What is sattvic food, and does it include onion, garlic or chilli?

What does sattvic mean?

Sattvic, also spelt satvik or satvic, comes from sattva, one of the three qualities the Bhagavad Gita uses to sort the world. The other two are rajas, usually translated as passion, and tamas, usually translated as ignorance or darkness. In chapter 17 the Gita sorts faith, food, sacrifice, austerity and charity into these three kinds, and verses 8 to 10 deal with food.

What the Gita says about food

• Sattvic (17.8): foods that “promote life span, and increase virtue, strength, health, happiness, and satisfaction”, and are “juicy, succulent, nourishing, and naturally tasteful”.
• Rajasic (17.9): foods that are “too bitter, too sour, salty, very hot, pungent, dry, and full of chillies”, which “produce pain, grief, and disease”.
• Tamasic (17.10): foods that are “overcooked, stale, putrid, polluted, and impure”.

All three quotations are from Swami Mukundananda’s translation. The verses describe qualities rather than ingredients. Onion and garlic are not named anywhere in them, and the one ingredient that does appear, chilli, appears only in some translations.

Does sattvic food include onion and garlic?

Not in the traditions that keep it, although the rule comes from later texts and practice rather than from the Gita. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, written by Swatmarama around the 15th century, lists garlic and onion among the foods a yogi should not eat, alongside bitter, sour, salty and hot food, fermented food and asafoetida (chapter I, verse 61, in Pancham Sinh’s 1914 translation). Writing for ISKCON Desire Tree, Kurma Dasa says onion and garlic are classed as rajasic and tamasic, and that Vaishnava cooks keep to foods from the sattvic category.

So if a family says a meal has to be sattvic, assume onion and garlic are out unless they say otherwise, and check everything else with whoever in the family keeps the rules.

Is green chilli sattvic?

The texts don’t settle it, so families do. Swami Mukundananda’s translation of Gita 17.9 places food “full of chillies” among the rajasic foods. Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation of the same verse names no chilli at all and describes those foods as “too biting, heating, salt, and sharp”. Both readings warn against too much heat, and neither says whether a little green chilli in a dish crosses the line.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika simply puts “hot” food on its list of things a yogi should not eat. For your function, the answer is whatever the family follows. If it matters, write it down for the caterer, dish by dish.

Is sattvic food the same as vegetarian food?

No. Vegetarian rules out meat. Sattvic goes further, and asks how the food is seasoned and how fresh it is. The sources that spell out a diet describe a vegetarian one: the Hatha Yoga Pradipika excludes meat outright, and Mukundananda’s commentary on 17.8 lists grains, pulses, beans, fruit, vegetables and milk. But a vegetarian menu can be very spicy, carry onion and garlic in most dishes, or be cooked the day before and reheated, and still be vegetarian.

Each of those moves it away from sattvic. The Gita puts very hot food with the rajasic and stale food with the tamasic (17.9 and 17.10), and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika says food heated again should not be eaten (chapter I, verse 62).

Planning a meal for guests who keep sattvic food

• Say which meals have to follow the rule. A ceremony lunch and an evening reception for the same family can follow different rules.
• Write down what is out: onion and garlic, and the family’s answer on chilli and on anything else.
• Ask how the kitchen keeps those ingredients out of ready-made powders, pickles and masalas, as well as out of the dishes cooked on the day.
• Ask for every dish to be named in the proposal, so the rule is in writing before the day.

Asking RASA

RASA serves vegetarian food only. No meat is served at any RASA event. Tell us what your guests need when you enquire and we’ll tell you plainly what we can do for your event, before you commit to anything. Plan your catering.

Sources

1. Bhagavad Gita 17.8, 17.9 and 17.10, translated by Swami Mukundananda (Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God), with his commentary on 17.8. Verses 9 and 10 are the next two pages of the same site. Checked 16 October 2026.
2. Sir Edwin Arnold, The Song Celestial, chapter XVII (New York edition, 1900), Project Gutenberg eBook #2388. Checked 16 October 2026.
3. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, chapter I, verses 61 and 62, translated by Pancham Sinh (1914), on Wisdom Library. Checked 16 October 2026.
4. Kurma Dasa, “Why no Garlic and Onions?”, ISKCON Desire Tree. Checked 16 October 2026.