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THE MEANING OF HOSPITALITY
According to the Oxford Dictionary , Hospitality is, "a friendly and generous reception of guests or strangers." To be hospitable, therefore, means to care and show respect for another being. It is a sincere expression of appreciation, love, and humility. The natural symptom of a person whose heart is filled with gratitude, magnanimity, and religiosity, will be their eagerness to be hospitable.
The Vedic Culture of Hospitality
"Is there anybody hungry? Please come to my home, my wife has prepared a meal. We have enough to feed twenty hungry men. She has prepared the finest rice, curry, and puris (fried bread). I will not take my meal until I know that every man, woman, and child is fed."
Believe it or not, this selfless gesture of hospitality was a common occurrence in the village life of ancient India. ... During a room conversation in Tokyo, the founder of Food for Life, Srila Prabhupada explained...
"It is the duty of a householder to loudly cry, 'If anyone is hungry, please come. We have got still food.' That is the duty of a grhastha (householder or layperson)." "
always nice to see care taken to express the
real spirit of compassion --
"eagerness to be hospitable";
"to loudly cry,
'If anyone is hungry, please come.' "
-- / TSEDAKAH /
in another spiritual tradition
"(David) Thomas is a Sussex-based researcher who did something simple, the essence of all major breakthroughs. He went to the British Library and found all the past editions of The Composition of Foods by McCance & Widdowson, the Wisden of British nutrition, which notes the content of all major foods. The book first came out in 1940 and by checking right back, he was able to plot some startling trends.
The problem is both broader and narrower than the Strasbourg broccoli remark suggests. Thomas's research refers specifically to trace elements, those obscure minerals which we all know we need because it says so on the side of cereal packets. He discovered that, since 1940, there had been some stunning declines of these in all fruit and vegetables ....
(There are now) all kinds of newly developed vegetable varieties. They will have been specially bred to mature earlier, to resist disease, to last longer, to look better. The unglamorous business of trace elements is way down the priority list. And if that's true for ordinary gardeners, it's going to be 10 times more true at the industrial level, where our diet is controlled. "
"the industrial level, where our diet is controlled."
Argh.
My emphasis -- ed.
Engel also notes that Thomas "is not a wholly unbiased observer.
He is in the food supplements business".
Further investigation warranted.
"British Environment Minister Michael Meacher called on Tuesday for a radical rethink of farming practices once the authorities succeed in controlling the wildfire foot-and-mouth epidemic. ... Meacher told a news conference "We need a fundamental rethink of what we expect farming to produce. It will certainly be more localized, it will be less internationalized, less dependent on chemicals and fertilizers... more organic."
"Genetically-modified crops, under attack in the West, may provide an answer to cutting malnutrition in poor nations by developing seeds resistant to drought, a new U.N. report says. ...
'Instead of changing the environment to fit the seed, the seed could be changed to drought-resistant crops', said Kate Raworth, co-author of the report, in an interview. 'We are calling for a more balanced approach.'
Mark Malloch Brown, head of UNDP, pointed to an effort by Japan to develop new varieties of rice in West Africa that have 50 percent higher yields, are more tolerant of drought and richer in protein."
"The SoyaCow machine is capable of making three gallons of soya milk in 30 minutes from 1.7 kg. of raw soybeans. The technology was developed by ProSoya Foods Ltd., a group of Ottawa scientists and entrepreneurs.
In 1988 a SoyaCow Support Group was formed and by 1992 Child Haven International had purchased six SoyaCow machines. Child Haven received funding for this environmentally friendly project from The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). There are now 35 SoyaCow machines in India. Charitable donations and fundraising events provided Child Haven's contribution to the promotion of the SoyaCow.
SoyaCow technology produces a palatable, highly nutritious, cereal or almond flavoured milk without cholesterol. The milk and okara mash can then be used to produce other soya products such as yogurt, tofu and vada. One machine can produce sixteen-three gallon batches in an eight hour day - equivalent of a herd of 16 cows in India.
SoyaCow machines are used in Child Haven homes in Kathmandu, Bangladesh, Hyderabad and Kaliyampoondi because soy milk is low cost, high protein product which is cheaper to produce than cow's milk. From a given acreage, ten times as much soy milk can be produced at one third to one half the price of cow's milk. Soy milk made on the premises of schools and homes is safe from contamination by dilution with water. It is also free from the danger of transmitting tuberculosis or other diseases from infected cows."