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1. Food is for the body; taste is for the soul. Eating is not a pleasure if the food you eat lacks taste. The very taste and smell of food triggers the release of certain chemicals in the body that prepare it to accept and subsequently digest the same. Ayurveda seems to have understood this thousands of years ago. According to Ayurveda, each taste imparts a specific action on the metabolic process within our bodies, and thus becomes a crucial factor in attaining perfect health. Ayurvedically speaking, the food we eat can be one or all of six rasas or tastes: 1. Sweet 2. Bitter 3. Sour 4. Pungent 5. Salty 6. Astringent Each taste has a given quality and exhibits a specific action on a particular guna, which again are six in number namely: 1. Heavy 2. Light 3. Dry 4. Oily 5. Hot 6. Cold The qualities and taste of food, which are best for a specific dosha, will be those that help to counteract the qualities of that dosha. For example, vata is dry, cold, and irregular by nature, so foods that balance vata should be moist and warming. It is advisable to have all tastes incorporated in just one meal for better health. Since different places have different foods available, selecting tastes is a matter of common sense. The action of doshas in the body is dependent upon the time of day. Understanding this helps you plan the best times for meals to keep your dosha in balance. The ability to taste is so crucial to the act of eating that when we can't taste our food we just don't have the desire to eat as much as we usually do. Time to Eat While tastes influence doshas, predominance of doshas, is dependent on the time of the day. Clear understanding of all these entities helps you select and eat food properly. The functioning of our body is governed by three doshas, which are kapha, pitta and vata. Each dosha is dominant at a specific time of the day. Generally 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. is considered to be kapha time, which means kapha is at its peak during this time. So what suits a kapha-constitution person early in the morning may not be good for a vata- or a pitta-constitution person. While a kapha person can have a light beverage, a vata person would need a nourishing breakfast, and a pitta person a light breakfast. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. is pitta time and ideal for lunch for all types of constitutions. Pitta-dominant people would need a heavy lunch, vata persons a small meal and kapha persons a light meal. 2 PM to 6 PM is vata time. Pitta people would need something to get going and take care of their agni, vata people something to balance vata and kapha people simply a hot drink. Towards the evening between 6 PM to 10 PM the body's digestive fire is on a decline and that is why light food is advised, preferably two hours before bedtime. Depending on your body constitution, you have to be time-specific in whatever you eat. Eating a heavy lunch after your pitta (or agni) phase is over would only mean an unperceivable damage to your health, which manifests in the form of a disease later. You keep wondering what went wrong presuming you always had good, tasty food to eat. The best way to avoid health problems is to follow Nature's prescription of suitable times to eat. Our body reacts to the Nature's sequence of events. It may sound intriguing, but our agni is the strongest when the sun is strongest between 12 and 2 PM. Agni, which is related to fire, is associated with the Sun. Ayurveda recommends that lunch be the largest meal of the day since that is the time the digestive agni is at its crest. As the sun goes down so does our agni. The Role of Mind Just as our health is influenced by the state of our mind, so is our digestion. Ayurveda believes that when we are eating, we should just be eating and doing nothing else. It is essential to be 'one with our food.' You should quieten your mind and calm the body when you approach each meal. This acts as a thanksgiving to the God who provided you with the same. Food should be approached with reverence and not haste. Haste or wandering thoughts during eating impairs the processes of digestion. To be calm and composed helps you increase the chewing time of food, which synchronizes properly with the rest of your digestive processes. You feel good when you give eating its due and honourable time. Feeling good itself is a step towards being healthy. This article was originally published in issue 96, Feb 2004 of the popular UK-based alternative therapy magazine Positive Health, which is published and edited by Dr Sandra Goodman. Content © Positive Health Publications Ltd 1994 – 2005 … to be concluded Wellness Wisdom Archive Author Interactive : Write to Sanjay Get Connected Promotional Support All Wellness Wisdom articles are copyrighted and reprint or distribution, electronic or otherwise, may please be done only after seeking the author's permission through the Reprint Request form below. |
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The world of ayurveda:
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| the origin of ayurveda |
| The ayurvedic concept of life |
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