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Breatharian Diet



Summary


This diet is based on the dubious idea that people can survive without eating food and possibly water.


 

Description


Breatharian, also know as Inedia, is an extreme spiritual concept that comes from eastern aestheticism (primarily Hinduism). The concept is that people don't need food, but can survive entirely on air (or perhaps sunlight or "prana" [life force]).

It's not so much a diet as a spiritual lifestyle. In practice, the people who call themselves Breatharian do in fact eat from time to time. Not eating is a kind of goal or spiritual practice. But, for whatever reason, most Breatharian do eat sometimes.


History


The concept came out of Hinduism in India. It's an extreme form of fasting which is common to Hindu spiritual practice. In modern times, parts of the new age movement have latched on to it and made it more popular.


Criticism


Most scientist and in fact common sense would tell us that not eating will eventually result in death by starvation. There may be some spiritual value to the idea of being a Breatharian, but physically, it's an extremely dangerous and potentially deadly thing to try.




Tags:

Related Diets:   Word-Fast   Rice Diet   Jerusalem Diet  


  27-Apr-2006 8:57am created by bill

Jain
posted 28-Oct-2006 3:12pm

I think of The Simpson's, when the 5th level vegan episode occurred. To have such control of cravings, albeit extreme, what a freedom. I am unable to go without eating for a day!
Matt
posted 19-Mar-2007 4:45am

I wanted to tell you that I've been eating primarily a vegan diet for the last seven months, with a lot of it being raw fruits and veggies. And its great! WBR LeoP
WeAreMakingItAllUp
posted 4-Apr-2007 7:44pm

aliens and angels don't pooh. I don't think this is just for jesus types and shamans anymore. Supposedly more people have been asking more questions about this. Just look at all the corporate sponsored atkins diet propaganda and have you noticed how desperate fast food places have been getting lately? mcdonalds salads!?! subway everywhere. Also, more people are eating organic and cutting out the dairy death products. My mom, a hardcore milk drinker for 50 years, has started buying silk soymilk. It's mad. People are definately changing fast.
I read about an experiment where they fed rats little if anything and they lived twice as long. Also, I consistently notice that spiritually, people get way faster results. Food is good for rooting yourself down to the dense reality we live in now. Has anyone seen "spirited away"? A girl in it starts to dissapear in the world she mistakingly wanders into until she eats the food of the place.

here is a snippet from a site I came across - niejedzenie.pl/english/why.html

"MORE CREATIVNESS

It is said: "eat to be strong". In fact, the more we put into our stomach the more the organism is forced to do. If it can't cope with it, it starts being ill. Hence fasts and medical fasts are known as the second best way to cure. The new proverb may be created "Do not eat to have energy".



SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT


Digesting of eaten food takes a lot of energy. So when the organism does not digest, energy can be used for other goals, e.g. creativeness. What is more, food contains a lot of toxins. Mind is connected directly to the physical body and they influence each other. When physical body is purified, what happens to non-eating people, then thinking process is much clearer and quicker. Even a person, who is fasting, after a few difficult days feels the lightness of thinking. For non-eating people this is a permanent feature. That is why a lot of new ideas appear in mind, thinking process is quicker. The person feels like the mind is cleared off smog, dark surrounding, which accompanied him before. Now he/she can perceive mental world clearer, brighter. A lot of non-eating people desire creating, it can be writing, painting, composing. "
----

The more I go on the more I realize that I eat to feed my emotions. Seems not much different than beer or any other bad relationship. And the less I eat the less I want to. But that's just me. And I binge sometimes since eating a bunch of crap has always been my select way of killing myself, like most americans I'd say.
I believe breatharian is the future of the human race. Just look at how much we are consuming now! But I don't know anyone who actually talks about it other than myself, yet.
I really like the idea alot. I am just not very disciplined, probably just like you. But I see myself getting more conscious of it everyday. And I am from the worst, most backwards suburban hell in the world. I was raised by the corporations that don't care about me just like you probably. less is more
Healthy Person
posted 11-Jul-2007 1:15pm

To be healthy and live a healthy lifestyle, one must indulge in exercise and nutrients. Staying active and eating nutritious foods are the two keys to success!
I have not always thought of myself as a "healthy person", but as I have evolved into a grown human being, I realized that it is up to me to keep myself going. My health is important and yours is too!
I eat... a lot! What I have found is that a constant glass (or bottle) of water and 5 (yes FIVE) SMALL meals a day are great for your mind and body. Exercise is also very important, and it makes you feel good physically and emotionally. Statistics show (if you don't believe science, maybe you believe statistics) that exercise can beat depression, which means that exercise even promotes a healthy mind!
I believe I think clearly and creatively (all while eating and drinking water). Spiritually, I was raised Catholic and believe in God, however I do not belong to any organized religion. I do not need anyone to tell me what I believe or value (and especially what to eat or not eat).
Anonymous
posted 13-Jul-2007 1:29pm

This is completely ridiculous. A number of people have died on this "diet". The human body needs food and water.
Anonymous
posted 15-Jul-2007 7:41pm

Wow, okay, food has toxins. Thats right, but remember, back in the sixth grade you learned this, the worst thing for a human to do is to live in a sterile enviroment. Why? Well because there is something in our bodies known as the "imune system". The immune system gets rid of those toxins. Without contacting anything with toxins (i.e. sterile enviroment), your bodies immune system will get weak because it does not have to work. Eventually, your genes will become weak, and your children's children's childern will be weak as well. PLEASE, THINK, YOU ARE DESTROYING THE HUMAN RACE BY LIVING OF AIR AND LIGHT. There is a reason why these bretharian people eat once and a while, not just for taste, but for survival. Be smart, don't die. (by the way, if you are so devoted to the breatharian diet, why would you care about taste.)
Anonymous
posted 7-Nov-2007 1:41pm

I think the breatharian idea is a great one. In the Muslim faith I know of two examples that people lived off nearly nothing. The prophet Mohammed peace be upon him lived on dates and water for three months. Also, Bukari a writer of hadith lived on almonds for a long period of time. These two points show that people don't need all that food to survive. In fact it doesn't take much to make it. I would be hard pressed to believe a man can exist for 2 years on nothing but water but a 40 day fast on water is very achievable. I think having a full stomach is not the answer to your problems but it is a cause of obesity.
Anonymous
posted 14-Nov-2007 12:58am

This diet is absolutely ridiculous. Our bodies need food and water to sustain life. I can think of a more unhealthy approach to eating. Self-starvation is what this is called. After struggling from Anorexia for 17 years, I know first hand what happens to your body without enough food. Due to lack of sufficient calories, my body now suffers a heart murmue, vascular problems, seizures and much, much more. Sad...
Anonymous
posted 7-Dec-2007 10:04am

I have heard of this before....I'm pretty sure this so called diet is called anorexia. You absolutely cannot live without food and water. Our bodies are amazing things, why starve them. Listen to your body it will tell you exactly what it needs.
Vegan Shmeegan
posted 27-Feb-2008 12:13pm

I read a post that said vegans are denying themselves and that to be vegan is an extreme. I'm a vegan and it's the opposite of that. There are more foods in the vegan diet than there are in an animal-based diet because you are constantly learning about new foods you never tried before. www.pcrm.org and www.nutritionmd.org are great websites. The only "extreme" is being diagnosed with heart disease, diabetes, cancer or osteoporosis -all of which come from eating meat and dairy (and eggs) and then having to have bypass surgery or a shorter life or relying on pharmaceuticals to keep your cholesterol at 200. I ate all kinds of animal foods growing up and it's a lie that a vegan diet is a diet that only works for people who are disciplined. Go to any co-op and have them show you around and you will find so many foods that taste better and are much better for you. Whole grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds VS. dead animals in your body.
Anonymous
posted 31-Mar-2008 9:35am

A breatharian diet is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. anyone who believes in it is the most gullable , idiodic thing in the world.
MAGGIE3
posted 23-May-2008 1:45pm

One of the founders of this so called diet or way of life , admitted to going to Mcdonalds!!!! (Radio show) So that just shows you , that this diet will fail ,, you need to feed your body
Anonymous
posted 22-Feb-2009 9:00am

I just read an article on MSN that noted that raw food diet is crap. Also, ther was a guy on Rippley's who didn't eat (and I think drink either) for years and was still alive alone on this deserted island. I think that a human could survive but it would take a strong mind set which most Americans could never have.
Amy
posted 11-Mar-2009 9:45am

This is absolutely ridicolous, if you do this so-called diet, then you are asking for a death wish. How can anyone expect to live off air and sunlight. I suggest you go and check your head if your considering this, as you clearly must not be sane.
Anonymous
posted 11-Mar-2009 9:48am

Amy i dont know who the hell you are bt u must be insane
i have been on this diet 4 10 years and im clearly DEAD haha!
No i agree this is stupid
if you want to die go on this diet!!
Leysh
posted 11-Mar-2009 9:48am

Well i think this diet is amazing i have been on it for 10 years now and im as sanorexic as Victoria Beckham. Im loving it, im not dead yet so im keeping it up! Amy, shutup. This is a spritual journey i shall take for the rest of my life.
Bretharian1984
posted 11-Mar-2009 9:49am

I have been on this spirtual journey for many years of my life, i believe strongly that the god's will guide you towards the weight they designed you for.. I suggest you STRONGLY try this 'diet' as you call it. :D
Amy the 2nd
posted 11-Mar-2009 9:51am

yeah thats right breatharian 1984. i couldnt agree more
Bob
posted 11-Mar-2009 10:06am

To be honest, that is PATHETIC
Worried sick in Vancouver BC Canada
posted 5-Jun-2009 11:40pm

There is a woman who has been on the breatharian diet for more than a year now works in the film community here. She looks old and is a mere skeleton. I am so worried for her life. I am sure her sons must be too. She has alienated herself from everyone in our film community because she looks so scary. I have colitis and there are times that I cannot eat for weeks....just miso soup and vitamin water. I am always so happy when I go into remission so I can eat. Food and music are gifts to the soul. I pray she will eat and not die. She told me all she wants to do is sleep......duh.......she has no energy and she told my friend she can't have sex cos it drains her. what a SAD existence. This breatharian life is not healthy!!!
belief system #1018
posted 9-Oct-2009 1:56am

Of course so-called doctors want you to keep eating physical food. It's so you'll keep their lucrative disease/death businesses going. Of course keep saying what you've been programmed to say by corporations that want your money and desire to keep us all "slow and stupid" and dependent on them forever... "oh you have to eat. oh you have to eat..." BREATHARIANISM IS NOT ABOUT NOT EATING, IT'S ABOUT EATING HIGHER QUALITY, HIGHER FREQENCY FOOD. Food that creates a lot less suffering for all on planet earth and beyond. Food that's more convenient, physically, emotionally, mentally,,...financially. You don't have to go to the store anymore to get it. Everyone has it, not just rich white people. etc. Of course ideas like this are going to upset people. Our society nowadays is based on taking advantage of somebody or something to survive. This new "food" idea goes beyond that primitive thinking. Everyone used to say vegetarians would die. Then we realized it was way better than eating animals. People used to think raw foodists would die, ... people used to think the world was flat. Now people still think the world is solid. People still believe in time, "could you tell me how to get to the past? how about the future?" i know, it's funny. People believe a lot of silly things that don't work anymore. Kind of like, that you need to eat food physical food to survive. It's kind of ridiculous to believe in any ideas really. Ideas are always changing.

Think about it. For most humans, you can go without what we now call food for a few months, you can go without water for a few weeks, but you can only go without breathing for a few minutes. So since we know breathing is way more important than what we say today as eating "physical" food, can you see air? Can you see the thing that if you don't breathe it in a few minutes you will die? Ok knowing this, energy is everywhere, some of it we can't see, but it can still sustain us. The food "breatharians" eat is not necessarily in air, but more the energy that is in everything. Energy that animates everything.

One basic common argument is..
Where do cows that most of us get our energy from, get it's energy from? from grass (if it's raised humanely, most arent),
Where does the grass get it's energy from? from the dirt, air, sun, rain.
Where does the dirt, air, sun, rain get it's energy from? from the sun.
Where does the sun get it's energy from? from gases colliding together. Where do the gases get their energy from? from, well, nowhere and everywhere.
Everything lives in that nowhere and everywhere. So why not just go to the source to get energy instead of bumping around wasting everyones time and money.

When we live more harmoniously on earth, it get's a little bit easier to wrap around it and in it. Living in more harmony with your surroundings frees you from more of the seeming necessities of "life" as we know it today. Life as we know it today on this very dense and low energy freqency we as "humans" live on in this moment. Living harmoniously Simply said, the less we bump into, the less boo boos that have to heal. Everything is "energy frequencies vibrating". The higher the frequency, the more information it can present. These human bodies we participate in decode only a small very select frequency of all energy. Meaning they can't perceive/ decode very much information/energy. Our bodies are like radio receptors, and most of us have tuned into a very small portion of all that is. You could say we are living in the dark ages. To believe common thought nowadays is to believe in ideas of a certain time period. Ideas guaranteed to change drastically in an instant, as they always do.

So what ideas give us the most freedom (that we can handle given what we say we are currently)? What we are able to believe is just a programming, just software, a belief system, mostly repeated over and over again from human to human, never really questioned. Where did this programming come from? and why was it started? How do we know what we know? Why not rewrite the software, the programming, so that we don't have to suffer or cause as much suffering to others? Why not play around with it and have more fun on this frequency we live on? Why not jump outside of our current (maybe not so current) programming and get with how we really feel beyond mind? Do we know what that generally accepted programming is that tells us "WE KNOW" what is? How do we know "we know", like who told us to participate in the idea "we know"? Like how much of you is you? What is all this really doing for us? Is it worth it? Are all the current belief systems, the current software programs that are running presently working for us? How many of us?

Sorry to break it to you all.. What we think we know isn't working for us nor anyone else very efficiently. SO we need to change what we think we know with what actually works. When we limit ourselves, we limit others.

If you can't be "breatharian" and I don't know anyone that can (yet i did meet a sungazer that didn't eat for a few years). If we can't be open the the idea that we can move beyond eating dense physical matter for sustenance. At least be open to the option, even though it's a fairly recent idea (actually living on higher frequency food is as old as time itself, some say it was the original diet).

Try as an experiment, not eating for a few hours, days or weeks and see for yourself the benefits. It'll save you a lot of money and make you a lot less, umm numb. Or maybe try going without (before it's forced on you) in other areas of your so-called life. It's quite amazing what's happend in these ventures with me. You might even change your "mind" about everything. It wasn't too long ago people thought the earth was flat. I've found that "our" "minds" work best when it's... not filled with the blood of the innocent. Jesus said forgive them for they know not what they do.

Generally we see what we are looking for. Why not look for the best in everyone and everything?
Super Sayan leve 3
posted 25-Nov-2009 1:26pm

Breatharianism is very real. For one thing, it's concept is based around love. Because it basicly means we dont have to eat if there is no food around versus, no food equals death in modern social thinking. Also, the benefits of not eating are astounding. Your body litleraly glows, "enlightenment?" because it is filled with life giving energy. We get energy from god/universe and when we eat more pure foods, less foods, we are more connected, become balanced, glowing skin, happy, healthy. If people dont know your plan, youll get comments on how healthy you look. Keeping your aura in check is the key to happiness. Plus there are other benefits which I look at as bonuses which I would rather not talk about. You also clean up the enviorment, help others. SOo many benefits.
Anonymous
posted 17-Dec-2009 2:11am

The only problem with being human is that the human body is designed to depend on certain nutrients and processing of nutrients through specific biological mechanisms to be a fully functioning and growing organism. Just look at our digestive system. And these nutrients are synthesized inside of plants. So I definitely think plants should be part of the human diet. Also water. And of course air, sunlight, and sleep. But we do need to be eating and digesting some plantlife.

You can't give a toddler only water and expect it to grow and develop healthily. Plant-based diet is a MUST. At least until you are healthy enough to practice fasting and whatnot. But never abandon the plants for too long. :>

Breatharianism is a beautiful concept though, in a spiritual sense. :)




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