MARYLAND: World’s largest military medical center, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) in Bethesda, Maryland offers specialty meals to meet the dietary and religious requirements of Indians besides conducting Hindu Service and Yoga on Thursdays
Special room service menus are available for religious diets, including vegetarian and vegan meals, for inpatients and staff. Ancient Taittiriya Upanishad says-Food is Brahman (the supreme Godhead). From food are born all creatures, by food they grow, and to food they return.
Rajan Zed, President of Universal Society of Hinduism, commended WRNMMC for offering the choice of Hindu meals. He pointed out that consumption, preparation, transformation, offering, etc., of food had been pivotal in Hinduism since the Vedic times. Dharmasastras extensively talked about issues related to food consumption. It was believed that taking of pure food leads to mental purity while consumption of improper foods was both spiritually and physically harmful. Foods had been classified into sattvic, rajasic and tamasic categories; depending on their effects on the human body.
WRNMMC, the flagship of military medicine, also known as the President’s hospital, on 243 acres with over 2.4 million square feet of clinical space, provides care and services to over one million beneficiaries annually. Its motto is “hope to those who enter its doorway”. It also provides care for the President and Vice-President of the United States, Members of Congress, and Justices of the Supreme Court. Its history goes back to 1909. Rear Admiral David A. Lane is its Director.
The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is one of the nation’s largest and most renowned military medical centers. Recently dubbed “The Nation’s Medical Center”, WRNMMC represents the joining of the “Best of the Best” in military medicine when National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center came together in September of 2011, to form Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as decreed by the Base Realignment and Closure law of 2005.
Neela Pandya
