Digestive Process, the Key to Health – Ayurvedic Nutrition

Both food quality and digestive health are inseparable. No matter how good your food is, unless your digestion is good, Ama, a sticky white substance or mucus, will be created which will in turn lead to disease. Hence the importance of good digestion as the key to health.

When you eat foods they need to be not only balancing to the body but to be the right foods for the particular Dosha which highlights the importance of preparing quality foods according to constitution. For example, a Vata person may not digest food well because they do not have strong Agni to digest food. If they eat the wrong type of food for their constitution they may not have the Agni to digest that food, and it will create Ama in the body, causing imbalance and eventually disease. A Vata person would need to eat heavier, grounding, oily and warmer foods.

Ayurveda emphasises the importance of eating in accordance with your individual constitution. When planning meals you need to consider the best foods for your Dosha. For example, dry foods are advised for Kapha, oily foods for Vata, and sweet and bitter foods for Pitta. These will help to balance the body constitution.

What is the importance of digesting food well?

You are not simply what you eat, but you are what you can digest and assimilate because the digestive systems have a strong connection with your mind. The digestive system also responds to your emotional state. Unstable emotions can play havoc on your digestive system and affect the quality of your life. For example, if you have an exam you may not feel like eating or sometimes you will overeat. This can disturb bowel movements, especially if there is too much anxiety.

Any type of stress or fear can create emotional upheaval resulting in Irritable Bowel Syndrome for instance, where there is a lot of nervousness and anxiety affecting the digestive system.

Another Ayurvedic approach to nutrition is the cycle of psycho-physiological connections. The digestive system is connected to your brain.

Ahara – Diet or Food

Nourishment is Ahara. This nourishment is not on a physical level but on the level of the whole being: mind, body and spirit. Therefore food is a source of nourishment. You can get nourishment from food, water, emotions, breath and information through the sense organs.

What is the importance of Ahara? Food and prana are essential to life. Food has prana energy, or life energy. In order to sustain life we need food because it builds the Dhatus or bodily tissues. There is constant depletion going on and the Dhatus need to be nourished.

Food as Ritual

Food at meal times is considered a ritual in Ayurveda. If you are distracted, your mind is in different directions; you are not paying attention to your food during the meal. To make the ritual complete, sit down. Relax, focus on your meal or drink, your feelings; see the colours and textures of the food you are putting in your body. Food needs to be beautifully arranged on a plate so that you can savour the sights, smells, colours and textures. This is an example of how digestion occurs outside the body, and why it is an important ritual to do at meal times.

When you pay attention to your meals you will enjoy your food more, and better understand the connection with quality food, how it affects your life, and energises both mind and body.

Adjust Cooking to the Seasons

A simple, though important, thing to remember is how the seasons will affect your cooking. Intuitively we eat thick hearty soups and stews in winter and lightly-prepared meals with perhaps fresh greens in summer.

Our activities and bodily needs change with the seasons, and so too should our cooking. After all, it is good sense that we eat in order to prepare ourselves for living. By doing so, we become harmonious with our environment, allowing us to live, work and play freely.

What we are doing through cooking is changing the quality of our food. This is achieved by using particular qualities of heat, time, salt and sometimes pressure. By applying these elements, the food is adapted until it becomes the most acceptable form to nourish our blood, and therefore build our tissues in the body.

In effect, cooking is the beginning of our involvement in the digestion of food. Chewing well is fundamental and important as it changes the quality of the food, adding other elements and different enzymes. Any effort involved in taking care with cooking and eating will be highly beneficial.

Be flexible and place emphasis on appropriate cooking methods for the different seasons. For example because cooking time should be longer in the colder months, cut vegetables thicker in autumn and winter than in spring and summer, when light sautéing will be enough.

Slightly less salt and more water are needed in summer than in winter. Finally, you can use more pressure cooking and baking in cold weather, steaming and sautéing in warm weather.

Ama and Agni

When we do not develop correct diet and lifestyle we accumulate Ama. Ama and Agni are opposite in qualities. Ama is sticky, wet, cold and heavy substances while Agni is the process in your digestive system. It is light, hot, dry and clear. Therefore to treat Ama we have to increase Agni – digestion. Remember, it is not just what we eat but what we digest.

Symptoms of Ama include poor appetite, white coating on the tongue, indigestion and bloating and loss of taste. It leads to clogging of channels, lethargy, heaviness and loss of vitality. Waste materials accumulate in the body and affect the Doshas. You become irritable, lose clarity, become depressed and lack motivation.

Ama is the root cause of many illnesses including colds, flus and chronic diseases of the auto immune system such as diabetes, asthma, and arthritis.

Once you identify the root cause, it is important to take steps to improve the digestive fire through elimination. Herbs that are helpful in this process are pungent or bitter in taste. Bitter tasting foods help to separate Ama and stimulates the catabolic processes of the body. Pungent tasting foods burn up and eradicates Ama.

To improve the Agni or digestive fire we focus on improving our dietary choices. Eating fresh, quality foods at the right time, right place, and in turn with the environment and elements we improve the quality of our digestion. This helps clear Ama to work directly on the Doshas to tonify and rejuvenate the body. In this way we take control of our health through gaining the knowledge and understanding of how we can direct our health through our Doshas.

Recipe – Protein Rich Dahl with Vegies

Ingredients
1 cup yellow split mung dahl (washed three times)
4 cups water
1-2 tbsp ghee
Spice – 1 tsp cumin, grated ginger and a pinch of hing (asafoetida), turmeric
¼ cup vegies of choice
1 tsp salt

Method

Yellow split mung dahl cooks the quickest of all lentils and dahl is the easiest to digest being less likely to disturb Vata, especially with added ghee and spice. The secret of using any dahl is to cook it and cook it.

This is an absolute daily must for every vegetarian. Actually this is the open secret of a non-meat diet. Remember to cook your dahl into a cream so the beans have no form, merged into the void if that is at all possible.

Mix the dahl, water, salt and turmeric in a pot. Boil for 25 minutes depending on the dahl and squash with a masher. Add more water if required (when the beans are soft add whey as this adds a magic flavour).

In a separate pot, on a medium heat, add the ghee, grated ginger root, cumin seed, and after a few minutes when the cumin turns very slightly brown add a pinch of hing. Immediately add the vegies, fry for three minutes, add a dash of whey or water and pour into the dahl cream. Mildly simmer for eight minutes, being careful not to burn the bottom. Stir a little and add more liquid. Serve with a dollop of good quality yoghurt on top.

Ayurveda Nutrition Basics Excerpt from Ayurveda BodyHealth by Suzanne Derok

For more about Ayurveda diet and nutrition contact us at Rejuvency Health info@rejuvency.com.au

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