The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

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cookiemonster
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The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by cookiemonster »

Just wanted to share here ...

It seems to me that recent scientific studies are starting to bear out many of the Buddha's recommendations regarding diet & lifestyle in the suttas:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250148/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5372885/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4930144/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516560/

As I understand it, the recommendations include:
  • Light early morning exercise (walking to & from a village not too far or too close, for alms) +
  • one meal a day +
  • meal eaten before solar noon +
  • sleeping before 10pm.
I've had great success following these recommendations in my Uposatha practice, and I'm considering making them a permanent part of my daily lifestyle.
budo
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by budo »

Intermittent fasting is the most important factor. My girlfriend's grandmother is in her mid 90s, has been slim her whole life, goes bike riding and swimming every week.

She eats only lunch and has a coffee at 4pm.

Imho I think it's psychological, people who are addicted to food tend to not have a purpose or mission in life, or hobbies they enjoy, so they resort to binge eating. Hence depression and poor nutrition go hand in hand. Whereas if you look at people who are busy with a purpose, they usually have a set time to eat and don't snack or binge eat.
Digity
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by Digity »

I've never understood how someone can meet all their nutritional needs on one meal a day. How do you accomplish getting all the vitamins, proteins, etc?
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Polar Bear
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by Polar Bear »

Digity wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 3:09 am I've never understood how someone can meet all their nutritional needs on one meal a day. How do you accomplish getting all the vitamins, proteins, etc?
I’d guess that not every meal needs to be perfectly balanced and representative of every useful nutrient. Also, it’s possible to survive without perfect nutrition and calorie restriction/intermittent fasting might be effective even with some nutrient deficiencies.
"I don't envision a single thing that, when developed & cultivated, leads to such great benefit as the mind. The mind, when developed & cultivated, leads to great benefit."

"I don't envision a single thing that, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about such suffering & stress as the mind. The mind, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about suffering & stress."
cookiemonster
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by cookiemonster »

Digity wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 3:09 am I've never understood how someone can meet all their nutritional needs on one meal a day. How do you accomplish getting all the vitamins, proteins, etc?
I try to eat a very large meal with all the calories, vitamins, etc. I need for the day in one sitting.
netlava
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by netlava »

Could you post the discourse where the Buddha recommended sleeping before 10 PM? I don't think I've heard that one before.
dharmacorps
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by dharmacorps »

I also would like to see the Sutta about going to bed before 10pm. I could see perhaps the inference of that time based on the Suttas however. Obviously they didn't have clocks at this time :)

I am getting closer to doing one meal a day. The human body is highly adaptable so from a nutritional perspective I don't think it should be a problem especially with our present diet.
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Dhammanando
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by Dhammanando »

dharmacorps wrote: Sun Sep 02, 2018 5:40 pm I also would like to see the Sutta about going to bed before 10pm. I could see perhaps the inference of that time based on the Suttas however. Obviously they didn't have clocks at this time :)
See MN 125 and this discussion of it at Sutta Central.

https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/th ... night/6944
Rūpehi bhikkhave arūpā santatarā.
Arūpehi nirodho santataro ti.


“Bhikkhus, the formless is more peaceful than the form realms.
Cessation is more peaceful than the formless realms.”
(Santatarasutta, Iti 73)
binocular
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by binocular »

Digity wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 3:09 amI've never understood how someone can meet all their nutritional needs on one meal a day. How do you accomplish getting all the vitamins, proteins, etc?
What are nutritional requirements?

Today, nutritionists have a wide knowledge of the role of nutrients in health and disease. We know that people need many different nutrients if they are to maintain health and reduce the risk of diet-related diseases. The amount of each nutrient needed is called the nutritional requirement. These are different for each nutrient and also vary between individuals and life stages, e.g. women of childbearing age need more iron than men.

Why do nutritional requirements vary?

Each nutrient has a particular series of functions in the body and some nutrients are needed in larger quantities than others. For example, protein is needed in gram (g) quantities. Vitamin C is needed in milligram (mg) quantities (1/1000 gram) and vitamin B12 is needed in microgram (µg) quantities (1/1000000 gram). Individual requirements of each nutrient are related to a person’s age, gender, level of physical activity and state of health. Also, some people absorb or utilise nutrients less efficiently than others and so will have higher than average nutritional requirements, e.g. among older people, vitamin B12 absorption can be relatively poor.

/.../

How are nutritional requirements estimated?

In the UK, estimated requirements for particular groups of the population are based on advice that was given by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy (COMA) back in the early 1990s. COMA examined the available scientific evidence and estimated nutritional requirements of various groups within the UK population. These were published in the 1991 report Dietary Reference Values for Food Energy and Nutrients for the United Kingdom. Since this time, COMA has been superseded by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN). Rather than reviewing all the nutrients in one go, SACN is focusing on nutrients about which there is cause for concern, e.g. iron, folate, selenium and vitamin D, and has published reports on each of these. SACN is also considering whether energy requirements need adjustment.

/.../
https://www.nutrition.org.uk/nutritions ... ments.html and further pages
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
cookiemonster
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by cookiemonster »

netlava wrote: Sun Sep 02, 2018 12:02 am Could you post the discourse where the Buddha recommended sleeping before 10 PM? I don't think I've heard that one before.
dharmacorps wrote: Sun Sep 02, 2018 5:40 pm I also would like to see the Sutta about going to bed before 10pm. I could see perhaps the inference of that time based on the Suttas however. Obviously they didn't have clocks at this time :)
This is how I came to this conclusion:

First, Ven. Thanissaro suggests this is so in some of his translations, e.g.: "During the second watch of the night [10 p.m. to 2 a.m.], reclining on his right side, he takes up the lion’s posture, one foot placed on top of the other, mindful, alert, with his mind set on getting up [either as soon as he awakens or at a particular time]." (AN 8:9 https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN8_9.html, etc.)

Second, understanding of when "dawnrise" occurs is important because some Vinaya rules are apparently dependent on that time. This study suggests civil twilight defines "dawnrise" in the morning: https://archive.org/download/WhenIsDawn ... dition.pdf If morning's civil twilight defines dawnrise & the beginning of the day, then it stands to reason in my mind that evening's civil twilight also defines the beginning of the night.

Finally, since the night is divided into three watches (see also AN 8:9, etc.), if I take the length of an average night (~Sep 21) from evening civil twilight to morning civil twilight and divide it by three equal periods of time, I can then calculate that the beginning of the second watch of the night roughly corresponds to approximately 10p.m (give or take a few minutes depending on the season).
dharmacorps
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by dharmacorps »

Thank you very helpful. :anjali:
Digity
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by Digity »

cookiemonster wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:38 am
Digity wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 3:09 am I've never understood how someone can meet all their nutritional needs on one meal a day. How do you accomplish getting all the vitamins, proteins, etc?
I try to eat a very large meal with all the calories, vitamins, etc. I need for the day in one sitting.
How many calories is your meal?
Digity
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by Digity »

Going to bed at 10 pm sounds impossible to me. I don't think everyone's body clock is the same. I think some people can't go to sleep until later when they feel tired. I'm pretty sure i'd just lay in bed all night not sleeping if I tried to sleep at 10 pm.
binocular
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by binocular »

It seems natural to me to go to bed at around 10 PM.
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
cookiemonster
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Re: The Buddha's Dietary & Lifestyle Recommendations

Post by cookiemonster »

Digity wrote: Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:20 am
cookiemonster wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:38 am
Digity wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 3:09 am I've never understood how someone can meet all their nutritional needs on one meal a day. How do you accomplish getting all the vitamins, proteins, etc?
I try to eat a very large meal with all the calories, vitamins, etc. I need for the day in one sitting.
How many calories is your meal?
I estimate that I'm usually eating around 2000 calories.
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