Yes, she published an earlier cook book where she came out with some pretty racist stuff about Latinos being lustful and aggressive because they ate onions and garlic ... there is a quote of it somewhere.
On the other hand, of course, I agree on the protein myth stuff. Vegetarian and vegan diets, done well, are perfectly good enough for the vast majority of people.
First, the cook needs a calm and focused mind. Washing up and a short meditation before cooking promotes hygiene and clean mental attitude. Then, the cooking area should be clutter-free.
Members of the Brahma Kumaris who live with their non-vegetarian families usually separate their cooking utensils and storage.
Most important, the cook must have a big heart yet handle the food with no ego and detachment.
Texas-based medical scientist and BK lecturer Hansa Raval disputes studies on the healing effects of garlic and onions. She cites researches that in societies where excessive garlic is consumed, the hypertension and mortality rates are high. “Onions and garlic are highly acidic. They have an effect on the mucus membrane, eyes and skin. They can burn the mucus membrane of the intestines and it has been proven to cause ulcers and hyperacidity,” explains Raval. “The odor of onions and garlic is offensive and the odor settles in the sebaceous gland of the skin. This creates a constant offensive smell.”
Believe me, there are other things in this world that are even more offensive than onions and garlic ... and which leave a far longer lasting spiritual bad odor.I understand Hansa Raval is pathologist and a cancer specialist, not a dietitian. Let us look at this construction.
Blah .. blah ... blah ... "scientist" ...
blah ... blah ... blah ... United Nations
... blah ... blah ... blah ... Brahma Kumaris. The BKs have some high profile IP media and VIP contacts in the Philippines who deliver such PR whitewash.
So let us look closer, in "societies where excessive garlic is consumed ... mortality rates (death) are high"! OK, so where is the peer reviewed scientific paper? That is the way science works. In ALL societies mortality rates are 100% ... so what is she saying? Garlic kills?
What she is really say is a kind of pseudoscientific fudge the BKWSU has placed on top of this onion and garlic issue since the earliest days in the West. The 'no onion and garlic thing' in the BKWSU comes from Vaishnavism which Lekhraj Kirpalani's wife, mainly, followed. Lekhraj Kirpalani himself was apparently a prodigious meat eater. Early Western BKs (and Hare Krishna adherents) have tried desperately to "scientificate" it.
According to the ancient wise sages of Vaishnavim, onion and garlic variously came from the dead body of a murdered cow, a sacrificial horse or demon magician, and therefore they are considered like eating meat or demons (asuras), thus their consumption brings us closer to mode of ignorance which characterizes the nature of the demons. They are non-vegetarian from the Shastric point of view. Eating them makes one ignorant and lustful, they claim.
So the story goes ...
Sanjaya dasa: There's a story about a brahmana's wife. She ate a piece of a cow, and some of it turned into carrot, some of it turned into garlic, some of it turned into onion, and the blood turned into red lentils. Is that story true?
Srila Narayana Maharaja: It is quite true; so we should not eat those things ... the onion is tamasika (in the mode of ignorance). It has all the qualities present in the meat of cows, and the same result obtained from eating cow-flesh occurs from eating onion. One will become lusty and violent by eating it.
Garlic came from the bones of that cow. It is full with bad qualities and puts one in the mode of ignorance. Don't eat it.
In the ancient days, it is claimed, a cow or a horse would be cut into pieces and placed in the fire. Afterwards the rishis would utter mantras and the same animal would come alive in a beautiful young body.
One time the rishi who was about to perform a sacrifice. His wife was pregnant and had a very strong desire to eat. She had heard that if during pregnancy one has a desire to eat and does not fullfill this then the baby that will be born will always have saliva coming from its mouth. She desired strongly to eat meat and kept a piece of meat of the sacrificed cow's body. She stole and hid it, and made a plan to eat it later.
The rishi finished the sacrifice and uttered all the mantras for the new young cow to come to life but when the new cow was reborn, there was a part missing from her left side. He went into meditation and realized that his wife had taken away a piece of meat during the sacrifice.
His wife caught, quickly threw the meat far away but due to the effect of the mantras uttered by the rishi there was now life in this piece of meat. Then the blood of this meat became red lentils, the bones became garlic and the meat became onions.
Thus these foods are never taken by any Vaishnava
Now, frankly, there are good reasons for not eating onions and garlic. Imagining being in a room full of 20,000 farting burping and snoring Indians, as you experience in Mount Abu, who just had done so ... but the stories above are the cultural roots of why the BKs do not eat onions and garlic. And not some pseudo-scientific nonsense applied later on.
Show us the science.
If I was to add my own pseudo-science, I would have to ask ... but is the whole total control of diet to the point of excluding non-BKs (including one's own mother and family) not just a part of their convenient mind and milieu control?
We have read report enough of quite un-yogi states and activities in BKWSO kitchens and centers ... who are they really kidding they are the highest of all religions?