A healthy vegetarian diet for Yoga part 6
A healthy vegetarian diet for Yoga
In order to guide you in your choice of foods for your Yoga diet I will here outline the principle vitamins and their easily available food sources. Vitamins, in controlling the body’s use of minerals, promotes a balance in the body necessary for the proper functioning of the endocrine glands and the formation of hormones.
Vitamin A
The body uses this vitamin best in conjunction with vitamin D in the proportion of 7-1. The principle sources of vitamin A are cabbage, carrots, celery, endive, lettuce, oranges, parsley, prunes and dried apricots, spinach, tomatoes, and watercress.
Lack of vitamin A produces scaly skin, stones in the kidney and gall bladder, catarrh and sinus infections, poor digestion, and low resistance to disease. This vitamin is essential for proper growth of body tissues, and increases resistance to infections of the urinary and respiratory tracts.
Vitamin Bx
The principle sources are cabbage, carrots, celery, coconuts, citrus fruits, parsley, radishes, turnip tops, and watercress.
Lack of vitamin B1 results in low heartbeats, poor appetite, gastric, intestinal and nervous disorders, chronic constipation and the enlargement of the adrenal glands and the pancreas. Violent exercise, increasing age and weight, and feverishness all increase the body’s need for this vitamin.
Vitamin B2
The main sources are apples, apricots, cabbage, carrots, coconuts, citrus fruits, prunes, spinach, turnip tops, and watercress. The supply of this vitamin decreases when there is an increase in the consumption of fats and minerals, and is conserved by the intake of fibrous foods.
Lack of vitamin B2 results in lack of energy and stamina, loss of hair, cataract, tongue ulceration, and disorders of the digestive tract.
Vitamin C
I would mention that copper cooking vessels cause a serious loss of this vitamin. The main sources of it are citrus fruits, cucumber, parsley, pineapples, radishes, rhubarb, tomatoes, turnips, watercress, carrots, and green leaf vegetables.
Lack of this vitamin causes many illnesses, among them being weakness and shortness of breath, palpitations, headaches, tooth decay, peptic and duodenal ulcers; heart disease, circulatory disease, and the impaired function of the adrenal glands.
Vitamin D
This vitamin is stored in the skin as ergosterol, which is converted into vitamin D2 by sunshine or ultra-violet light. Vitamin D controls the calcium content in the blood; excess of vitamin D results in a number of disorders, including diarrhea, depression, and severe toxic disturbances.
Lack of this vitamin results in fragile bones, rickets and bow legs, poor retention, and cramps resulting from abnormally low calcium metabolism. Though this vitamin is not found in fruits, vegetables and cereals, butter is an excellent source as is cod liver oil, for non-vegetarians. For the vegetarians there are a number of artificial sources of vitamin D, among them irradiated ergosterol.
Vitamin E
This vitamin is stored in the muscles and fat and as it is rapidly depleted it must be renewed regularly. The main sources of it are wheat germ, celery, lettuce, leafy green vegetables, and parsley. According to recent medical research, lack of vitamin E can produce sterility in both sexes, miscarriage, and loss of hair.
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admin | November 7, 2007