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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Science of Eating
This science may be treated not only from the standpoint of the western scientists, but also from that of the Hindus. The scientists and chemists have analyzed in so many ways the different articles of diet, and have divided them into the two classes of nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous foods, saying that the one is important for the formation of the tissues, bones, blood, etc., and the other kind is necessary for the formation of other elements. They give the percentage of different elements in all the different articles of diet, and recommend some kinds and not others on the basis. While they analyze the food into physical elements, they do not consider the moral and spiritual elements. Our theory divides food into three kinds, going a step further, as it divides matter into three kinds, the first having the quality of passivity, the second of activity and the third of grossness. So food is divided into three classes, the first giving quietness, the second activity or motion or beat, and the third that class of food which gives the quality of slothfulness or absence of motion, of the property of giving beat, or quietness even.
These three properties of matter, each are found on the physical plane to have the qualities corresponding to those on the mental and moral planes. In this way we would not advocate
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