Ahara – Dietary Guidelines
Ayurveda highlights the importance of digestion and diet as the key to wellness. The ancient texts on Ayurveda have clear guidelines about which foods are the most nourishing, the most easily digestible, and those most often found to be the source of illness.
Let Your Food Be Your Medicine
Remember, your food becomes you! Eat to nourish your body, calm your mind and satisfy your senses. There is a saying in Ayurveda, “When diet is wrong medicine is of no use. When diet is correct medicine is of no need.”
You are what you eat: The alchemy of food into consciousness
Imagine having a warm bowl of soup on a cold winter day. The soft and warm qualities of the soup help to counteract the cold and rigid qualities we experience in a cold climate. As the body becomes nourished with the warm soup, it relaxes and the mind feels a sense of peace and fulfillment. A calm mind produces calm clear thinking, clear thinking allows for balanced emotions. A calm and balanced mental and emotional state determines our beliefs and our actions. Our actions determine our life!
An important guideline in choosing foods is to work with balancing the body &mind. It is as simple as remembering, opposites create balance. Our food choices directly effect the not only our body, but our mental and emotion state as well.
Respectively, like increases like. If you feel excess heat in your body or your mind (hot tempered) chill out with some mint tea, a piece of fruit or use cooling spices like fennel or coriander in your food.
* Remembering these simple guidelines when making diet and lifestyle choices will have a profound effect on the quality of your life *
An important principle of Ayurveda is the emphasis on the combination of the six tastes: sweet, pungent, salty, astringent, sour and bitter. Incorporating all six tastes have physiological and emotional effects in addition to supporting digestion. When all six tastes are not present, we tend to feel unsatisfied after a meal. Quite literally, there is something missing.
The main taste in our staple diet is sweet, meaning ‘bland.’ Some examples are fruits, meat and grains. Next in proportion are pungent and sour. The others trail behind. Often we refer to pungent foods as spicy. The expression “Variety is the spice of life” is a good example of how we refer to the six tastes in everyday life.
Recommendations
Foods listed in italics are the most nourishing to all the tissues and organs in the body. Make these foods a regular part of your diet.
Grains: Aged rice, wheat, barley, oats, couscous, amaranth, millet, rye
Cooked Vegetables: Squash (snake gourd, obo, kabocha, butternut, acorn, delicata), okra, eggplant, radish, sweet potato, bamboo shoots, bitter melon, spinach, cooked onion, daikon radish, avocado, carrots, beets, parsnip, asparagus, artichoke, bok choy, broccoli, brussels spouts, burdock root, cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, leafy greens, peas, zucchini, cauliflower, leeks, kohlarabi, turnip
Fruits: Coconut, dates, grapes, mango, pomegranates, raisins, persimmons, apricot, banana, all berries, cherries, figs, grapefruit, kiwi, lemons, limes, oranges, papaya, plums, peaches, pineapple, rhubarb, strawberries, cranberries, pears, prunes
Legumes (soaked and well cooked) : Mung beans, aduki beans, red lentils beans, black-eyed peas, chana dal, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans, split peas, white beans, black beans
Nuts &Seeds: Sesame seeds, almonds, charoli, pumpkin seeds, brazil nuts, cashews, coconut, hazelnut, macadamia nut, pecans, pistachio, walnuts, chia, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, poppy seeds
Fresh Dairy: Raw cow's milk, ghee, butter, goat milk, home made buttermilk, unsalted cheese
Meat: Buffalo, bone broth, goat, rabbit, chicken, turkey, lamb
Occasional: beef, fish, seafood, duck, chicken eggs, duck eggs, pig
Sweeteners: Raw honey, jaggery, rock sugar, raw sugar cane, rapadura maple syrup, sucanat, agave, turbinado sugar
Oils: Sesame, ghee, unsalted butter, olive oil, peanut oil, coconut oil, flax oil, hemp oil, pumpkin seed oil
Spices: Most spices are beneficial, ginger, cumin, cardamom, fennel, coriander, cinnamon, saffron, turmeric, cilantro, dill, mint, neem leaves, (dry & fresh), black pepper, cayenne, chili, long pepper, cloves, garlic, horseradish, mustard seeds, nutmeg, onion, paprika, thyme, rosemary, sage, marjoram, hing,…
Avoid Completely (Ideally, or when ill)
Raw leafy greens raw vegetables, Yogurt, All fermented foods (saurkraut, miso, kim chee, kombucha, soy sauce, …), Mushrooms, Sprouts,Tomatoes/Ketchup, Vinegar, Table Salt, Ice Cream, Cold drinks,, Smoothies, Fried & Fatty Foods, Cheese, Molasses, Frozen Food, Dried, Meats & Vegetables, Leftovers, Sour Dough Bread, Processed and canned foods, Sandwich, Salted Butter
Special “Stand alone foods” / Food Combining
* Fresh Fruits
* Milk should be taken alone or with other sweet tastes. Allow 1½ hours before having other foods.
* Milk should not be taken with vegetables, meat, fish, sour foods, salt or eggs. This includes milk with most cereals (read the ingredients on the label, cereals generally have salt) and cheeses made with salt. Keep this principle if you have the habit (a good habit to break!) of having milk with coffee or tea with meals.
Timing – General guidelines
Eat only when you are hungry and only after the previous meal has been digested. Generally, it takes 6 hours to digest a meal. If you wake up hungry, have a light breakfast. If you aren’t hungry in the morning skip breakfast. Eat your main meal of the day, around noon when your digestive fire is strongest. Dinner should be light and eaten close to 6PM. Avoid snacking between meals.
Helpful Hints
*Traditional Indian foods are not necessarily Ayurvedic
* Use organic ingredients ~ Fresh, seasonal & local whenever possible
* Prepare and eat your meals in a peaceful environment
* Chew slowly, mindfully & with gratitude
* If your digestion is sluggish, chew a slice of fresh ginger with a little lemon juice to stoke your digestive fires and appetite
* Fill your stomach with 1/2 food, 1/4 warm water and leave 1/4 empty for digestion
* Remember, good fats are good for you. One teaspoon of ghee at each meal is a wonderful way to nourish the body.
* Cook with digestion-stimulating spices. Spices like dried ginger, turmeric, cumin, coriander and ajwan not only enhance digestion, they also help flush toxins out of the body and help improve absorption and assimilation of nutrients.
* Use only real, unprocessed salt. (Salt should have some color and moisture.) Saindav rock salt has the most nourishing qualities of the many varieties of salt.
* Soaking grains, lentils, nuts and seeds for 30-60 minutes in warm water helps make them easier to digest. Soaking them in water overnight is even better. Cooking with asofetida(hing) helps avoid gas and bloating associated with digesting beans.
* Add pungent spices to rice cooked with meat and/or vegetables to aid the digestion process.
* Each morning, have one to two glasses of warm water to hydrate the body and stimulate the digestive system.
* Drink beverages at room temperature or warm. Avoid cold drinks.
*Drink only when you are thirsty. Too much liquid weakens digestion.
*Boil your drinking water. It makes it easier for the body to assimilate. Use fresh water daily. Water that sits overnight is hared for the body to digest.
* The most important ingredient is your intent. Infuse your food with Love & Gratitude!
