Why onion and garlic are not good for consumption

Onions and garlic are botanical members of the Allium family - along with leeks, chives and shallots. According to Ayurveda, India’s classic medical science, foods are grouped into three categories - sattvic, rajasic and tamasic - foods in the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance. Onions and garlic, and the other Alliums are classified as rajasic and to some extent tamasic, which means that they increase passion and to some degree ignorance.

Those that subscribe to pure brahmana-style cooking of India, including myself, and Vaishnavas - followers of Lord Vishnu, Rama and Krishna - like to only cook with foods from the sattvic category. These foods include fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs, dairy products, grains and legumes, and so on. Specifically, Vaisnavas do not like to cook with rajasic or tamasic foods because they are unfit to offer to the Deity.

Rajasic and tamasic foods are also not used because they are detrimental to general health, meditation and devotions. Of course some of the Alliums have specific health benefits - garlic is respected as a natural antibiotic - but it is avoided because it stimulates the central nervous system and disturbs meditation.

You may be aware that strict Buddhists also do not eat any of the Alliums for the same reasons as adherents of India’s Ayurveda - they disturb meditation. If you visit any strict vegetarian Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, or Japanese restaurant anywhere in the world you will find no Alliums in any of the cooking.

One reason is because in ancient Buddhist Tao writings, one sage (Tsang-Tsze) described the Alliums as the “five fragrant or spicy scented vegetables”, and that each have a detrimental effect on one of the following five organs - liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, and heart.

Tsang-Tsze said that these pungent vegetables contain five different kinds of enzymes which cause “reactions of repulsive breath, extra-foul odour from perspiration and bowel movements, and lead to lewd indulgences, enhance agitations, anxieties and aggressiveness,” especially when eaten raw.

Manu-samhita:

5.5. Garlic, leeks and onions, mushrooms and (all plants), springing from impure (substances), are unfit to be eaten by twice-born men.

5.19. A twice-born man who knowingly eats mushrooms, a village-pig, garlic, a village-cock, onions, or leeks, will become an outcast.

Onion and garlic came from the dead body of a murdered cow and therefore they are considered like eating meat.

As per the story below (the scriptural source is not known) onion and garlic came from the dead body of a murdered cow and therefore they are considered like eating meat. They break the non-vegetarian principle from the shastric point of view. Strict vegetarians don’t eat onion nor garlic. Since meat is

tamasic, onions and garlic are also tamasic and rajasic food. They may have some medicinal value like even wine is used in medicines sometimes. Thus they are taboo for followers of Vedic culture.

”Once, in Satya Yuga the rishis were performing gomedha and asvamedha sacrifices for the welfare of the whole universe. A cow or a horse would be cut into pieces and placed in the fire. Afterwards the rishis would utter mantras and the same animal would come alive in a beautiful young body.

One time the rishi who was about to perform a gomedha sacrifice, his wife was pregnant. She had a very strong desire to eat and she had heard that if, during pregnancy one has a desire to eat and does not fullfill this, then the baby that will be born will always have saliva coming from its mouth. Very strange, she desired strongly to eat meat, thus she decided to keep one piece of meat of the cow’s body that was offered in sacrifice. She hid it and was making a plan to eat it very soon. At that time the rishi was finishing the sacrifice and uttered all the mantras for the new young cow to come to life. However when he saw the new cow, he noticed that there was a little part missing from her left side. He went into meditation and realized that his wife had taken away a piece of meat during the sacrifice. Now his wife also understood what happened and quickly threw the meat far away.

Due to the effect of the mantras uttered by the rishi there was now life in this piece of meat. Then the blood of this meat became red lentils, the bones became garlic and the meat became onions. Thus these foods are never taken by any Vaishnava situated in the mode of goodness as Vaishnavas should be because it is not considered by us as offerable due to its association as a non-vegetarian food.Plus it is in the mode of ignorance.”It is not vegetarian to eat onions and garlic. They have discovered 21 different types (?) of slow poison in both. So they are not so innocent.” (Source unknown)