Ayurvedic Diet: Eating Right for Your Body Type

One of the most significant aspects of Ayurveda is the Ayurvedic diet. People generally refer to it as an ayurvedic balanced diet or a sattvic diet. Ayurvedic diet is a strategy of eating sensibly since food is valued more highly than medicine. We will not require any medications if we consume the appropriate foods at the right times every day.

The Ayurvedic food principles outlined in the Charak Samhita and Sushruta Samhita are basic nutritional instructions for living a better, happier, and longer life. Ayurveda is a steady science. Whatever it prescribes for your health remains relevant. In this essay, we’ll talk about healthy eating habits based on Ayurvedic principles. These healthy eating habits will help you prevent and eliminate practically all ailments in your life.

Eat Fresh

Food is what keeps us going however are what we doing correctly? According to Ayurveda you must always eat fresh and not keep the food for the next meal. What it means is that you must always cook according to your needs and eat only that as Ayurveda doesn’t appreciate leftovers or refrigeration. 

You must be wondering if we don’t eat leftovers how will we navigate through our life amid our busy schedule? We don’t ask you to pluck fruits and veggies and eat them rather we believe that to make that food easy to cook chop the veggies so that the preparation time decreases and your cooked food is also fresh. To understand it better when we add condiments to our dishes we don’t realize that the nutritional value of the food degrades. 

The current trend we are following is consuming cold beverages such as iced coffee, teas, or even kombucha which has so many benefits but adding ice to it decreases the complete impact of the drink. So why should you not hop on this trend? 

As per Ayurveda, we call our digestion game as Agni or fire and when we add ice and water to the fire it reacts negatively. Our body takes twice as had to digest what we are eating first to bring it to the body temperature and then digest it. The process is even more difficult when our body is weak we are going through congestion, or are low in immunity and thus the issues of bloating, gastric reflux, and even constipation arise. 

We often wonder why we are eating less and drinking more fluids why are we facing issues? The simple answer is the fluids that we are consuming are cold and are thus impacting our Arma which is nothing but indigested material in our water. 

Unctuous / Moist Food

Moist food? We know the confusion but to help you understand better know that our body is made of a slimy slippery layer called mucus which protects the gut. When you add try food to your body for instance coffee which is extremely dry in nature it will impact your gut. 

A dry meal once a day might be ok but regularly will scrap the mucus layer. So, what should you do to avoid it? Use oils such as olive oil, sesame oil, or even ghee to bring the unctuous properties to the food. If you consume coffee and are unable to leave it add a spoon of ghee to decrease the harmful effects. 

Appropriate Quantity of Eating 

How much should one eat? It feels very personal as we all know how much we need to eat. But have you ever wondered why you feel low post-meal? Here is what Ayurveda says about it. 

Let’s formulate it this way, your stomach consists of three sections one is food, the second is air, and the third is water so first one should eat as per digestive caliber, so the food you have one-third of your stomach but what we often do is we eat up to the brim when the food is delicious. 

So, no matter how healthy the food is access to that is unhealthy so it’s not all correct to consume good food it’s important to have properly digestible food. Another point here is don’t drink water with food or immediately post food as it will lead to indigestion and bloat. 

When a Previous Meal is Digested

Eat when you are hungry and not when it says that only the clock. We often eat when others are eating or perhaps it’s time for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. As per Ayurveda, you should eat when your previous meal is digested. 

The only way to know that is when you feel light on the gut or you feel hungry but even then you must keep at least four to six hours of gap in between meals to allow your body to come back with gears to work and break your food and start the digestion process again. Ayurveda doesn’t believe in the habit of munching as you will overburden your body. 

Appropriate Environment of Eating

How do you eat your meal? Do you sit with a group of or friends, family fully engaged in conversation or in front of a television? As per Ayurveda to eat mindfully you must always sit away from the noise. You must keep the place you are eating calming and beautiful so that the entire focus is on your food and nothing else. 

Many a time we notice that when we eat our food with a heavy influence of TV or conversations we tend to either eat more than what’s required or less than what we usually eat and that is because our focus is not on what it should be on. Food is not a necessity to satisfy our hunger but also acts as a fuel to poncho bothic which are the five elements of our body. 

Another important thing you should keep a check on is what’s your pace of eating. If you are a slow eater you will end up consuming less nutrients than what your body needs and for fast eaters, the problem is bigger. Some who eat too fast don’t chew their food, they gulp it down which leads to indigestion. 

So, eat at the right face and in a calmer environment the best way we can think to follow that is to pray before you eat to say a small prayer. 

Prepare food with a happy mind 

The energy with which you prepare your food is injected into the food you eat, so make food for yourself and others with a happy heart. 

The prime example of this is how satisfied are we when we eat food cooked by our mother or guardian. This is because, with the flavors of spices, there is also a flavor of love so make this a regular practice to make food with a calmer mind to add the required healing properties to it. 

We hope that these tips on eating right with Ayurvedic diet help you.