Vegetarian Diet and Nutrition
by Alice Christensen
Introduction
My interest in diet and nutrition goes back to when Yoga began in my life, in the early 1950s. At about this time, my two-year-old son developed asthma, and as I was searching for help, I came across the work of Adelle Davis, a well-known dietician. Fortunately, I was able to talk with Ms. Davis personally and she immediately responded with a host of valuable and effective nutritional advice that helped my son tremendously. He quickly grew to 6’ 8" and played two varsity sports in high school. The benefits of nutrition study were readily apparent to me after this and it then became part of my immersion into Yoga.
Through working with Ms. Davis to improve my son’s health, she and I became friends, and several years later, she met Rama and me in Virginia Beach, when she and I were both speaking on the same program. She was a great help to Rama, modifying his diet to reduce the angina pain that he was experiencing at the time. She later assisted me when I developed a coal tar allergy, with severe symptoms triggered by many common medicines such as aspirin, and artificial food coloring and flavoring.
After these experiences, which demonstrated to me both the benefit and the harm possible in our dietary choices, I gradually became convinced that the conventional nutritional wisdom was deeply suspect. In post-war America, science and industry proclaimed that our typical diet met all needs and that all food additives and processing techniques were safe, needed to protect consumers, and nutritionally sound. My skepticism grew, and I have lived long enough to see organic foods at my local supermarket, physicians prescribing improved diets, and one in ten Americans describing themselves as vegetarian. In every corner of America consumers demand proof that food processing and refining is beneficial, that food additives are safe and required to provide tangible value, and that toxic chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides be banned from the food supply.