embrace of the Slow Food movement and his

dreams of returning American yogis to what he describes as the happy,

prelapsarian state of 1995. " Remember before you had your first e-mail address

or your first cellphone, " he said. " Don't you think that your food tasted better

back then? "