Ayurvedic Cooking

Ayurvedic Cooking at Vedang Clinic By Ayurvedic Dr. Rushalli Nair

Ayurvedic Cooking

Ayurvedic Cooking

Whether you want to loose weight or find the most suitable diet for your body type to bring you optimum health, understanding Ayurvedic Cooking is must for you..

I have grown up in a very traditional maharashtrian family where I have seen my mother cooking for the family. As cooking was one of my hobbies, I have learnt her recipes too.

She was an awesome cook and people would love her recipes. She was strict when it came to family’s nourishment and the quality of food. She was also very particular about our lifestyle patterns as well. We would finish our dinner by 8pm no matter what. The every day breakfast would be Dooth-Poli ( milk with fresh chapati and loads of home made ghee ). I still remember how it would give me fantastic energy till noon while studying. Medical education is demanding and her food would sustain me till the afternoon easily.

She would make sure that the recipe change as per the season. Eg. In the month of Shravan ( A Hindu auspicious month that would start somewhere from mid August till mid September). We would finish dinner before the sunset and there would be special dishes which would be compatible for that season.

Gladly, I have inherited her qualities and as I said before, I have learnt her recipes as well! I started introducing few changes in my recipes as per the principles of Ayurveda and shared those recipes with my clients which brought a great amount of support to their healing therapies.

I am sharing some valuable diet lessons here based on my 15 years clinical knowledge. Further, customised recipes according to your constitution can be provided to you after understanding your prakruti through Nadi Pariksha.

The Vata-balancing diet lessons:-

  • To balance Vata , eat warming and comforting diet.
  • Vata have an erratic digestive fire. To avoid indigestion, eat small portions of simple food. Your meals should be cooked and ideally served warm, including your breakfast.
  • Eat at regular times every day. Your digestive fire is the strongest at 1 PM so lunch like a king or queen. Erratic eating like skipping meals will aggravate Vata and then when you do eat, you often over eight which will overload your agni (digestive fire).
  • Your meals should be creamy, unctuous, moist and smooth and cooked with ghee, oil or cream. Comfort food is good for Vata physically and emotionally so include soup, stews, rice puddings, lentils, rice or curry.
  • Focus on foods which are sweet, sour and salty and reduce your consumption of bitter, astringent and pungent tastes.
  • Rice and wheat are the best grains for you, followed by oats, moong and red lentils.

The Pitta-balancing diet lessons:-

  • You normally get away with eating whatever you want, but when Pitta is out of balance it is a good idea to stick to the guidelines below.
  • Start cooking some of your meals with a little ghee (clarified butter) as it is a cooling fat and most oils (except coconut oil) are heating in nature.
  • Focus on eating sweet, bitter and astringent foods such as moong beans, coconut, coriander, asparagus, sweet fruits and cooked or sautéed salads.
  • Salt, sourness, spices and oil will all imbalance Pitta, so your meals should be quite simple in taste. Avoid tomatoes, yoghurt, vinegar, pickles, chilies and yellow cheese.
  • Foods should be cooling in nature so opt for fruits, milk and root vegetables.
  • Don’t skip a meal or go hungry. Snack between meals if necessary. Dried fruit is good for you, specially dates as they cleanse the blood.

The Kapha-balancing diet lessons :-

  • You should eat a light diet of a freshly cooked, warm meals and small portion sizes.
  • Kapha people do not need animal protein as they do not require the extra nourishment and it is both heavy and hard to digest.
  • Increase your intake of bitter foods, astringent foods and pungent foods and reduce the amount of sweet, sour and salty foods in your diet.
  • Raw salads are hard to digest, so they should be eaten only in the summer.
  • Avoid all refined sugar products, breads, alcohol and deep fried foods. Be careful of low-fat products as they can be high in sugar.
  • Eat small portions, don’t eat between meals and don’t eat your next meal until the last one has been digested. Make lunch your biggest meal.

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