Nature Cure

My Journey Towards Veganism

Poornima RaviLeave a comment

About Diary Products In Our Life

Human mothers lactate to feed their babies and they stop producing milk once the baby stops feeding on the mother – this is the obvious truth about all mammals regarding lactation.

Similarly cows lactate to feed their own calves and they stop producing milk once the calf stops feeding on the cow; Cows’ milk is obviously meant for the calf – I have never hought about this simple fact ever before in my life and once I started realizing it, I started moving towards veganism, though I was still worried about the lack of nutrition in a vegan diet.

There is also another law of nature that calves attain puberty much earlier than humans and hence the composition of cow’s milk is such that it supports early maturity and humans in most cases may not need that extra nutrition. As a result, cow’s milk is a little too heavy for the human intestine in terms of digestion and becomes comparatively better-digestible when it is fermented to form curd and better still when it is made into buttermilk by removing the fatty butter from it.

Veganism And Nutrition

There is a common belief in our society that diary products is the major source of nutrition for vegetarians in terms of protiens and calcium and that though a vegan diet is ethically good, it is definitely a deficient diet. Though I wanted to become a vegan for ethical reasons, I too had my own doubts about the nutrition factor in a vegan diet.

But when veganism is so much in line with the law of nature, then I somehow felt the nutrition factor should also be taken care of well in a vegan diet and nature cure happened to us as an answer to this concern.

The healing food for the body as per Nature Cure is a wholesome diet taking care of the entire nutrition requirement for the body, irrespective of age.

Is Veganism A New Concept?

I had a strong feeling that Veganism is a very recent concept – but when nature cure is so much in alignment with nature and our traditional practices are also so much in alignment with nature I was trying to find the link between veganism, nature cure and our tradition; as a consequence to that, I once started a casual conversation with my grandma regarding the role of diary products in their life and the ambiguity about veganism was actually clarified.

In most houses those days, they had their own cows and calves and they were literally treated as family members and sometimes even more special; our ancestors were ethical enough that they first let the calves feed on the cow and extracted only the remaining milk for domestic use. And this little portion of milk used to be shared by the entire family of 5 to 10; and milk was in most cases never consumed as milk and it was fermented to make curd ; curd was churned to get butter and the final product, buttermilk was shared by the entire family (fermentation of milk kind of makes it go easy on the intestine). So though our ancestors were not vegans in the actual sense, their average consumption of diary products would definitely have been very less in those days compared to the huge demand of diary products we are creating today.

FAQs

  • Question: “Diary products is the major source of nutrition for vegetarians in terms of protiens and calcium” – Could you please elaborate more this?
    • Answer: The nutritional break up values of specific foods as understood by medical research could be absolutely true. But what we are concerned about is how much of it can the body actually assimilate successfully and effortlessly in our system.
      • Human intestines are designed to assimilate nutrients better from plant products than animal products.
      • So by nature cure practice, coconut milk is more nutritious and can work as an amazing substitute for cow’s milk, supplying our body with more easily absorbable nutrients without overloading our digestive system.
      • As mentioned above, following a healing food for the body in particular and a nature cure lifestyle in general is a wholesome way to take care of the entire nutrition requirement for the body, irrespective of age.
  • Question:  Completely agree with the inclination towards a diary free diet. But am so much used to having diary products. Are there any substitutes for diary products like milk, curd, buttremilk, cheese and paneer?
    • Answer: Of course yes. Coconut milk, peanut milk and many more tried and tested alternatives are possible. Please check out this link for more info – diary alternatives

Points To Ponder

  • Cows lactate only to feed their own calves just as humans lactate only to feed their own babies – so be it for ethical reasons or nutritional reasons, do we really need diary products in our diet?? Think about it..!!

Also read about how a vegan diet made my menstruation experience so effortless.

Interesting Reads

Nature Cure

My Menstruation Experience

Poornima RaviLeave a comment

Why I decided to talk about my menstruation experience in public?

In our society, talking about a woman’s menstruation experience in public is really not encouraged for reasons whatsoever. Being a typical product of this society, I too was totally convinced about the privacy of a woman’s period cycle until I started using cloth pads. At about the same time, we also started following nature cure lifestyle in our home and my menstruation experience became so effortless and hence am writing this post hoping the excerpts could be of some use to others.!!!

Transition To Cloth Pads

As part of our natural living journey, I stopped using disposable pads about an year or more ago and transitioned to cloth pads – the effort was made to save our environment from the toxic used disposable pads; interestingly, the cloth pad experience seemed eco-friendly for the environment as well as the woman’s body…!!

Making the transition is not a very remote experience as our own mothers and grandmothers have been using it for most part of their lives. And for those of you who are worried about the leakage issues of using old cloth rags as a pad, today’s cloth pads look and feel very much like a disposable pad in the sense that it can be buttoned tight to our inner-wears and they also come in varying thickness to hold varying intensities of flows.

Life After Cloth Pads

Though the transition to cloth pads was triggered in me for environment-friendly reasons initially, only after I started using it did I realise there is so much more understanding behind how our grandmothers managed to use cloth pads all their lives without much trouble; they had a relatively easy menstrual cycle experience every month, easy conception, easy pregnancy and easy menopause.

When I had a casual conversation with a couple of women from the older generation about their menstrual experience, they all responded saying they used to menstruate only for 2.5-3 days every month (and it used be a casual experience with little or no pain and a manageable flow using just old clothes and not extra heavy pads that we use today.); I was really shocked to hear this since I always had a 5 day menstrual cycle and that’s really normal as per today’s medical standards.

When I was just wondering why menstruation has become such a difficult experience (be it the number of pads we use or the pain we experience) for many women today, nature cure happened to me as an answer to the above concern.

My Menstrual Experience After Nature Cure

Before we actually started following nature cure, I started my journey towards veganism (diary free diet, I am still not a 100% vegan though..!!! ) from being a vegetarian. I personally felt this slow change in diet itself reduced my menstrual flow as such and my menstrual cycle lasted for only about 3-4 days which would otherwise last for about 5-6 days.

Moving on, we started following nature cure lifestyle and ever since my menstrual cycle lasts for 2.5-3 days and post that I don’t feel the need a use a pad. My overall flow has also reduced and hence the number and intensity of pads I use over the 3 day period has also reduced.

As I was mentioning before, I am still not a 100% vegan; on those months when I do tend to consume a lot of diary products, I kind of noticed my menstrual cycle goes beyond 3 days and that’s totally my personal experience.

Menstrual Experience Of Women In The Past

Though I had a comfortable menstrual cycle if I cut down my consumption of diary products, I had a strong feeling that Veganism is a very recent concept and despite consuming diary products, our grandmothers were fairly healthy compared to us; this thought kept lingering in my mind; as a consequence to that, I once started a casual conversation with my grandma regarding the role of diary products in their life and the ambiguity about veganism was actually clarified.

In most houses those days, they had their own cows and calves and they were literally treated as family members and sometimes even more special; our ancestors were ethical enough that they first let the calves feed on the cow and extracted only the remaining milk for domestic use. And this little portion of milk used to be shared by the entire family of 5 to 10; and milk was in most cases never consumed as milk and it was fermented to make curd ; curd was churned to get butter and the final product, buttermilk was shared by the entire family (fermentation of milk kind of makes it go easy on the intestine). So a woman’s average consumption of diary products would definitely have been very less in those days.

In addition, women in the past also followed most of the basic health rules like adequate physical activity, ample rest, positive mind, fasting, healthy food and conscious eating, etc – so women in those days had a relatively good body metabolism and hence a easy period cycle.

Points To Ponder

Menstruation is the time of the month when a woman’s fertility organs are cleansed to get ready to house the next cycle’s egg.

  • isn’t resting ‘the woman’s body as much as possible’ very important during this time so the body can use all the vital energy to do the cleaning well to maintain perfect fertility? 
  • isn’t it why our ancestors asked women to be isolated during those days?
Treasury Of My Student’s Works
Creating Creativity

Treasury Of My Student’s Works

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I dedicate this post to each and everyone of my students who chose to work with me to understand what I knew about drawing and painting. Am posting below the some of the amazing works of my students:

Athul’s Works – Paintings

I owe a great deal to Athul’s parents for inspiring me and letting me know that I could teach art.

Athul came to me during his first standard annual holidays and after the initial creativity and skill development exercises he made this beautiful painting, the ArdhaNaareeswarar almost all by himself with just a little guidance from me. He transferred  the design using carbon paper and painted it with poster colours with so much precision, taking enough care not to cross the outline as he paints. It turned out as beautiful as that..!!!

And he created this master piece tanjore painting which I personally liked for his drive towards perfection:

IMG-20171210-WA0004

Athul’s Works – Still Life/Sketches

Cactus
Carrot

 

Ananya’s Works

She has produced really good works because I felt she had an amazing sense of being.!!!

Student’s Works – General

Student’s Works – Tanjore Painting