5 min read
The word gets used loosely on menus, usually as a more elegant way of saying vegetarian. The original idea is more specific than that, and worth understanding — particularly if you are choosing catering for a ceremony where it matters to your family.
The three gunas
Classical Indian thought sorts food into three qualities. Sattvik food is understood to leave the mind clear and settled. Rajasik food is stimulating — heavily spiced, sour, very salty. Tamasik food is heavy and dulling, which covers meat but also stale or over-fermented food. The categories are about effect, not just ingredients.
What this changes in practice
A sattvik kitchen tends to cook fresh and serve soon. Onion and garlic are usually left out, since both are considered stimulating. Food is not over-spiced. Freshness matters more than in an ordinary kitchen, because reheated food is considered to have lost the quality that made it sattvik in the first place.
- Fresh vegetables, grains, pulses, dairy, fruit and nuts
- Little or no onion and garlic
- Moderate spicing rather than heavy chilli or sourness
- Cooked close to when it is eaten
How it relates to Jain food
They overlap but are not the same. Jain cooking additionally excludes root vegetables — potato, onion, garlic, carrot, radish — because harvesting them uproots and kills the whole plant, and because root vegetables are understood to host more small organisms. So a Jain kitchen is stricter on ingredients, while sattvik cooking is as much about freshness and preparation as it is about what goes in.
If your family follows one or the other, say so clearly when you book, and ask specifically whether separate utensils are used. A kitchen that takes this seriously will answer without hesitating.
