Introduction To Ayurveda's Approach To Diet
Diet is an important component when dealing with one's health. Hence, Ayurveda also imposes a few guidelines that you need to be aware of when it comes to your dietary habits and your choices of food to consume. Ayurvedic healers would insist that an individual must take into consideration their age, gender, and other lifestyle factors in determining their personal diet approach.
But putting aside these individual factors, you can learn more about important elements on Ayurvedic diet below.
Choose Foods That Invoke All Senses
There are six taste classifications for food in Ayurveda, which are sweet, salty, sour, bitter, astringent, and pungent. Ayurvedic experts recommend all six tastes must be present in every main meal to ensure balanced eating. This will also ensure that you have met your appetite and facilitate in proper digestion while getting rid of any unnecessary cravings.
Furthermore, you need to take out food elements from various category that meet the six tastes classification for a balanced approach to nutrition.
Choose Foods That Balance Physical Attributes
Aside from the six tastes, foods in Ayurveda are identified in various binary oppositions: heavy or light, dry or liquid, warm and cold. All of these different qualities are important to balance your doshas. Therefore, every meal that you consume must meet each physical type but it must also be adjusted based on your individual constitution and needs.
To learn more about how you must choose your foods to balance your doshas, take note below:
- Vata dosha – To balance your Vata dosha, you must consume heavy, liquid, and warm foods.
- Pitta dosha – To balance your Pitta dosha, you must consume heavy, dry, and cool foods.
- Kapha dosha – To balance your Kapha dosha, you must consume light, dry, and warm foods.
Choose Sattvic Foods
From the impact on your physical attributes, you must also choose foods that help balance your psychological qualities, specifically your mind, senses, and spirit.
There are three classifications of foods in Ayurveda: sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic. Rajasic foods often aggravate your heart and mind, while tamasic foods promote feelings of lethargy and often deter spiritual growth. Unlike these two, sattvic foods are recommended in Ayurvedic diet due to its stabilizing and uplifting effect.
Example of sattvic foods that you must incorporate into your diet are rice, almond, honey, mung beans, and fresh fruits.
Choose Fresh and In-Season Foods
The preparation of your food and its freshness are important to an Ayurvedic diet, in addition to choosing the right types of food. Whole foods that are consumed in their fresh and natural state is best recommended by Ayurvedic experts.
On the other hand, you must avoid eating canned, refined, or processed foods since they lack nutritional value that fresh foods offer. Organically produced foods are also ideal for your health since it lacks the use of chemicals, fertilizers, and pesticides during farming.
Rotate Your Menu For Variety
The reason for rotating your menu is obvious – for balanced diet and nutrition. By sticking to a particular type of food to include in your diet, you are at risk of developing nutritional deficiency. But if you add variety into your diet approach to incorporate different types of dishes in a week, then you are able to acquire various nutrients that will produce an efficient function for your body, mind, and spirit. By keeping note of the above points raised, it should be easy to adapt your own Ayurveda diet that promotes holistic health.