FOOD AND THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT CULTURES
Nectar (amrit IN in Sanskrit) is delicious: it promotes vigor and extends life.
Poison, which tastes terrible and may bring pain and death, is the polar opposite of honey.
Nutrition is the focus of this comparison; the food we consume should be honey, not poison! These two metaphors are often used in Ayurveda to describe the impact of diet on our bodies.
FOOD AND TIME, SPACE, CONSTITUTION, AND SITUATION.
The idea of balanced nutrition, which includes what we eat, how we consume it, and how much we eat, is very different in Ayurveda than it is in contemporary medicine.
- Foods aren't simply beneficial or harmful for your health since their impact varies based on your constitution, circumstances, intake, geographic and climatic conditions, age, time, method of consumption, quality, amount, and mode of preparation.
- The same food product may be nutritious, harmful, or therapeutic to the body depending on all of these factors.
For example, someone suffering from acidity may benefit from a glass of cool milk.
When someone has dominating or reduced kapha, it has a negative impact.
- On a hot summer day, a glass of cool milk may help to alleviate the affects of the heat, but on a chilly winter evening, the same glass of milk might be harmful.
Rice is beneficial to pitta-dominant people who live in hot climates.
- In the cold, it is not a good idea to consume rice late at night.
When consumed with a pitta-promoting diet, such as potatoes and garlic, it makes a balanced meal, even on a cold winter evening!
The notion of balanced diet in Ayurveda is multifaceted.
"Any specific situation" refers to one's overall physical condition as well as the conditions around food intake.
For example, if you're performing purification activities, you'll need a particular regimen; if you're sick or have a body-mind imbalance, you'll need specific nutrients, and so on.
Consider the following scenario: someone falls or bends a bodily organ, or suffers an external injury, such as a cut with bleeding, etc.
- Vata is stimulated in all of these situations, and an imbalance of this humor may result.
- This individual needs specific nutrition to aid in the healing process and maintain bodily equilibrium.
- 1 teaspoon curcuma twice a day is a popular nutritional treatment in many Indian households.
Similarly, if you have moderate indigestion, eat more ginger, lemon, ajwain, and cumin, and eat less fat and protein.
- A kapha-balancing diet, which includes spicy, astringent, and bitter foods, is required if you are sluggish, have an overwhelming urge to sleep, or have a pleasant taste in your mouth.
There are other elements to food as well.
The food you consume affects your mental equilibrium.
A PERSON'S NATURE REFLECTS THEIR PERSONALITY
You already know that a person's prakriti (basic nature) reflects his or her personality.
- External factors, such as the weather or other living situations, may turn prakriti (wellness) into vikriti (illness), resulting in behavioral changes.
- When there are high winds, for example, a person with vata prakriti may feel anxious.
- However, by providing adequate nutritional support to offset the effects of these external alterations, undesirable personality and behavioral characteristics (nervousness, erratic conduct) may be managed.
- Excessive anger, tiredness, poor response time, indecisiveness, and other traits may be influenced to some extent by changing one's diet and bringing the humors into balance.
A vata imbalance causes unpredictable behavior, nervousness, and impatience.
- There are a variety of dietary options for balancing vata.
- You can certainly become calm, stable, and even patient by eating sweet and sour foods, hot, freshly prepared food, avoiding preserved foods in any form, eating regular meals, drinking teas such as thyme, ginger, basil, and other herbs, and following the other instructions described throughout this book for bringing vata in balance! A pitta imbalance is characterized by irritability and anger.
- These characteristics can be influenced by eating foods high in bitter and sweet flavors — foods with less of the fire element — drinking plenty of cold water, cold milk, and drinking pittareducing teas like anise, licorice, and others, as well as using all of the other humor-balancing techniques.
A kapha imbalance is characterized by daydreaming, sleepiness, sluggish responses, and indecisiveness.
- To combat this, consume spicy and astringent meals while avoiding fats and cold foods.
- Nutritional treatment should, of course, be used in conjunction with the other methods.
- On the other hand, if we consume food that causes additional humor imbalance, we begin to suffer from illnesses associated with that humor on the one hand, and a progressive mental imbalance on the other.
If a person with a vata imbalance, or a proclivity for it, consumes a vata-promoting diet, they may experience anxiety and sleep disturbances.
- These individuals are exhausted at work; they yawn often during the day, and their unpredictable or anxious conduct detracts from the work environment.
- Similarly, eating an overly pitta-promoting diet can increase irritability in individuals who already have a "hot temperament." If you consume a lot of greasy fried meals, too many grains, or too many sweets, you may have delayed performance and response times if you have a predisposition toward a kapha imbalance.
- As a result, we can see how consuming the incorrect meals may reduce productivity and create a stressful work environment.
NUTRITION THAT HEALS
By paying attention to our nutrition, we may better manage our job and spare ourselves from stress and anxiety.
Curcuma Cure
Curcuma may be swallowed whole with a glass of hot water.
- It does, however, have a strong odor and a strange flavor that most people dislike.
- The following dish is used in Indian households traditionally.
- For approximately 30 seconds, fry 1 teaspoon powdered curcuma with 1 teaspoon ghee.
- Depending on your milk intake capacity, add to 1 cup (100 to 200 ml) milk.
- Taste and adjust the amount of sugar.
- Bring the water to a boil.
- It's best to drink it hot.
If you don't want to or can't drink milk, eat the fried curcuma with sugar instead.
- Because soy has totally different Ayurvedic qualities than cow's milk, it cannot be utilized to replace it.
- It promotes vata-pitta and is difficult to digest.
- Cow's milk, which is "cold" in Ayurvedic terms, produces a balanced mixture when combined with curcuma.
NUTRITION IN THE AYURVEDIC STYLE.
Let me explain the rationale behind all of this before I go into depth about different aspects of Ayurvedic diet.
- The five fundamental components make up the material reality of the cosmos, which includes our physical existence, everything we eat, and our surroundings (ether, air, fire, water, earth).
- Essentially, despite our continuous contact with the outside world, Ayurveda strives to preserve the balance between these five components.
Time, location, and our diet all have an impact on the five elements, which operate as three essential forces in our bodies and execute all physical and mental processes.
- As a result, food consumption alters our bodily five components on a regular basis.
SIX RASAS FOR EACH OF THE FIVE ELEMENTS.
The five elements may be found in the body and in food in the form of humors, and they can also be found in the form of the six rasas.
- The word rasa literally means "taste," but in pharmacological terminology, it refers to the body's overall response to that specific flavor.
- The tongue senses a substance's flavor and categorizes it as sweet, sour, bitter, and so on, and the entire impact of that taste on the body— if we eat it— is known as a rasa.
Let me offer you an example to help you grasp the concept of rasa.
Assume there is a little mishap at work, and someone suffers a cut that starts to bleed.
- You see a crimson liquid oozing from the wound.
- It's blood, according to your reasoning and past experience.
- That implies your eyes have confirmed that you are looking at a wound with blood flowing out of it.
- This event will have a varied impact on individuals based on their prior experiences and personalities.
- You may be fast to prepare for first aid, whereas another person might be apprehensive.
- Another member in the company may be unable to watch such a sight, while another may need comfort or the use of the restroom.
- Your mind and body are affected by the sight of a wound, blood, and a hurting person.
- Similarly, your sense of taste determines how something tastes when you consume it.
- However, the item we eat, with its own flavor, has an impact on the body and mind, and this is what a rasa is.
- Depending on the components from which it is generated, each rasa has an impact on a humor or humors.
Ayurvedic balanced nutrition mixes rasas in the right proportions to keep the five elements in check.
- The rasa theory is also used in Ayurvedic pharmacology.
- When it comes to medicines, the goal isn't only to provide a chemical that targets the illness; the pharmaceuticals should also be linked in terms of rasas to balance the humors.
- When illnesses are inherent, the rasa hypothesis also applies to dietary treatment (i.e., due to an imbalance of the humors).
Sweet, sour, saline, pungent, bitter, and astringent are the six rasas.
- Each rasa consists of two fundamental components:
- Sweet is from earth and water;
- Sour is from fire and water;
- Saline is from fire and earth;
- Pungent is from fire and air;
- Bitter is from ether and air;
- and Astringent is from earth and air.
RASAS AND THE BODY
Here are some information about each rasa and how it affects the body.
1. Sweet — originating from earth and water, it is chilly in character and promotes kapha while calming vata and pitta.
- This category includes not just sugar and honey, but also cereals like wheat, rice, and other grains, as well as a variety of vegetables and fruits.
- Some chemicals are outliers, since they do not induce kapha while having a pleasant rasa.
- Honey, candy sugar, wild game, aged rice, barley, wheat, and mung beans are all examples.
2. Sour — generated from fire and water — promotes pitta and kapha, and balances exacerbated vata.
- Amala and pomegranate are exceptions, since they balance the three humors.
3. Salty (Saline) – originating from water and fire, it boosts pitta and kapha while lowering vata.
- In this instance, rock salt is an exception, since it does not increase kapha.
4. Pungent — derived from the elements air and fire — boosts vata and pitta while lowering kapha.
- Pepper, ginger, garlic, cardamom, bay leaves, basil, and other spices are examples of this rasa.
5. Bitter — made up of the elements air and ether, it boosts vata while lowering pitta and kapha.
- Wormwood, neem, and bitter gourd are some examples of this rasa.
6. Astringent — made up of the elements air and earth, it boosts vata while lowering pitta and kapha.
- Spinach, dates, and jamun (an Asian fruit whose stone is used to manage and treat diabetes) are examples of this rasa.
It's important to note that natural items always contain more than one rasa, and therefore have many composite medicinal characteristics.
However, with certain drugs, a specific rasa is dominant, and this defines the substance's main impact on your body.
- Your food is a blend of all the rasas, and the art of an Ayurvedic balanced diet lies in creating meals that balance all the rasas.
- From a theoretical standpoint, all of this may seem to be extremely complex, but in reality, tuning to Ayurvedic balanced diet is very easy with a little instruction.
- One flavor, such as highly sour, pungent, sweet, or salty, should not be prominent in a dish.
- Astringent and bitter flavors should be incorporated in meals as well, either via the use of herbs or the combination of specific vegetables.
RASAS AND THE ELEMENTS
The five components that we eat in the form of the three humors should be balanced with the five elements that we consume in the form of the six rasas.
Various rasas enhance our vitality by providing us with three vital forces: vata, pitta, and kapha.
- There are certain natural compounds known as rasayanas that contain multiple rasas.
- A rasayana boosts energy, immunity, and strength, as well as extending one's lifespan.
- Garlic is a rasayana, which means it contains five of the six rasas.
- Except for sour, it contains all other rasas.
- Haritaki (Terminalia chibula) likewise has five rasas, with the exception of saline.
It is strongly advised that these ingredients be used in food preparation.
Whether it's food or rasayana, you should consume natural things in accordance with your constitution.
- Garlic's diverse qualities have recently received a lot of attention.
- Despite the fact that it is a rasayana, it should not be taken in excess (1 to 2 medium-sized garlic cloves per day).
- It should be consumed with ghee for vata people, sugar and water for pitta people, and honey for kapha people.
- It should be taken in modest doses, but on a regular basis.
- Let's have a look at some Ayurvedic nutrition's practical elements.
