0:03 what should we
0:13 diet welcome to an original exploration
0:16 of everyday moral dilemas with
0:19 philosopher Professor Clancy Martin and
0:30 thi [Music]
0:51 food it is a necessity for our
0:54 survival but for many of us it is much
0:57 more than that it is one of the
1:01 principal pleasures of life it brings us
1:04 together whether it be Jesus and the
1:06 apostles at the Last Supper or a modern
1:09 family going out to dine at their
1:12 favorite restaurant food has become
1:14 Central to social [Music]
1:15 [Music]
1:17 Gatherings but of late there has also
1:20 been a lot of debate about
1:24 food what is healthy what is not what is
1:26 ethical what is
1:29 not let's hear from Professor Clancy
1:36 food in the western philosophical
1:39 tradition when we first start thinking
1:46 about um how best to feed ourselves what
1:48 to eat and what not to eat um we see it
1:51 arise in the ancient Greek tradition and
1:54 the ancient Greek philosophers thought
1:59 not so much about um the impact of
2:03 eating on the world around them or even
2:06 to be fair on what was being eaten and
2:10 we'll be talking about that today but um
2:13 the relationship between living a good
2:16 life oneself a life that one wants to
2:18 live and can considers to be a
2:20 praiseworthy life and the fact that you
2:23 do indeed need to eat in order to
2:27 live the most um interesting thinking on
2:28 the subject really comes to us from the
2:31 Greek philosopher Epic epicurus epicurus
2:33 was a materialist in fact and what we
2:36 mean by a materialist in this series of
2:38 series of conversations is that is one
2:40 who believes that all that exists is
2:43 matter and motion he thought that there
2:45 was no life before we were born he
2:48 thought there was no life after we die
2:50 um he thought that everything that we
2:52 think of as human life exists while we
2:54 are living in this ordinary place that
2:56 we all the world that we all call
3:00 home and but he thought that what you
3:02 ate was an important part of whether
3:05 that life was going to be a good
3:08 one he made an interesting division
3:11 between pleasures and pains which he
3:13 thought came to us naturally and then
3:14 within the context of pleasures and
3:17 pains he thought to live a good life was
3:21 quite simple seek Pleasures avoid pains
3:23 but within the context of those
3:24 Pleasures he thought there are some
3:26 Pleasures which are natural and
3:28 necessary there are some Pleasures which
3:31 are natural but unnecessary and then
3:33 there are some Pleasures which are both
3:35 unnatural and
3:38 unnecessary now a natural and necessary
3:41 pleasure of course is
3:45 eating but only eating a certain amount
3:48 eating in moderation eating as much as
3:51 we need in order to produce health for
3:54 the body it's very easy for us to eat um
3:58 epicurus thought in an unnatural or an
4:02 unnecessary way now for
4:04 epicurus um there's nothing he thought
4:07 first of all natural and necessary
4:08 Pleasures should absolutely be
4:12 cultivated so eating in a healthy way was
4:13 was
4:16 just crucial to living a good life to
4:18 the possibility of having these other
4:20 Pleasures to continue to live at all and
4:23 also an important part of that good life
4:25 a genuine pleasure that we should
4:27 cultivate and that we can do better or
4:30 worse um doing it well means choosing
4:32 our Foods thoughtfully choosing foods
4:35 that do in fact make us healthier that
4:37 um contribute to our feeling of
4:39 wellbeing contribute to our feeling of
4:42 nourishment but we can also epicurus
4:45 thought eat something that is
4:48 unnecessary but still natural so when it
4:50 came to consumption of this kind he
4:52 listed you know foods which are
4:54 Pleasures or uh drinks which are
4:57 Pleasures like wine for example is a
5:00 good example of for epicurus oven
5:02 of an unnecessary but natural pleas
5:05 pleasure one glass of wine or a cup of
5:07 tea or something you don't have to have
5:09 it but nevertheless it's still a
5:11 pleasure and those Pleasures Pleasures
5:14 which he called natural but unnecessary
5:16 Pleasures he thought you should keep an
5:18 eye on indulge in them in some
5:21 moderation to the degree to which they
5:23 contribute to one's happiness contribute
5:25 to one's flourishing but be careful that
5:29 because they are not necessary they May
5:32 tend to slide into a different category
5:34 the category of Pleasures which he
5:36 thought we should avoid at all costs
5:39 which are unnatural and unnecessary
5:41 Pleasures unnatural and unnecessary
5:44 Pleasures are those which actually will
5:48 destroy the body and destroy our our
5:50 Capa ultimately destroy our capacity to
5:53 feel pleasure at all so an unnatural and
5:56 unnecessary pleasure for example which
5:58 can become a pleasure for people but but
6:01 ought not according to epicurus would be
6:03 overeating or the over consumption of
6:08 alcohol or um eating things which um you
6:12 know acquire a great deal of sort of
6:14 connoisseurship in order to acquire a
6:16 taste for but they don't actually
6:18 benefit the body at all and even though
6:19 you you kind of think that you're
6:21 enjoying them because you've cultivated
6:23 The Taste for them they're really not
6:25 good for you and we can all think of
6:28 things we can consume so for example if
6:30 there had been um
6:33 uh cigarette smoking in epicurus's time
6:35 he would say I could see how you can
6:37 cultivate a pleasure for that but it's
6:40 an unnatural pleasure it destroys the
6:42 body and it's unnecessary you don't
6:44 require it in order to go on living a
6:47 good life so that's the first thinking
6:51 about um how to eat well from the
6:54 ancient Greeks and I think it to this
6:59 day provides a good a basic guideline
7:02 for thinking about how to eat as an
7:09 being but is food merely a natural and necessary
7:15 pleasure then what is the reason that
7:18 cultures around the world have developed
7:21 elaborate rituals and prayers around the
7:28 [Music] food
7:34 let's turn to daaji to try and get a deeper
7:40 understanding to my
7:43 mind the entire culinary
7:47 experience is both for pleasure and out of
7:48 of
7:52 necessity human trait is to engage in
7:54 fulfilling our Necessities with some
7:55 level of
7:59 embellishment Joy it's part of having having
8:00 having meals
8:02 meals
8:05 furthermore if we partake what we
8:08 consume in right frame of mind can have
8:11 a double impact on our physical mental
8:14 emotional and spiritual
8:18 needs here the thought action
8:23 prevails effect of thoughts on various
8:25 neurotransmitters while you're partaking
8:27 meals with your dear ones and suddenly
8:30 your spouse approaches some controversial
8:32 controversial
8:35 topic where you have to defend yourself
8:39 or your teenage child brings forth some
8:42 moral issues affecting them plus the way they
8:49 defend their controversial or
8:58 food even the best food that is put in
9:01 front of of you by your loved ones if
9:07 your mood is not right it will turn to
9:10 ashes or say you are so happy and
9:13 feeling loud that even the simplest of
9:16 foods made by someone you love will
9:18 taste just
9:21 Divine so where is the pleasure is it
9:25 not in your perception and state at the
9:27 time of partaking
9:30 your this meal
9:35 this is why how we eat and in what state
9:38 we eat is more
9:41 important science also talks greatly
9:42 about this vagus
9:48 nerve vus nerve is a key the brain can
9:56 body and the body to the brain through
9:57 the vus
10:01 nerve the entire gut intelligen is
10:04 regulated by this vas nerve people often
10:06 talk especially in the scientific world
10:15 brain we observe that when even if we
10:19 eat highly nourishing foods and spend a
10:21 lot of time preparing them
10:24 well if we are unable to eat in the
10:27 right frame of mind the intestines
10:29 cannot absorb nourishment from the food
10:30 that passes
10:34 through we build toxicity and the inner
10:37 environment of our body starts becoming
10:40 prone to cultivating cells that are
10:45 deceased and proliferate in such an
10:48 environment this is yet
10:51 another demonstration of the Mind Body
10:55 Connection and how our thoughts emotions
10:58 and physical Sensations are interconnected
11:07 connected today most families have
11:10 fallen into this habit of eating in disturbing
11:12 disturbing
11:15 ways food is consumed at all hours of a
11:17 day without
11:20 routine mobile telephones and
11:22 televisions are constantly on while
11:25 eating food prepared is done with a very
11:29 limited time that is available hardly
11:32 any of it is made from scratch or from the
11:34 the
11:38 beginning in a jostling stressful World
11:40 there is little time to Accord to
11:43 Preparing and eating food
11:47 correctly people grab a quick sandwich
11:51 or run to a nearby fast food to swallow
11:55 what they can before hitting their work
11:58 again late night dinners are common and
12:01 very few families sit together to eat
12:03 and spend time
12:06 together in such
12:09 circumstances we create an inner
12:12 environment in our bodies as the
12:14 neurophysiological and chemical
12:18 processes are Disturbed as a result and
12:26 should therefore in the ancient
12:30 Traditions emphasis was given to to your
12:34 state of mind how the food was prepared
12:36 how the food was
12:40 served you know and they classified
12:43 depending upon the effects of food on
12:46 our moods not just the energy level
12:48 these Foods were classified into satwik
12:50 rajasic and
12:55 tamik all of them classified based on
12:58 their ability to affect our consciousness
13:04 that is why
13:07 prayer is so important before partaking
13:11 meals so as to create certain level of spiritual
13:12 spiritual atmosphere
13:14 atmosphere
13:17 perhaps equally important to me is to be
13:22 grateful to all those who prepared this
13:24 this meal in front of
13:27 us simply closing our
13:30 eyes as at the end of the meal and in
13:33 the Deep silence Express this
13:36 gratitude not just
13:40 before beginning of our meal but at the
13:43 end of the course of the meal too will
13:46 help in fact it is more important when
13:49 we express our
13:51 gratitude after taking meals just try it
14:04 while it may be relatively easy to
14:09 change how we eat what about what we
14:13 eat cultures around the world eat a wide
14:14 variety of
14:17 foods how do we make a more informed
14:26 eat the utilitarians spend a lot of time
14:27 thinking about this there's an
14:30 Australian utilitarian philosopher by
14:32 the name of Peter Singer whose work you
14:34 may want to take a look at and um
14:36 there's some very nice videos also on a
14:38 that Peter Singer has produced that are
14:40 available on YouTube you can look them
14:41 up but I particularly recommend his
14:46 writing and Peter Singer points out that
14:49 it's true that we are sentient beings
14:51 and we human beings are sentient beings
14:54 and we have pains and pleasures and we
14:58 have happiness and unhappiness but he he
15:01 also points out why do we suppose that
15:06 only our own happiness or unhappiness is
15:09 relevant he has an idea he calls
15:11 speciesism and what he means by
15:16 speciesism is that when I prefer when I
15:19 am only considering human beings and
15:20 other human beings when I'm thinking
15:23 about the question of eating um maybe I
15:25 am being a speciesist like another
15:27 person might be a racist would say hey
15:29 well that's a little racist isn't it you
15:31 need to extend your thinking um and
15:34 recognize that all people are relevant
15:36 not just one race well similarly Peter
15:39 Singer says maybe we human beings need
15:41 to extend our thinking and recognize
15:43 that it's not just our species that is
15:46 relevant but all these other species are
15:49 relevant too because they are sentient
15:52 because like us they seek happiness and
15:54 avoid unhappiness they seek pleasure and avoid
15:55 avoid
15:59 pain and if we recognize that
16:02 which is hard to avoid that uh the
16:05 conclusion that other non-human animals
16:10 also experience pain and pleasure well
16:14 then uh what we eat is going to
16:18 change because we are going to recognize
16:20 that we have to start thinking about the
16:21 sentients of the beings that we eat and
16:23 we might think okay well I look at a cow
16:27 I see a cow definitely experiencing pain
16:29 and definitely experiencing pleasure so
16:32 cows are off the list um I look at a dog
16:34 okay well no dogs are off the list I
16:36 look at Dolphins okay dolphins are off
16:38 the list but then I look at a salmon and
16:41 I think hm that salmon behavior of that
16:45 salmon it's awfully similar to that um
16:47 other animal that I already took off the
16:48 list I better take the S I better take
16:52 the salmon off the list also and pretty
16:54 soon you will wind up where a lot of us
16:56 of course have wound up we wind up as a
17:00 vegetarian saying that that um all
17:03 non-human animals um and of course
17:05 humans are also off the list we're just
17:07 not going to eat anything that we can
17:11 recognize as experiencing [Music]
17:23 sentients but there is
17:27 also the fact that um there are a lot of
17:29 human beings on the planet
17:31 we do have respect for these human
17:34 beings and they have to be fed they also
17:37 have to be clothed they they have to
17:39 interact with their environments and
17:42 sometimes these conver these arguments
17:46 tend to make it sound like every other
17:49 being on the planet gets to be a natural
17:50 being except for the humans and there's
17:52 something unnatural about us and our
17:54 needs and that also is not
17:57 true and that is why we may want to
18:00 think about when it comes to uh the
18:05 principle of eating for example rather
18:08 than forcing ourselves to live by increasingly
18:10 increasingly rigid
18:12 rigid
18:15 um conventions that might make it
18:18 extremely difficult for all of the human
18:21 beings on the planet to live at all to
18:25 follow a gentler [Music]
18:27 [Music] principle
18:28 principle
18:30 while certain environments and
18:33 circumstances May necessitate the
18:37 consumption of non-vegetarian food is
18:39 there any excuse for consuming
18:41 non-vegetarian food when it can be easily
18:47 avoided yes it's one of the most
18:49 controversial topic we are entering into now
18:52 now [Music]
18:53 [Music]
18:55 vegetarianism there's a lot of debate
18:58 about vegetarian and nonvegetarian Arian
19:02 meals so many diets are tossed about as
19:06 the best way to eat let us go beyond the
19:10 mere elements that make of this
19:13 food where we are supposed to have more
19:16 proteins or more carbs
19:20 Etc imagine for a moment our planet
19:22 being attacked by
19:24 aliens these
19:27 aliens favorite food is human embryo
19:31 just think for a moment such a situation
19:32 situation
19:36 how in the world they target millions of
19:39 pregnant women line them up and simply
19:41 divor their growing
19:45 fetus later they tame or cultivate the
19:48 human race just for the
19:52 embryo somehow we are also like aliens
19:55 visiting this planet and behaving like
19:57 them and not doing our part in
20:06 strides when we eat nonvegetarian food
20:08 that has embedded the
20:11 patterns at the time of
20:13 slauter and we take
20:17 those when we consume that food we
20:19 become part of those vibratory
20:23 level of the animal they lead to a certain
20:24 certain
20:29 grossness or sadness or death inity or
20:32 anger that we accumulate
20:35 energetically vibrationally from the
20:38 food more you enjoy such food more they
20:40 become part of you because you are
20:42 allowing it to happen
20:44 happen
20:47 animals are also santian beings to a
20:54 plant this reminds me of Fred Rogers the
20:57 well-known American television
21:01 host was also a presbyterian Minister
21:04 used to say that he could never
21:09 eat he could never e a thing that had a
21:13 mother also I I personally feel that
21:16 eggs can have a heavier charge or
21:19 grossness than many other nonvegetarian
21:23 Foods think of it as what must be going
21:27 through the mind of the hand that lays
21:31 the egg the mother hand has the simple
21:34 attachment what her eggs will hatch
21:38 eventually when we remove them from her
21:41 that longing and fear for her eggs
21:45 gets latched on to that substance that
21:47 we later
21:51 consume that thoughts or those thoughts
21:55 affect matter is now no longer a
21:57 mystical phenomena it is proven by so
22:00 many EXP experiments conducted in labs
22:08 world while beginning to recognize the
22:11 effect of thought on matter science has
22:13 also brought to our attention a more
22:16 tangible result of our consumer
22:19 habits science points to the modern
22:21 malaise of overc
22:23 consumption a study in America showed
22:27 that if every human on earth consumed as
22:29 much of this planet resources as the
22:32 average American we would need seven
22:35 earthlike planets to sustain
22:37 ourselves this is all the more
22:39 scandalous when dealing with the
22:41 consumption of food because
22:44 approximately 9 million people die of
22:48 hunger or hunger related diseases around
22:50 the world every
22:55 year we're we're all familiar with these
22:57 arguments when it comes to the question
23:01 of our consumption and our impact on the
23:03 environment and global warming and
23:05 future Generations another Nuance that
23:07 we need to always bear in
23:10 mind the more we consume and the more
23:14 thoughtlessly we consume um the more we
23:17 harm the environment around us the
23:20 more difficult we make the lives of
23:22 future Generations so when we are
23:25 thinking in a utilitarian way also in a
23:28 Buddhist way we recognize
23:34 that harm can extend very far out from
23:36 ourselves that harm can be like you know
23:39 dropping uh a pebble in a pond and the
23:42 ripples extend a long long way much
23:43 further than we
23:47 anticipate so for this reason again
23:49 trying as best we can to do a little
23:51 less harm rather than to do more harm
23:54 trying to be increasingly thoughtful
23:56 about the way in which we consume food
23:58 in particular um
24:02 um can have a much greater impact for
24:13 suppose I recommend everyone to visit a
24:18 village and see how food is produced raw
24:21 materials are produced how each farmer
24:23 is putting his heart and keeps his hands
24:26 busy all while until the crop is
24:29 harvested and and given out to the
24:32 market so much of sweat and energy is
24:34 invested in
24:36 producing the [Music]
24:38 [Music]
24:42 meal after visiting a village when you
24:46 see how they go through amount of
24:55 rice you would not waste even one grain
24:57 from your plate because that you will be
24:59 able to witness how much trouble they
25:02 have taken in preparing these
25:05 grains looking from a spiritual angle
25:08 certainly it is a fact that wasting food
25:10 or consuming
25:14 irresponsibly has an impact on
25:18 us awareness or lack of awareness
25:22 leading to Inner Harmony or
25:25 Discord peace or
25:28 disturbance leads us often to
25:31 optimization or lack of
25:34 it peace literally oozes out of us and
25:38 when so many of us start living in such a
25:38 a
25:43 manner all with using our peaceful
25:46 vibrations out of contentment our impact
25:48 on the planet will shift towards an
25:52 authentic and responsible behavior that
25:55 naturally includes the good of all
25:59 beings not just humans each
26:00 each
26:03 day as we cultivate such an inner
26:05 quality of
26:08 life you would automatically know when
26:13 to eat how to eat how much to itat and
26:18 what time of the day to eat in the most
26:22 natural and simple way simplest manner
26:25 everything starts falling into place as
26:28 we are able to draw just what is
26:31 required and develop an inner
26:35 Compass inner compass that can guide us
26:38 towards good eating
26:41 habits all
26:50 altruism empathy begins with a calm and
26:53 relaxed harmonious Inner
26:55 Space that is
27:00 trained by a daily practice ice of inner [Music]
27:16 balancing thank you taji and Dr Clancy
27:19 Martin for those valuable
27:22 insights that is certainly a lot of food
27:25 for thought and that is most certainly a
27:28 very bad pun thank you also to our
27:31 listeners for joining us do join us
27:34 again for the next episode of compass
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