Hinduism considers food sacred and sacred in a way that it performs nourishment not only to the body but also to the mind and spirit. The practice of that most metaphysical way of looking at diet is that food becomes a vehicle for spiritual evolution, even as it meets all the requirements for physical well-being. To a person curious about, and wanting to know more about Hindu dietary practices, these principles will resonate with wonderful meaning about a lifestyle that is harmonious with cosmic order.

Food as Energy: The Concept of Prana

At the heart of Vedic dietary philosophy is the knowledge that all food contains _prana_ (life force energy). Chandogya Upanishad (6.5.1) remarks: "Food when eaten becomes threefold; grossest of becomes body, its middle part, the mind; and the subtlest of them becomes speech." This ancient text brings to light the fact that this very food influences not only the welfare of our physical bodies but also our mental clearness and spiritual vibration.

The quality of _prana_ with which consumption is made shapes the consciousness. The Bhagavad Gita (17.8-10) explains this as classifying food in 3 metaphysical qualities (_gunas_):

1. **Sattvic Foods** (Pure): Fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, dairy products, and honey: These are the foods that develop clarity, peace, and awareness of the self.

2. Rajasic Foods (Passionate): Foods that create stimulation or restlessness through spicing, bitterness, sourness, and saltness. These foods lead to emotional turbulence.

3. Tamasic Foods (Ignorant): Old, treated, fermented, or contaminated foods that produce a dullness, lethargy, and stagnation in their spiritual state.
    
Ahimsa: Non-violence as Dietary Practice 

The Vedic view of diet is based on the metaphysical concept of ahimsa or 'non-violence' with which it underlies itself within an understanding of the unity of all life. The Yajurveda (12.32) thus declares: "You should not use your body given by God to kill His creatures, whether human or animal or whatever it may be." It is on this principle that vegetarianism rests in the Hindu tradition.

By avoiding meat, the practicers lessen the weight of karmic badness incurred by causing sufferings to other beings. The much-quoted admonition of the Manu (5.48) says: "Having well considered the origin of flesh and the cruelty of fettering and slaying of corporeal beings, let one entirely abstain from eating flesh." 
 

Food as Offering: The Principle of Prasad

The most elevated thought in metaphysics around Vedic diet might perhaps be that human food is divine offering (_prasad_). Prior to eating, food would be ritually offered to the divine, and thus from usual nourishment it would be converted to consecrated sustenance. The Bhagavad Gita (9.27) instructs thus:

"Whatsoever you do, what you eat, or what you make sacrifice of, what you give away, and whatever you do as austerities, do that as an offering to Me." 

This practice is what would relate the act of eating to worship, raising a biological necessity to a spiritual practice. _Prasad_ seems to affirm that, when we consume it, we are also provided with divine grace apart from just sheer nutrition for our bodies. 
 

Purity and Consciousness: Food's Metaphysical Influence

Food is, indeed, going to have a straight and direct bearing in consciousness, say traditionists. Chandogya Upanishad (7.26.2) teaches: "When food is pure, the mind becomes pure. When the mind becomes pure, memory becomes firm and when memory is firm, liberation from all knots of the heart has been obtained."

That is the metaphysical tie between food and consciousness, which probably accounts for the fastidiousness among most Hindus when it comes to food, especially around meditative or worship practice. Bhagavad Gita (17:8) says that sattvic food "promotes longevity, virtue, strength, health, happiness, and the excellence of joy." 
 

Practically Implicating Modern Seekers

For all of those who want to follow the Vedic diet:

1. Gradually infuse sattvic foods into your diet: fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and dairy products.
    
2. Eat mindfully, in gratitude, above all bringing the mind to mentally give the food before eating to the divine. 
    
3. Consider withholding or reducing any meat, particularly considered to be, most tamasic from all meats, that is beef. 
    
4. Note wonderful and subtle changes in the way different foods affect mental clarity and spiritual awareness as everything will have some effect on your consciousness. 
    
5. Prepare food with positive intentions and in a clean environment. 

The Vedic dietary principles put the, also, right principle of health benefits with regard to physical health. These principles provide the way to spiritual evolution with the understanding of the metaphysics inherent in the dietary regulations; the common eating habits could easily be converted into sacred practices that nurture body, mind, and spirit accordance with dharma.

_As the Taittiriya Upanishad (3.7-8) summarizes beautifully: "Food is Brahman (the Ultimate Reality). From food are born all creatures; by food they grow, and to food they return."_