Soya food

11-19-1999, 08:42 PM

Home Base: Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir, Navadwip Dham, Nadia, WB, INDIA
Camp: ISKCON Radha Madhava-hari Mandir, Buranilakantha, Kathmandu, Nepal.

My Dear Spiritual Daughter,

Please accept my blessings. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Thankyou for your letter cited below with my comments. I have noted the
contents carefully.

> Dear Gurudeva,
> Please accept my respectful obeisances!. All glories to Srila
> Prabhupada and Your Divine Grace!. HARE KRSNA!.
> Some devotees say that Soya food is not good Vaisnava food since it
> looks and tastes like meat but some others say that since it contains
> vitamin B12 which the devotees lack due to being vegetarians, they should
> take it. i request you to kindly advice in this regard.Thank you very much
> Guru Maharaj.
> Your servant,
> Hemagopi Devi Dasi.

IN general devotees avoid extremely high protein food. Extremely high
protein food has a detrimental effect for rendering peaceful devotional
service by increasing the passion in the body. If someone is really doing
some heavy physical labor and needs the extra protein then there may be a
reason to take it, but normally for pujaris and normal devotional service
such high protein isn't required.

I believe it was Hrdayananda Goswami who said that Srila Prabhupada told him
that soya wasn't good for vaisnavas to take. I didn't find specific written
references to soya by Srila Prabhupada, but I didn't search extensively. If
someone has any other reference you can send to Vidvan Gauranga JPS and he
can refer it to me. My recommendation is to avoid soya unless one has to do
heavy physical work requiring this kind of extra protein. It is good
preaching sometimes to tell karmis though that eating soya has more protein
then meat so why eat meat? In Far East Asia many people eat tofu and to
restrict that would be difficult since it is part of their regular
vegetarian diet.

As far as high protein is concerned even during this month of Damodar we
avoid Urad Dal which is also quite high in protein, but on other months we
can take it. We have heard from Srila Prabhupada that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta
Sarasvati Thakur's favorite dal was Urad Dal. I have heard Srila Prabhupada
tell fish eaters to replace their fish diet with Urad Dala Bhuris (fried
urad dal balls) and Urad Dal as it was high protein and also a little slimy
like fish. So Srila Prabhupada tried to make it easy for new comers to
change their diet from non-veg to vegetarian/prasadam diet.

I hope that this finds you in good health.

Your ever well wisher,

Jayapataka Swami