Navratri in 2024, a nine-day celebration honoring Goddess Durga, involves fasting, prayer, and introspection. It emphasizes virtue over evil, promoting a sattvic diet with fresh, light meals.
Garlic and onions, considered tamasic foods, are often avoided during Navratri due to their perceived negative impact on the festival's spiritual balance.
Navratri is a festival promoting a sattvic diet, avoiding meat, fish, and eggs to cleanse the body and mind, while non-vegetarian food is believed to promote anger.
During the Navratri fast, traditional meals use lighter, simpler grains like buckwheat flour, amaranth, and water chestnut flour, which help maintain energy levels and maintain a stable diet.
Processed foods during Navratri are unhealthy, high in preservatives, chemicals, and harmful fats, hindering body cleansing, causing bloating, fatigue, and making fasting difficult.
Navratri involves replacing table salt with sendha namak, an unprocessed salt, for better detoxification and digestion during fasting, as it balances electrolytes.
Navratri discourages alcohol and caffeine-containing beverages, promoting herbal teas, coconut water, or plain water for hydration and focus during the nine-day spiritual journey.