Shri B V Chouhan mentions the phrase Kand-Mool-Phal-Patti-Pani at offset 11:32 of this interview. He attributes these food guidelines to Pandit Badrinarayan Tripathi (1904-1944), a mystical figure who interpreted and spread the teachings in Ram Charit Manas. He taught it to Hridaynarayan Yogi (1905-2001, biography in Hindi); many people learnt these food guidelines from him.

Badrinarayan Ashram: We have a temple in Chhoti Panchli, a village on the outskirts of Meerut where these dietary guidelines are remembered. The Ashram allows for overnight stay for multiple days.

Food philosophy: Role of Food — Diet Plan — Fasting — Enema — Recipes — Sprouts. Also see Books in English — English Magazines (free online). One of the audio books is Divine Cure by Dr Gur Harakh Singh.

Excerpts from The Role of Food:

Drs Rick and Karin Dina have followed a raw vegan sytem for almost 30 years now. Such a food system is centered around fruits and vegetables, with a few nuts and seeds (optional). They teach classes and hold free seminars. See Raw Food Education. I attended the Fruits & Vegetables Summit 2022 organized by Rick and Dina. Personal notes from the summit.

Following a raw vegan centered around fruits & vegetables is tricky — we need a fair bit of nutrition knowledge, some intuition and body awareness. We have very few interventional studies, so from modern scientific viewpoint, it's not a well studied food system.

To get started with a raw vegan system centered around fruits and vegetables, it's best to attend a summit like Fruit & Vegetable Power Summit (2022), become familiar with Cronometer, and to attend some classes by Drs Rick and Karin Dina. It may also help to attend the Woodstock Fruit Festival where may find other like minded practitioners.

In 2022, Dr Peter Rogers presented a sequence of dietary changes that lead to better and better outcomes. He arranged this sequence in the form of a pyramid. At the top of his pyramid is a food system with "fruits, vegetables and starches".

At the very top of the pyramid (the best possible food system), Dr Peter Rogers showcases a food system with only three components: "fruits, vegetables & starches". Where to derive starches from? Dr McDougall would argue that we may get starches from any combination of whole grains and starch-rich tubers like potatoes and sweet potatoes. What's his reasoning? Historically, the vast majority of agriculture-based world populations centered their food system around whole grains and beans. Many such populations are known to have low NCD rates. However, a few populations that centered their food system around starch rich tubers (potatoes and sweet potatoes) have also enjoyed low NCD rates: the Okinawans, the Papua New Guineans, and the Aymara of Andes, for example.

Let's study Dr Peter Rogers most refined food system (with only 3 components: fruits, vegetables & starches) from the perspective of Kand-Mool, Phal-Phool, Patti-Pani terminology, and see how it is related to classic Whold Food Plant-Based guidelines as advocated by Drs McDougall, Esselstyn, Greger, …

(1) Kand-Mool literally means root vegetables. "Kand" refers to starch rich veggies like sweet potatoes and yams. In Hindi, 'shakar-kand' refers to sweet potatoes and 'jimi-kand' refers to Elephant foot yam. Other than these two, we have many other varieties of sweet potatoes and yams native to India. Some of them are listed in Indian Food Composition Tables (2017; ICMR; free copy here). Potatoes were introduced only a few hundred years ago. "Mool" refers to non-starchy root veggies like mooli (radish), beets, carrots, …

Can we eat kand-mool raw? Yes, sweet potatoes can be eaten raw; we can also eat vegetables like mooli, beets and carrots raw.

In my view, it's difficult to suddenly adopt a 100% raw vegan system. Kand-mool is chewy. One option is to first adopt a cooked food system in which Kand-mool is cooked. For example, we can bake or steam sweet potatoes, carrots and beets. After getting used to a cooked food system centered around sweet potatoes, we can then experiment with a 100% raw vegan system.

Is it okay to derive a large percentage of our calories from starch rich tubers (sweet potatoes, for example)? Yes! See articles in this section: Tubers, especially Tubers in History (Okinawans, for example) and The Potato Hack (especially this book: Spud Fit (256 pages, 2018) by Andrew Taylor and Mandy van Zanen; this book has contributions by many Whole Food Plant-Based doctors like Greger, McDougall and Goldhamer).

(2) Phal-Phool literally means fruits & edible flowers. It can also mean 'fruits & vegetables'. "The best fruits are berries" -- Dr Greger. We may recall 'Shabri Ke Ber' story from Ram Charit Manas - what does Shabri feed Lord Ram in a forest? Berries!

(3) Patti-Pani literally means leafy greens & water. "Leafy greens are the best veggies!" — Dr Greger. Whole Food Plant-Based practitioners encourage us to consume leafy greens in copious amounts. Raw vegan advocates like Drs Rick and Karin Dina also emphasize leafy greens in surprisingly large quantities.

Some day, maybe I should write a book on how to assemble delectable food plates by adopting the Kand-Mool Phal-Phool Patti-Pani system. In pre-covid 2020, I had started making such meals and serving them to my friends — they were pleasantly surprised that they taste so good!

As of today, I don't have a book or a writeup; I'm developing a slide deck. But I can explain verbally how to construct such food plates. Please ping me if you'd like to know. We basically need four components: (1) starches (sweet potatoes, yams, plantains), (2) leafy greens (copious amounts), (3) fruits & berries, along with some green powders, (4) rainbow colored misc veggies. In addition, we may introduce lemon (n lime n vinegar), herbs (fresh, dried) & spices for enhancing flavor.

Grains, beans, nuts & seeds: all of these are calorie dense, non-juicy and 'hard' plant foods. None of them is part of Kand-Mool, Phal-Phool, Patti-Pani! Such a food system deviates from food pyramids like Dr Greger's Daily Dozen in a big way. But is it plausible that a plant-based food system without grains, beans, nuts and seeds is sensible? Let's see:

(A) Whole grains may be replaced by sweet potatoes. Is this okay? Dr McDougall would argue that both are starch sources and there exist cultures with low disease rates who derived a surprisingly large %age of calories from potatoes or sweet potatoes alone. Both whole grains & starch-rich tubers (potatoes, sweet potatoes) are satiating too! In other words, we'll feel full after eating some sweet potatoes. For details, Potato Lectures by Dr McDougall and The Starch Solution (368 pages, 2013) by Dr McDougall.

(B) Are beans essential? Not really (and this may come as a surprise to many)! Whole Food Plant-Based food pyramids make beans centerstage due to protein & fiber considerations. Actually, we can get adequate amounts of protein & fiber from Kand-Mool Phal-Phool Patti-Pani food plates with enough sweet potatoes and copious amounts of leafy greens alone. We may verify this through Cronometer. Attending a lecture series or seminars by Drs Rick and Karin Dina would be helpful how to construct food plates without beans.

(C) Finally, do we need nuts & seeds? For fat intake, we have to go into nitty gritty details of EFA (Essential Fatty Acid) requirements and related metabolic pathways in our body. These are complex discussions.

Let's say we do choose to introduce nuts & seeds into our food plates — what's the minimal amount we need? We may adopt Dr Esselstyn's strict WFPB guidelines: No Nuts! Only 1-2 tbsp ground flax or ground chia (both of which have more Omega-3's than Omega-6's) suffice for EFAs (see Dr Esselstyn's Guidelines For Essential Fatty Acids: Flax & Chia). Mastering Diabetes guidelines for nuts & seeds are comparable: 1 tbsp ground flax or 1 tbsp ground chia (or any combination of the two) should suffice.

Thus a "Kand-Mool Phal-Phool Patti-Pani" system along with 1-2 tbsp flax or chia, as advocated by Dr Esselstyn and Mastering Diabetes program would be an excellent food system!

… but should we strive to consume zero nuts and seeds? As of Nov 2022, I'm not 100% sure that we should eliminate all nuts and seeds. In their lectures, Drs Rick and Karin Dina explain how we may derive all EFAs from fruits & vegetables alone if we're careful with food plate construction! Some raw vegan practitioners in Fruits & Vegetables Power Summit - 2022 mentioned that they don't add any extra nuts and seeds to their food plates. In videos at his YouTube channel, Dr Peter Rogers says that he avoids nuts and seeds.

Hmm. With so many people saying that they don't consume any nuts and seeds, I'm inclined to believe that there's some value in that approach. However, as of Nov 2022, I'm not 100% sure yet. I can see some value in small quantities (1 tbsp or so) of a combination of seeds like Pancha Phoron (fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, nigella seeds, fennel seeds) and maybe some combination of (chia, basil). Such seeds may have valuable micronutrients: see Seeds for Dr Greger videos showcasing several interventional studies with these seeds.

Why does Dr Peter Rogers say that we should avoid all nuts and seeds? He has several technical videos at his YouTube channel motivating us to adopt a low protein, low fat, high carbohydrate system that he calls "fruits, veggies & starches" at the top of the pyramid. His deep understanding of biochemistry & pathophysiology, along with toxicology leads him to argue why we should eat this way.

Interestingly, Dr Peter Rogers' video (Dietary Nirvana Pyramid) uses the word 'Nirvana' :) That's an Indian word which literally means 'salvation', the final goal of spiritual journeys. Coincidentally, ancient Indian texts classify foods into three broad categories: 'sattvic' (which promote positive mental qualities), 'rajasic' and 'tamasic' (which promote negative mental qualities). "Kand-Mool Phal-Phool Patti-Pani" would be the most sattvic food system I can think of.

What motivated ancient Indians (and even modern day people all over the world) to seek a 'sattvic food system'? Some spiritual texts will divide states of mind into 5 categories like 'ksiptam' (restless), 'mudham' (dull), 'viksiptam' (preoccupied), 'ekagram' (concentrated) and 'niruddham' (closed). Of these, 'ekagram' (also known as 'ekagrata' in Hindi or 'ekaggata' in Pali) is a cherished state of mind in which thoughts have ceased and we are able to focus our attention to a suitably chosen object of attention via a meditative technique.

For example, in the 10-day Vipassana retreat, we get to experience ekaggata through the first meditation technique, namely 'anapana' (breath meditation, in which we choose breath as the object of attention — this is said to be the hardest technique among the 40 techniques that Buddha taught but bears maximum fruit).

What kind of food helps us experience 'ekaggata' with minimal effort? 'Sattvic food eaten in moderate quantities', explains Ramana Maharshi in Question 12 in Who Am I? (he was mostly a silent saint; his disciples collected his teachings into a thin booklet with 28 questions and answers).

Those who have done the 10-day Vipassana retreat may recall a lecture in which 4 factors for 'vedana' (sensations) were enumerated: the physical environment, the food we eat, our past stock of sankharas and how we react to the ongoing vedana. Why simplify our food? Just like we make our physical environment noise-free so that we can meditate, it helps to simplify our food plates so that we can avoid distractions due to food-related distractions and focus on the last two sources of sankharas (our past stock of sankharas, and how we react to the ongoing vedana / sensation).

A fine point which I have picked up (through lecture presentations by Drs Rick and Karin Dina) is that we can even avoid the Kand-Mool part and still construct nutritionally complete food plates! This may explain how Jain monks who stay away from root veggies (because that makes the plant die) would thrive. But this will make our food system quite challenging to follow because it removes a calorie dense and satiating food group: starch-rich tubers. It's best to adopt such a food system only after our mind has quietened down and we can live on less food.

Even if we don't adopt Kand-Mool Phal-Phool Patti-Pani (or "fruits, veggies & starches" as Dr Peter Rogers calls it) fully, we may derive some rules of thumb for making our food plates better!

1. "Patti Pani" reminds us that we must amplify leafy greens & drink enough water. "Leafy greens are the best veggies!" — Dr Greger.
2. "Phal-Phool" reminds us that we must eat fruits & veggies. Many of us eat lots of whole grains & beans (why? they are cheaper than fruits & vegetables; we can store them for much longer; cooking and eating grains and beans takes much less time than cleaning & chopping-dicing-mincing-grating fruits & veggies. But low intake of fruits and vegetables is one of the top risk factors for chronic lifestyle diseases (see Fruits & Veggies Intake In India. It would help to amplify fruits & veggies in our food plates, and attenuate whole grains & beans. We may also recall Shabri Ke Ber story reminds us that "Berries are the best fruits!" — Dr Greger.
3. "Kand-Mool" motivates us to eat sweet potatoes and yams — they are under-appreciated nutrition powerhouses! See Potato Lectures by Dr McDougall and The Starch Solution (368 pages, 2013) by Dr McDougall to understand why.

Like many Whole Food Plant-Based (WFPB) doctors, Dr Peter Rogers recommends a WFPB food system with zero animal products and zero processed foods. He also recommends no salt, no oil, no sugar, just like advocates of WFPB SOS-Free food system, where SOS stands for salt, oil and sugar. But he goes beyond these guidelines by saying that we must really strive to eat organic, and very low fat. He encourages zero nuts & seeds! What motivates him to recommend that? We can get an overview of his reasoning by watching his videos here: Lipotoxicity: Dr Peter Rogers, Lectures on Blood Flow by Dr Peter Rogers and Dr Peter Rogers On Cancer.