I was 25 and working in corporate America when I first experienced the affects of the cooks’ consciousness on food. I just started meditating, and my instructor at that time told me to be careful in choosing the persons who make my food. I remember just rolling my eyes, thinking, I’m having enough of a hard time waking up for my early morning meditation and now; you want me to worry about what people are thinking when they are cooking my food?

As I was saying, I was working in corporate America and one day a few of us from work went for lunch together. I distinctly remember feeling like a happy camper when I walked into the restaurant. After I ate the black beans and yellow rice for lunch, I started feeling anxious and moody. I wondered why my mood has changed so drastically. We had parked the car at the back of the place, so we exited the restaurant from the side entrance to get to the car. On the way to the car, we saw that the chef of the tiny restaurant was standing outside smoking and having a heated argument with his girlfriend. The penny dropped then . . . Needless to say, I started being really careful about who cooked my food.

My original goal when I started The Yum Yum Yogi was to show sattvic (food whose natural properties promote serenity and virtue) vegan food as tasty and versatile in video demos. Then I introduced meditative thoughts in the demos because I was meditating while cooking. Now that I’ve taken to photography, I want to use this blog as a forum to showcase my photographs (apologize for making you suffer through my learning curve).

The spirit of The Yum Yum Yogi is: We are what (we think while making the food) we eat.

What the blog will be:

• Because I love cooking and love meditating, I will present to you what I eat and my thoughts and attitudes while cooking.
• The recipes will be an eclectic mixture of sattvic vegan with a tendency toward ethnic cuisines.
• To touch and fill the heart as well as the palate and stomach.

What the blog won’t be:

• I won’t be using The Yum Yum Yogi posts to be a “vegangelist” (vegan evangelist). My contract with life is to have fun, knowing each one will find his or her own way.
• I won’t go on a rant about organic, or the best diet, or about nutrition. Mostly, because I can’t always afford organic and I have a background in engineering so, may seem woefully ill-equipped to talk about diet and nutrition.

So let’s toast to the infinite possibilities manifest in plant-based food and to experiencing a love connection to the food and those who will be eating the food.