DIETARY GUIDELINES ACCORDING TO AYURVEDA

Ayurveda is an ancient Indian mind-body-spirit well-being practice based on balancing the three doshas: vata, pitta and kapha. Food combining is a health-conscious approach to eating, where foods that require different digestive environments are eaten separately.

It’s a simple concept of eating right which influence our health more than we could imagine….

Don't eat Fruit after a meal

Fruit doesn't combine well with other foods. The reason is that fruit contains simple sugars that require no digestion. Thus, they will not stay for a long time in the stomach.

Other foods, such as foods rich in fat, protein and starch, will stay in the stomach for a longer period of time because they require more digestion.

So if you eat fruit after a meal, the fruit sugar will stay for too long in the stomach and ferment.

Milk should not be combined with any other food

Milk never combines well with any other food. Milk is a complete and concentrated food in itself.

It requires full digestive process of its own kind.

Liquids and solids

As a law, no liquid should be taken with solids. Liquid tends to pass away immediately into the intestines taking away all the digestive enzymes thus inhibiting the digestion.

Liquids should be taken at least 20 minutes prior to meal and not immediately after or along with meal but can be taken one hour after meal.

Cold Drinks

Avoid cold or iced drinks during or directly after a meal.

The cold diminishes digestive power (called agni) and causes a host of digestive problems, allergies, and colds. (The same goes for ice cream and frozen yogurt.)

Eat freshly cooked food

Fresh food is full of prana (life force) and nutrients. These start to diminish soon after it’s cooked.

By the time it’s a leftover, its properties have changed and it’s heavy for the body to digest.

Green tea or black tea and milk

Tea contains flavonoids called catechins, which have many beneficial effects on the heart.

When milk is added to tea, then a group of proteins in milk, called caseins, interact with the tea to reduce the concentration of catechins.

So avoid tea and milk together.

Find an alternative to tomato sauce

Tomatoes are highly acidic foods and are difficult to digest when paired with carbohydrates and dairy, which includes most pasta dishes.

Curd should NOT be consumed in the night

Buttermilk helps in digestion whereas curds to the contrary are heavy to digest. It can be best digested at lunch time when the digestive abilities are the strongest.

Curd is acidic in nature. It aggravates pitta and kapha as it produces a lot of heat in the stomach.

Curds are heavy, slow to digest and can be constipating too.

People with weak digestion should avoid its consumption.