Any foods, drinks or drugs you avoid for spiritual reasons?

[Marcion]

About a half year after starting meditation I adopted a sentient or yogic diet which also excludes alcohol and non-prescribed drugs.
Sattvic diet - Wikipedia

This is the same diet that many Brahmins (such as the members of ISKCON) follow.

Since about ten years I started avoiding dairy as well for ethical and health reasons.

One small difference is that I will take some cacao in wintertime and the odd cup of coffee in some social situations.

Before starting the diet I experimented for a while to test the effects of the items that were not allowed to see for myself how they affected my purity and calmness of mind.

Come to think of it, my diet is, without intent, also halal as well as kosher.

 

[arthra]

Most Muslims and Jews avoid eating pork, Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists avoid alcohol and drugs like joints and tobacco.
Which foods, drinks or drugs (if any) do you try to avoid for spiritual reasons?
Is it a part of your spiritual path or a personal thing for you?

For me it is both personal and part of my spiritual path to abstain from non-prescribed drugs (marijuana, psychedelic drugs), alcohol. I have no dietary restrictions.

In my early years in the sixties I witnessed serious problems a friend of mine had taking LSD given him by Richard Alport/Ram Das)... I experimented a little with Marijuana but found nothing really salutary about it. It took me two years to quit smoking tobacco after I read the Surgeon General's report and am really glad I stopped smoking. I also noted the effects of alcohol use/abuse and was not interested.

I became a Baha'i around 1965 and found that alcohol, non-prescribed drugs were forbidden.

"Bahá'ís are forbidden to drink alcohol or to take drugs, except by a doctor's order. The reason being that God has given human beings reason and intoxicants take that away and lead the mind astray.[19] The non-medicinal use of opium and other mind-altering drugs are particularly condemned in the Bahá'í scriptures.[19] Bahá'ís are also asked to try to avoid working in jobs that involve the manufacturing or large-scale sale of alcohol and avoid any involvement in the drug trade.[19] Smoking tobacco is not forbidden but is discouraged.[19]"

Bahá'í laws - Wikipedia

 

[Marcion]

In the week or so that I experimented with eating onions, leeks or garlic, I found it worked like a mild drug on my mind, a bit like alcohol.
After a few months after accidental intake of onions or mushrooms I experienced them as crudifying, more so even than eggs, fish and meat.
Today I was looking for some nice pizza or luxury meat-subtitute for the occasion of Christmas.
Unfortunately I could not find a single one (there was quite a lot to choose from) that was without onions, garlic or mushrooms.
So I settled for the ordinary, some grated vegan pseudo-cheese and some garlic-free houmous.

 

[djconklin]

I follow the health laws of the Bible; so I don't eat unclean foods, like pork, oysters, etc..

When my dad was working in Decator, Alabama, he was putting in a plant for 3M. One day, the engineers decided to goto a rib joint for supper. Along the way, one of the engineers, knowing that my dad did not eat pork, asked him what he would eat. My dad said that they'd probably have a salad or something to eat. The others wanted to know why he wouldn't be eating the ribs? He told that he followed God's food laws and didn't eat unclean meat. They poo-poo'ed him. Then my dad's boss who was a chemical engineer told them ab't a paper he had done on the internal workings of a pig (as a chemical factory). When he got done they decided to go eat somewhere else. [If you have a feed mill near you, or know someone who does, look up the cans of Drano, they are about the size of a half gallon of milk. I wondered why would anyone need that much? So, I took the can off the shelf and looked at the instructions on the back--for flushing put a pig!]