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Mustard is illegal where I Iive. Possession, and especially consumption, of mustard carries the possible maximum penalty of death. All because of, what we now call, The Mustard Wars of 1473. It started as a simple trade dispute between some merchants that never really got resolved. The dispute festered for years till another slight, imagined or real no one really knows, occurred and all out war broke out. While there is much to be said about the war and warfare itself not much survived as far as why it really started. But in the end mustard was made illegal and has stayed so for centuries.
Oddly, a very similar war was fought in Mexico over mayonnaise almost four centuries later. I guess it was more a series of skirmishes than a war, but it was a fairly important conflict.
There were obviously other geopolitical factors at play, but it was largely symbolic resistance to European/ white influence on a country with massively changing demographics. In the spring of 1856, indigenous forces tried to block a large shipment of goods coming out of Spain. The freight consisted of a lot of different goods intended to provide a more “European” lifestyle for the elites in Mexico. While only a small portion of it was actually mayonnaise, it turned into a bit of a rallying cry for a movement trying to resist the influx of white oppressors who were turning into the ruling class.
Eventually the resistance forces captured an artillery battery and were able to shell the incoming freight ship, sinking it before it got to the harbor. While it obviously didn’t stop the European influence, it became a folk legend and a rallying cry for Mexican pride. To this day, you can still see “Sinko de Mayo” celebrations commemorating the event.
I don’t eat it when I’m in vata-metabolism, but love it otherwise, on savory or heavy foods.
If you happen to be in one of the fundamental metabolisms ( kapha, pitta, or vata ), then doing the experiment of making a meal with pairs of dishes, 1 of only-pacifying-for-your-metabolism ingredients, & the other of that pair with only-aggravating-for-your-metabolism ingredients, using the ingredients-lists in David Frawley’s "Ayurvedic Healing, then if you’ve enough health-sense ( some block it, or don’t have any ), then you will probably find the differences between how your body’s spirit reacts to the different dishes in each pair-of-dishes to be astonishing.
IF you do the experiment & find the results are a whole-life-scale wakeup-call, as I did, then the next book to get, to increase one’s understanding of the fundamental metabolisms, and how they work, is Frawley & Kozak’s “Yoga For Your TYPE” book.
Between those 2 books, anyone who has a definite metabolic-process-lopsidedness, and finds that the competence offered in those 2 books is on-point, can have much easier health & healing throughout the rest of their lives.
It is entirely possible, through wrong diet, wrong health, etc, to lock one’s life into kapha-metabolism ( which is the real root of the “obesity epidemic”: it’s a kapha-metabolism epidemic, and obesity is only the symptom of it ).
I’ve learned that kaphas generally don’t bother investing in spiritual-leverage, the same as deaf people don’t consume music, much.
I actively broke my lifelong ultra-vata, then less than 3y later, accidentally broke my pitta into pure-kapha, through incorrect fasting ( sensation-of-hunger pushes one’s unconscious to switch from any other metabolism into kapha, the famine-survival metabolism ).
I broke that pure-kapha deliberately, as quickly as possible, and now am in a mixed metabolism, which changes chaotically.
Most just remain stuck in the one they were born into, or gradually drift, in old-age, into vata, or wreck their health with kapha at some point, & stay there…
It’s cause, however, is a mixture of unconscious-mind “posture” and epigenetics, from the looks of the evidence this-life has put in my face.
Unconscious-fear-of-hunger drives the switch to kapha, unconscious-certainty-that-only-ACTION-is-valid pushes one to switch into more pitta, & unconscious-certainty-that-only-spirit-energies-are-valid pushes towards vata-switching.
the pairs-of-dishes-with-opposite-ingredients experiment can’t work on anybody with a mixture of all-3 metabolisms: none of the dishes is going to be horribly-wrong or amazingly-right, compared with its pair, if they’re both prepared well, so no contrast will be eye-opening, therefore, for them, no evidence will exist for such process-lopsidednesses.
Bit of a tangent, but suddenly-discovering that I hated orange-juice & loved baked-corn-tortilla ( when I switched to kapha, 1 of the times that happened ), was astonishing.
Same as suddenly discovering, for the 1st time in my life, that it actually was possible for it to be “too hot to do any work”, as pitta-metabolism did to me, but vata never had ( I’d thought all who said such things were being dishonest, because it hadn’t been real/possible for me to reach that experience … vatas are always cold, usually )
Also, differentiate between sweet mustard vs unsweet mustard: the sweet will get vata more interested, the unsweet … just won’t be popular among 'em.
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