Ayurveda Article - Diet Tips For All

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Diet Tips for the Unique You

 

Ayurveda believes that the food you eat is not just taste, smell, and

satisfaction. It is also desire, feeling and emotion.

 

The Charaka Samhita, one of the earliest and most comprehensive

ayurvedic texts in existence, links food with spirit thus:

 

"The use of foods and drinks which are heavy, rough, cold and dry,

disliked, distending, burning, unclean, antagonistic, or taken

untimely...are afflicted with these psychic emotions: passion, anger,

greed, confusion, envy, bashfulness, grief, conceit, excitement and

fear..."

 

The obvious choice, it would seem, is to stay away from the "disliked

and the distending." But it's not so easy to generalize. Some people,

for instance, drink milk straight from the refrigerator and whistle

through their day. For others, milk in any form is trouble. Even

within the same family, no two people have identical food preferences.

 

Why? The answer lies in your prakriti or unique constitution, says

Vaidya Ramakant Mishra, Director of Product Research and Development

at Maharishi Ayurveda Products International, Inc. Your prakriti is

the sum of your shape, size, weight, complexion, energy levels,

emotional responses, and health patterns, which are totally different

from those of anyone else's on earth. Improper diet and lifestyle

habits, environmental pollution and day-to-day stress can cause this

basic doshic combination or prakriti to become imbalanced, and this

basically is why disorders and disease occur, whether of the body or

the mind.

 

Metabolism, ayurveda believes, is central to your health. Efficient

food conversion, assimilation and elimination, says Vaidya Mishra,

supplies the nutrients that enable each cell and tissue to perform

its job well. If on the other hand, your metabolic processes are in

disharmony, you're on the road to ill-health, just like inefficient

fuel combustion in a car engine starts to form deposits on valves.

 

The key to good nutrition, therefore, is this: eat those foods that

please and nurture your own unique constitution and help keep it in

balance. And no one can have a better understanding of this than you

yourself. Stepping on and off the scale a dozen times a day, or

consulting the calorie charts while munching are not the right ways

to do this, though. They only take the joy out of eating. The

simplest way to chart out your culinary course is to develop a feel

for your body and its likes and dislikes.

 

In conjunction with your own efforts to understand your physiology,

visit a vaidya for a diagnosis of your unique prakriti or body type

and individualized suggestions for maintaining balance. Vaidyas

receive intensive training in pulse diagnosis. Just a few minutes of

holding your wrist, and they can tell you exactly how the doshas are

combined in your personality and whether one or more of them needs to

be fine-tuned.

 

Meanwhile, paying attention to the following five principles will

help you eat for health, well-being and bliss:

 

Swabhav or the nature of the food: Cinnamon, for instance, is hot by

nature, while cardamom is cool. Again, clove is hot and cumin is

cool. Though you can slowly develop an understanding of the various

spices and their properties on your own, it can, admittedly, get

confusing in the beginning. As a general rule, too, eat more foods

that are cool in swabhav when the weather is hot, and switch to warm

foods in cool weather. Maharishi Ayurveda Churnas and Herbal Teas

are simple, convenient ways to eat and drink for personal balance.

 

Sahyog or proper blending: This is an important ayurvedic concept.

Just like certain plants, when sown together, grow healthier and can

resist disease, so can food combinations influence the way you feel.

You'll observe that yogurt and milk taken together will disagree with

your system. Result: you'll be irritable and less productive. But

cook light split mung dhal with basmati rice in a spoonful of

Maharishi Ayurveda's gourmet Ghee, spike it with a Churna of your

choice, and you've got the perfect combination for a light,

nutritious meal. For more tips on food combinations and for

delicious, healthy recipes, to Flavors of Health, MAPI's

free monthly newsletter on eating right, ayurvedically.

 

Sanskar or the qualities of food, which change with processing: Raw

foods, for instance, are considered harder to digest according to

ayurveda. But when you cook them lightly and spice them mildly, they

become beneficial for you. Similarly, cold milk, straight from the

refrigerator, is difficult to digest, but boiled and cooled milk,

taken with a pinch of turmeric and a spoonful of Maharishi Ayurveda's

soothing Rose Petal Preserve is a natural tranquilizer.

 

Matra, which means quantity: Each of us has a certain capacity,

beyond which the system has to struggle to digest food. This capacity

differs from person to person and is known as his or her

unique 'matra.' A change in the regular matra our system is used to

will cause an imbalance in the digestive system, and in our whole

physiology. Get a feel for your 'matra' and try to eat close to that

quantity at any given meal.

 

Desha or location, is critical, too: Within the same country, there

are different environmental zones, and therefore different ways our

bodies respond to foods. If you've moved recently from a cold, wet

place to a desert region, you need more moist, sweet and oily foods

like carrots, zucchini, beets, cilantro, cumin, ghee, sesame oil and

light beans. This is because deserts have a natural propensity to

vata dosha in the environment. Ghee lubricates and nurtures the body

from the inside, so it is especially good for people living in desert

lands.

 

THUMB RULES FOR EVERYONE

 

Get the six basic tastes on your plate: The 6 ayurvedic tastes

(rasas) are an important part of a balanced diet. The idea is to eat

at least a bit of each taste-sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and

astringent-at each meal. For an easy way to ensure this, help

yourself to a dollop of Maharishi Ayurveda's taste-enhancing

Chutneys, which include all 6 tastes.

 

Eat foods that have a saatvic influence on your mind: Saatvic foods

are those that are digested easily and nourish body, mind and spirit.

They include fresh foods, milk, ghee, most vegetables, grains-

especially basmati rice, and light beans like mung dhal. When you eat

more saatvic foods, you feel calm and poised but creative and

energetic.

 

Be done with the first meal before starting the next: This one is

self-explanatory. If your earlier meal is not fully digested, the

ingredients from that meal will mix with those in the next one and

create all sorts of digestive imbalances.

 

If you eat for good health, eat in the positive company of pleasant

friends and choose the right foods, you help to maximize not just

your physical health but your emotional, mental and spiritual well-

being as well.

Note : This ayurvedic information is educational and is not intended

to replace standard medical care or advice.

Copyright MAPI, 2002.

 

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