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साइण्टिस्टफिक बेसिस ऑफ फूड एण्ड डिइट इन लार्ड महावीरर्स टाइम्स
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tures being slaughtered and to be eaten. He took upon himself one of the greatest experiments of his age to eat very little and took upon himself the trial of fasting and observing the effects of these privations. He proved that this human machine is amenable to considerable stress and strain. He ate little and still maintained reasonably sound health and lived to a good age. He preached the highest order of Ahinsa in all walks of life. Purpose of eating is to maintain good health and the food should be such that it is not taken merely for the pleasure of taste. Secondly, if the aim of life is spiritual development to the extent that we succeed eventually in preventing rebirth that means salvation of the soul than our food has to be such that our diet should be conductive to that objective.
Man is the immediate successor of the Monkey in natural history, who is a strict vegetarian. Humau being resembles the monkey the most in the animal kingdom. Human being in nature is a vegetarian. He, by his develish tendency has developed all sorts of weapons for the destruction of his own race. It is said that today the world has collected 21,00,000 times more deadly weapons than the Heroshima atom bomb. So, he also developed instruments of killing not only men of his race in war but also utilized them for destruction of his animal life and for eating it for his own pleasure.
Jainism has as its basic principle Ahinsa the sheet anchor of religion in its highest degree for salvation of the soul. In Jain cannon greatest stress is laid on eating these articles of food which contain least life. Cereal and legumes are freely permissible because there is only one single life in each grain. Eating of such articles like gular like figs and Brinjals is discouraged as it contains numerous lives. Tubars which grow underground are often prohibited specially in the higher age people because Potato, Carrots, Arum (Arvi), turnips, onion etc. contain practically no protein and these foods create gas formation in the intestines. They are of a poor nutritive value, but there is more destruction of ground life and therefore are considered undesirable.
The rich world of today is developing meat eating habits. The result is that diseases like high blood pressure, kidney diseases, liver disorders and heart diseases are becoming common. Diabetes is also more common in those who eat more, If a prospective diabetic patient develops the habit of eating less and remains slim he may not develop diabetes at all. People who eat meat bleed more from wounds. In the West many countries have started vegetarian hotels as treatment centres for those who have coronary heart diseases, high blood pressure and kidney diseases. Every heart specialist would agree with me and teaches that starvation is a best preventive for heart attack provided you practice on earlier age.
With advancing age enlargement of prostate and getting up for passing urine is more common. All elderly people get disturbed sleep because they get up twice, thrice or more times for passing urine at night. But if the evening meal is taken before sunset and intake of water after sunset is forbidden by ones own discipline, surely the problem of a disturbances of sleep is also reduced. Many patients of enlarged prostate will be able to avoid surgery if they inculcate the habit of having the last meal by 5 p. m. and last intake of water by sunset.
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