Eating for Balance on an Ayurvedic Diet: “How to Fall in Love with Foods You Know Nothing About”

Ayurveda, the Indian science of life that prescribes living in the healthiest way possible, is a science that every human being should know. According to Ayurveda, each individual has unique needs for balance. Since diet is one of the most important Ayurvedic tools for achieving balance, Ayurvedic healers generally design individualized diets for people who see, based on various factors such as age and gender, doshic tendencies that need to be balanced in at any given time, the strength of the body’s tissues and digestive fires, and the level of ama (toxins) in the body.

Additional factors considered would be where a person lives, along with the seasons, which are also factors that affect dietary dos and don’ts. The Ayurvedic individualized approach to choosing foods for balance can be a bit intimidating at first, and there are some universally applicable principles that are important to follow if you are living or want to live an Ayurvedic lifestyle.

It is probably safe to say that many people today are looking for alternative lifestyle changes that lead to a healthy and balanced life. Most people are slowly starting to understand that they need to take better care of themselves, and so they are looking more and more for things that work. For centuries, Indians have based their natural diets on individual temperament (swabhav) and body type (prakriti), as well as their age and profession. The practice of Ayurveda is made up of the two words ayus (life) and ved (science), and is considered a preventative measure against sickness and disease.

Body faults are also an important component of the practice; for example, people fit into one of three basic categories: vata, pitta, or kapha. For each defect, a different diet is prescribed. Vata people can eat all kinds of nuts in small amounts, while people with Pitta constitution should not eat too much sugar. People of the Kapha type tend to have naturally cold and clammy constitutions, and therefore this type of person should avoid excessive intake of cold foods and drinks.

To better understand and embrace this unique and exceptional science, you must first understand what the four basic flavors are in Western foods. They are – sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Indian foods include these, as well as cold and astringent flavors. If you eat Indian food regularly, you have no doubt come to know a lot about Indian cuisine and all the various spices that make up this wonderful food. For a healthy understanding and appetite for an Ayurvedic diet and lifestyle, start here:

Six Flavors in Ayurvedic Foods (Supreme Relationship Building)

In Ayurveda, food is classified into six tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent. Ayurvedic healers recommend that you include all of these six flavors in every main meal you eat. Each flavor has a balancing ability, and including a bit of each minimizes cravings and balances appetite and digestion. On the other hand, the general North American diet tends to have too many sweet, sour, and salty flavors, and not enough bitter, spicy, and astringent flavors. A fruit and spice chutney or spice mix can provide a bit of each of the six flavors if you’re in a hurry, but choosing foods from each category is ideal for complete and balanced nutrition. Only in the fresh vegetables and herbs category, for example, you can choose fennel or carrot bulb for sweet, fresh lemons for sour, arugula or endive for bitter, white radish or daikon or ginger root for spicy and cabbage or broccoli or cilantro for astringent.

Balance of physical attributes (your partner will love it) Dosha Diet Principles

In Ayurveda, foods are also classified as heavy or light, dry or oily/liquid, and warm or cold (temperature), with different qualities balancing different doshas. A balanced main meal should contain some foods of each physical type. Within this general principle, you can vary the proportions of each type depending on your constitutional balance needs, the season of the year and the place where you live. To keep the vata dosha in balance, choose heavier, oily, or hot liquid foods and fewer dry, light, or cold foods. To help balance Pitta, focus more on cold, dry, and heavy foods, and to balance Kapha, try more light, dry, and hot foods. If you live in colder climates, you’ll want to gravitate toward warm, comfort foods, and vice versa. Similarly, in winter, when Vata dosha tends to increase in most people’s constitutions, almost everyone can benefit from including hot soups and nutritious fresh paneer cheese and whole milk in their diet. In the summer, plan to eat more cool, relaxing foods to help maintain pitta dosha balance.

spices and seasons

Certain spices contain several overlapping properties. For example, cardamom, a stimulating aromatic spice, is slightly astringent and sweet, as well as spicy. Cardamom is frequently used in Indian cooking to refresh the mind, strengthen the heart and lungs, and relieve pain. Traditionally, the seasons also play a huge role in predicting the best means of substance for the body, an approach that is still largely followed in India today with the seasonality of available fruits and vegetables and the effects of the often extreme temperatures during the seasons.

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Vessels are also fascinating in an Ayurvedic context, as they are believed to impart certain properties to cooked foods. You have to give certain treatments to food from the beginning. Spices must be stone ground, transferred to a copper container, cooked to a certain temperature, stirred with an iron rod, finished and served in a particular container according to the properties of the ingredients.

Materials such as wood, clay, terracotta, cast iron, tin, brass and noble metals such as gold have different uses in the kitchen. Glass, leaves, and copper are also mentioned in Ayurvedic treatises, along with nonstick cookware.

The material used and the shapes of the pots and pans decide the outcome of the cooking, beneficial or not, along with the heating that is specifically prescribed in indigenous medicinal terms. A simple example is drinking warm water heated in a silver container to improve strength and stamina. According to Ayurveda, each meal should be a feast for all the senses. When your plate reflects an enticing array of colors, textures, flavors, and aromas, your digestive juices begin to flow freely with anticipation and your body, mind, and heart fill with the experience of eating. In my next article, find out how to use Ayurvedic recipes to improve your relationships. It will be fascinating, I promise.