Food is Medicine
Diet Recommendations
"All disease starts in the gut." - the famous quote from Hippocrates.
Ayurveda puts its main emphasis on the agni, or the strength of digestion. Digestion plays such
an important role in our overall health. The strength of our agni, or digestion, directly correlates
to the foods we eat, the time we eat our meals, the quantity we eat, and the quality of the foods we eat. If we follow a simple set of guidelines concerning our diet, we end up with a healthy agni, no ama (undigested food toxins), and in turn receive a healthy body.
What do we eat?
We should be eating according to our prakriti, our body's own constitution. A couple quick examples are... Vata is governed by air and space leaving it generally dry. Therefore, it isn't recommended to eat dry foods like popcorn or crackers. Warm moist foods are recommended. Pitta is governed by fire. Pitta prakriti gets aggravated when eating lots of spicy foods. And Kapha is governed my earth. Think solid and heavy. Sweets should be avoided. Knowing your prakriti is the first step in fine tuning your diet. It's also obviously important to eat organic, fresh, warm foods. Leftovers are huge no no. Cold foods are also not recommended in Ayurveda. Think of your agni as literal heat or fire. Warm food and drinks keep the fire going. Pour an ice cold drink or frozen food on and the fire simmers out. Our goal is to keep the agni rolling at a steady rate that digests, assimilates, and evacuates our meal at a reasonable speed. This is why we also say no snacks.
6 tastes
Ayurveda recognized six tastes and says we should be including all six tastes in every meal. Each taste serves its own purpose and is digested at different times
Sweet: grounding, strengthening, nourishing
Sour: cleansing, purifying
Salty: balancing, regulating
Bitter: detoxifying, mineralizing
Astringent: anti-inflammatory, cooling
Pungent: warming, stimulating
When do we eat?
It's so important that we eat on a schedule. There should be adequate time between meals so that food is fulling digested. If food is left over in the stomach when we start eating again, it just packs in more and isn't ever able to digest fully. Think of a sludgy matter that lines your digestive tract and builds like a clogged drain. This is called ama. Ama is a major player in disease. It prevents our bodies from absorbing the nutrients we need. The second thing we need to know about our meal schedule is that our digestion is strongest during the hours of 12-2p, or what we know as lunch time! Therefore, lunch needs to be our heaviest meal of the day, not dinner. Dinner should be something light and easily digestible like soup. It's also important to eat early enough so that our food is fully digested before we go to sleep. Our sleep energy should be used for healing the body, not digesting food.
Mindset
Just as important as what we eat is how we eat. Our mindset while eating as dictates how our food is assimilated. Meals should be eaten while seated, don't stand or get up and down. Take a moment of gratitude towards the food in front of you before eating. No tv. No phone. No outside distractions. Chew your food completely without rush. If you are cooking your meal, which you should be, check your energy while you're cooking. If you are angry or in a rush that energy is transferring straight to your food. Take some calm grounding breaths and feel gratitude for how the food before you is about to heal you.
Incompatible foods
Per Ayurveda there are a certain set of foods that should not be combined. They do not digest properly and cause ama. These food combinations should always be avoided. Please see the handout above for a complete list.
Here's a sweet food blessing my kids learned in school:
Thank you for the food before us,
The friends beside us,
And the love between us.
Bon Appétite!
Namaste :)
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