During my travels in 2004 I also had program for which I did not stay with at private homes, as I normally used to, but in a hotel. That was a new experience and it also created a small problem – the food!
You may ask what the problem was, every hotel has a restaurant and offers for all kind of different food, so i would definitely not be hungry. Yes, the hotel had a restaurant and in the mornings I had breakfast there, which was just some toast or bread with butter and some fruit. After the whole day’s work of lectures and individual sessions however, for which I used a hall of the hotel, I needed a proper meal to finish the day with. And the hotel did not have vegetarian Indian food!
When I had travelled in India before going into the cave, I had sometimes, although rarely, stayed in hotels, too. If they did not usually cook without onion, garlic and chili, I would ask the cook to prepare something special for me. If this was not possible either, I even asked if I could come into the kitchen and cook myself – and was often allowed to do that!
In this European hotel however, they had very strict rules about their kitchen and could not let anybody else cook there. So that was not an option here. So I tried to find a restaurant close-by. There was no Indian restaurant anywhere in the area. When I found an Italian one, I thought this could be the one thing I could eat and which I would like: pizza. They had good pizza and I ordered lots of vegetable on top of it, so that I practically had bread with vegetables. I did that for every day while I was there, about ten days in a row.
The result was that I had pimples all over my face.
Yes, that was my body’s reaction to too much pizza or to the change of nutrition or to a lack of nutritious ingredients on this pizza. It is my first-hand-experience of too much fast food – even though it was good quality fast-food. I did not feel good at all either. I was weak, my belly was full but I was not satisfied, I was craving a lentil dish, something liquid, saucy, some proteins! I was happier than I had ever been before about food when I moved on and could finally cook my own food again.
After this experience I took care to stay in people’s homes where I could cook myself to avoid such problems! Pizza was fine in emergencies, when there was nothing else, when I was too tired to cook or there was no time to cook because of a busy schedule.
Another emergency plan formed when I was in bigger cities where the Hare Krishna movement had a center – they always have food cooked without onion, garlic or chili! It may sometimes be a bit plain and cooked with few spices but often they have good restaurants and one can be sure that they are vegetarian even in towns where you won’t find another vegetarian restaurant.
So I was set with my food and knew I would never have to feel bad because of food again.
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This is too funny and a testament to mothers who are constantly wondering why their children are fat or pimply…too much fast food will do that do you…and America being the fast food nation and all it makes sense there are so many issues with obesity and skin care. Perhaps If they simply ate something healthy and nutritious than the problems would slowly start to go away.