@ Steve: I've been re-reading what I wrote, which I forgot in part. Yes that's all interesting evidence that a vegetarian usually has no need to worry and to use supplements, just a little knowledge of food chemistry is needed, the amounts indicated by agencies are very often cautios, being their purpose to avoid problem in 95% or 99% of the whole population.
Also, if you eat pulses, just about everything is provided. Except B12, which is provided by even modest amounts of milk or cheese.
If you don't, there are ways around, as it turns out by the simple research I carried out.
i wonder if the body has a mechanism that makes u want to eat what u need? i seem to b gravitated to pulses on occasion. i do feel that uncontrolled desires of any kind lead to psychological and health issues. People need to separate needs from desires; that is not always an easy one. Because it seems like saints have less and less needs for anything since they r completely satisfied with what they are.
Amma has a tremendously busy schedule. She was asked by her devotees why she wasn't eating. Her reply was 'why? i didn't eat yesterday'. This kind of nonchalant attitude towards eating is an inspiration for fasting for those with more 'normal' desires and eating habits. i remember preparing food for monastics. What always interested me is that they were usually quite uninterested in getting fed and instead liked talking to other devotees. Usually they took quite a while to eat anything. They expressed a lack of interest when i offered them food and it was real good food! Sometimes they would thank me if i for instance i got them something to drink but generally speaking there was a lack of interest. i believe there was a lesson in it for me as i look back on this and many other things in my life.
What i have noticed about myself is that the more stimulating were the people around me or the more i have been surrounded by nature the less desire i have for food. It is as though there are other things to stimulate your diet. (LOL) U see things or smell things that give u such a wonderful feeling. If you fill your senses with to many dark foods (Especially meat) or too much sense pleasures u deny yourself more subtle spiritual pleasures and dull your spiritual sensitivity. i still remember the smell of for instance flowers at the beach when there were none around. But there are such things as astral smells. i have found that what Paramahansa Yogananda had spoke of as living off 'cosmic energy' is in part true in my own life. The more blissful i have felt the less the need or thought of food. U r digesting a higher form of food. At some point in our sadhana we take more of an interest at what is happening within us instead of stimulation from the outside world. With regard to the outside world; the senses become more developed to aroma touch and sites... so we do not need to 'gorge' our body with so many outside sources. It is just something to keep in mind as we grow spiritually.
