Here are some comments about some of these issues from Ven Dhammanando:KeepCalm wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 10:52 pmHmmm.. I don't think so. I think something either breaks vinaya or it doesn't.Sam Vara wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 10:35 pm
Yes, understood. I have heard some monastics talk about the chocolate and cheese issue as being a primarily Western trick to circumvent the rule about eating after mid-day. But I have also heard some explain how it really doesn't breach vinaya. I guess it's just a matter of personal choice in the onlooker...
Dhammanando wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:36 pm ...
Among bhikkhus the allowability of chocolate is a disputed point.
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Dhammanando wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:21 amGhee (sappi) is uncontroversial; it's one of the five tonics. Cheese is widely accepted in Thailand as being included in navanīta, another of the five tonics, though this is likely an error.salayatananirodha wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 4:16 pm and ghee and cheese are not really allowable in my opinion, thats a thai tradition?
Ajahn Thanissaro on 'navanīta' wrote: Fresh butter must be made from the milk of any animal whose flesh is allowable. None of the Vinaya texts go into detail on how fresh butter is made, but MN 126 describes the process as "having sprinkled curds in a pot, one twirls them with a churn." Fresh butter of this sort is still made in India today by taking a small churn — looking like an orange with alternate sections removed, attached to a small stick — and twirling it in curds, all the while sprinkling them with water. The fresh butter — mostly milk fat — coagulates on the churn, and when the fresh butter is removed, what is left in the pot is diluted buttermilk. Fresh butter, unlike creamery butter made by churning cream, may be stored unrefrigerated in bottles for several days even in the heat of India without going rancid.
Arguing by the Great Standards, creamery butter would obviously come under fresh butter here. A more controversial topic is cheese.
In Mv.VI.34.21, the Buddha allows bhikkhus to consume five products of the cow: milk, curds, buttermilk, fresh butter, and ghee. Apparently, cheese — curds heated to evaporate their liquid content and then cured with or without mold — was unknown in those days, but there seems every reason, using the Great Standards, to include it under one of the five. The question is which one. Some have argued that it should come under fresh butter, but the argument for classifying it under curds seems stronger, as it is closer to curds in composition and is generally regarded as more of a substantial food. Different Communities, however, have differing opinions on this matter.In Thailand you can. In many Burmese monasteries tea is classified as a food because of the local practice of fermenting tea leaves and eating them.
Mike