Why No Onion No Garlic?
Ever wondered why no Onion no Garlic? Read the full article to know more on why many avoid Onion and Garlic in their diet.
FOUR reason why No Onion No Garlic:
(1) Chemical composition of Onion and Garlic
Both onion and garlic have sulphoxide, a compound that contains sulfinyl (SO) functional group attached to two carbon atoms.
In a New York Times article (The chemical weapons of Onions and Garlic), and as per blog from Goutam Paul, it is commented that onions and garlics have a lot in common with gunpowder! Both onion and garlic belong to the genus allium that includes shallot, leek, chive and rakkyo. Their sulfur-based defence systems give the alliums their distinctive flavours. The plants deploy them when their tissues are breached by biting, crushing or cutting. The chemicals are highly irritating, and discourage most creatures from coming back for seconds. They kill microbes and repel insects, and they damage the red blood cells of dogs and cats.
Garlic cloves produce a chemical called allicin (2-Propene-1-sulfinothioic acid S-2-propenyl ester), which is responsible for their strong pungency and aroma. It is a relatively large molecule and acts mainly on direct contact with the eater.
Onions, shallots, scallions and leeks share a special stockpiled chemical and a second defensive enzyme. They produce a sulfur molecule that is small and light enough to launch itself from the damaged tissue, fly through the air and attack our eyes and nasal passages. This long-distance weapon is called the lachrymatory factor because it makes people’s eyes water.
(2) Poisonous effects of Onion and Garlic
Dr. Robert [Bob] C. Beck, DSc. discovered that garlic is toxic because the sulphone hydroxyl ion penetrates the blood-brain barrier, just like Dimethyl Sulf-Oxide (DMSO), and is a specific poison for higher-life forms and brain cells.
Dr. Beck was in flight test engineering in Doc Hallan’s group in the 1950s. He recalls that the flight surgeon would come around every month and remind all of them: “Don’t you dare touch any garlic 72 hours before you fly one of our airplanes, because it’ll double or triple your reaction time. You’re three times slower than you would be if you’d not had a few drops of garlic.”
Dr. Beck continues in his lecture as follows: “Well, we didn’t know why for 20 years later, until I owned the Alpha-Metrics Corporation. We were building biofeedback equipment and found out that garlic usually desynchronizes your brain waves.” They would have people come back from lunch that looked clinically dead on an encephalograph, which they used to calibrate their progress. “Well, what happened?” “Well, I went to an Italian restaurant and there was some garlic in my salad dressing!” So they had them sign things that they wouldn’t touch garlic before classes or they were wasting their time, their money and his time.
Later, he funded a study at Stanford and they found that indeed garlic is a poison. “You can rub a clove of garlic on your foot — you can smell it shortly later on your wrists. Therefore, it penetrates the body. This is why DMSO smells a lot like garlic: that sulphone hydroxyl ion penetrates all the barriers including the corpus callosum in the brain. Any of you who are organic gardeners know that if you do not want to use DDT, garlic will kill anything in the way of insects. Now, most people have heard most of their lives garlic is good for you, and we put those people in the same class of ignorance as the mothers who at the turn of the century would buy morphine sulphate in the drugstore and give it to their babies to put them to sleep.”
In recent years, there have been several studies that establish that onions may cause allergies, intestinal gas, diarrhoea and heartburn. Though there are some medicinal benefits of onions and garlics, (some Homeopathic medicines like Allium Cepa are produced from onions), as food items their ill effects outnumber the good ones.
(3) Spiritual reasons
Sattvik food enhances Sattvik gun (Good Nature) in us. The more we eat Sattvik food, the more we gain divine virtues like calmness, resilience, activeness, spiritual bliss, positive attitude in our life — A preferred food for all and ideal for spiritual aspirant. It helps us to incline towards being Sattvik and become a better human for self and society.
It is said that eating pure food, leads to pure heart! Sattvik Food acts a medicine by itself as said by father of medicine Hippocrates that “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” and by Niskulanand Swami in his poem Bhaktchintamani that “Anna Sama Aushadha nahi”!
Sattvik food is basically pure vegetarian food without any use of Onion Garlic or eggs and ideally cooked at home. Sattvik foods are:
(1) Rasya (Juicy): e.g. Milk, Honey, Fruits.
(2) Snigdha (Glossy and oily): e.g. Ghee, Butter, Vegetable oils and cooked vegetables.
(3) Sthira (Butritious): e.g. Pulses, Grains, dried frutits, nuts.
(4) Hrudya (Like-able): : e.g. Amla, Citrus fruits.
By cooking and eating Sattvik food at home, we benefit physically, mentally, financially and spiritually. When an individual aims the goal of life as to get moksha (Salvation), one tend to align all the actions and efforts in that direction. When an individual is seeking inner peace on the path of moksha, one tries to suppress the inner sorrow causing nature like Anger, Greed, Jealousy, lust, laziness, etc. In the journey of continued efforts, one also need to make sure that the food consumed does not boost and elevate these inner nature — and rather should support to suppress it. It is said, “We are what we eat!” So it is preferred to eat Sattvik food which enhances Sattvik nature (Good nature like calmness, resilience, patience, etc.) instead of Tamasik (Nature that provokes seeking self-pleasures through senses) and Rajasik (Nature that provokes seeking selfish gains, etc.)
Within vegetarian diet, Onion and Garlic are considered as Tamasik and so for those who are on the path of salvation (Moksha) as their goal and destination of life, prefers Sattvik Diet as supporting efforts.
The Sattvik food being cooked at home can be elevated further spiritually to “Nirgunn” (which is considered above Sattvik, Tamasik, Rajaski) by offering it to God and offering prayers before eating it as prasadam.
(4) Prohibition in Several Cultures
The article on cooking with kurma gives a good review on how onions and garlics were traditionally prohibited in many cultures around the world for similar reasons.
The Taoists realized thousands of years ago that plants of the allium family were detrimental to humans in their healthy state. In his writings, one sage Tsang-Tsze described the Alliums as the “five fragrant or spicy scented vegetables” — that each have a detrimental effect on one of the following five organs — liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, and heart. Specifically, onions are harmful to the lungs, garlic to the heart, leeks to the spleen, chives to the liver and spring onions to the kidneys. Tsang-Tsze said that these pungent vegetables contain five different kinds of enzymes which cause “reactions of repulsive breath, extra-foul odour from perspiration and bowel movements, and lead to lewd indulgences, enhance agitations, anxieties and aggressiveness,” especially when eaten raw.
Similar things are described in Ayurveda. As well as producing offensive breath and body odour, these (allium) plants induce aggravation, agitation, anxiety and aggression. Thus, they are harmful physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
Even when garlic is used as food in Chinese culture, it is considered harmful to the stomach, liver and eyes, and a cause of dizziness and scattered energy when consumed in immoderate amounts.
Onion and Garlic was never adopted into traditional Japanese cuisine and was shunned by Zen masters.
Reiki practitioners explain that garlic and onions are among the first substances to be expelled from a person’s system along with tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical medications. This makes it apparent that allium plants have a negative effect on the human body and should be avoided for health reasons.
Buddhists, Vaisnavas, Swaminarayans, Brahmins and Jains completely avoid onions and garlics in any form.
An old Turkish legend explains that when Satan was thrown out of heaven, garlic sprouted where he first placed his left foot, and onions grew where he placed his right foot.
The Greek citizenry, especially the aristocracy, firmly rejected garlic and found its smell repugnant. Anyone smelling of garlic was considered vulgar and was prevented from enter home.
Horace, Roman lyric poet and satirist, said of garlic in his Epodes, that it is “more poisonous than hemlock.”
In Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, the character Bottom tells the other actors not to eat garlic or onion, for we are to utter sweet breath.
The seventeenth century British view of garlic was solidly negative, with expressions like, “not fit for Ladies’ Palates, nor those who court them,” or that eating garlic “was part of the Punishment for such as had committed the horridst Crimes.” When famous poet Percy Shelley visited Italy with his friend Lord Byron, he was shocked and appalled to see his friend eating the garlic that was served at a social gathering.
Nor is garlic always seen as having entirely beneficial properties in Western cooking and medicine. It is widely accepted among health care professionals that, as well as killing harmful bacteria, garlic also destroys beneficial bacteria, which are essential to the proper functioning of the digestive system.
Is it possible to make good recipes without Onion Garlic?
Yes, the answer is Sattvik Kitchen YouTube Channel
You might be thinking how many dishes can be made without Onion garlic or eggs? Well, you may like to take look at Sattvik Kitchen YouTube Channel which covers more than 275+ No Onion No Garlic recipe videos: Sattvik Kitchen This channel also covers more than 60+ Farali Ekadashi Vrat Upvas friendly recipes too.. Farali Playlist
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