The Ayurvedic Diet: Rules for Taking Food

Smiling Woman Eating Salad

Ayurveda justifies natural well being and longevity with significant following of everyday aahara (diet) and vihara (lifestyle) rules and regulations.

These rules have been laid down in the ancient wisdom text thousands of years back, yet are truly pertinent when we make a conscious effort so as to understand the logic underneath.

Ayurveda philosophy has tips on the right eating habits one should embrace in their daily lifestyle.

Ayurveda Eating Habits & Tips

There are some conventional and methodological suggestions that are mentioned in Ayurveda text. These need to be consciously interpreted and followed for our own well being and self awareness.

  • Smiling Woman Eating SaladWhile taking food, we need to be mentally in the state of happiness and tranquility.
  • Physical hygiene and mental (spiritual) purity enhance the nourishing property of the meal.
  • Ayurveda advocates taking of the meal to be analogous to performing a sacred act. Therefore enchanting of mantras and offering of prayers before commencing eating the meal is considered auspicious as well as mandatory.
  • Another indication that most of us would be ignoring nowadays is not to preheat the food. This means that the food that is to be taken should be cooked freshly just prior to the time of having the same.
  • Food that is very hot or has been somehow burnt needs to be simply avoided. At the same time, it has been indicated that the food should be suitably cooked.
  • As for the right time for taking a meal is concerned, Ayurveda imparts that taking of a meal in wee hours of the morning and also late at night needs is to be discouraged.
  • Ayurveda counsels proficient mannerism while taking of a meal. The practice of eating food should not be very slow, nor very fast. Also, while eating you need to concentrate on every single morsel that you are taking in. This means you need to evade talking and laughing during the act of eating.
  • Ayurveda indicates concentrating on the food that you are having. This means that you need to be consciously aware of the optimum levels of your natural hunger and contentment, and to be vigilant about your own digestion.
  • The food that is warm, unctuous, and light is believed to be well digested and nourishing for the body as well as mind. This kind of food tends to invigorate your gastric fire—which is essential in proper digestion of the meal—is nicely digested and assimilated within the body, and helps to settle down the gas formation in the abdomen.

The Right Approach to Diet

According to Ayurveda text, the basics of the right diet that is actually nourishing for an individual is contemplating and forbearing for the body, mind, and also the soul.

Ayurveda recommends starting a meal with liquid diet and thereafter whatever dry diet constituents you have included in your meal. Also, food that is sweet, heavy and unctuous should be taken prior to the rest of the meal.

Family Smiling While EatingIn the middle of the meal all the salty and sour ingredients need to be devoured. And at the end when you are completing your meal, Ayurveda has instated that you can consume the food items which have a dominance of bitter, pungent or astringent taste. Thus Ayurveda approach to every single meal in your diet is inclusive of all six tastes viz. sweet, salty, sour, bitter, pungent, and astringent.

It has been rightly stated in Ayurveda text that the right diet and diet habits reasons natural nourishing and glow to the body, harmony to the mind, and gratification to the soul.

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Dr. Sonica Krishan is an Ayurveda and Natural Lifestyle Consultant, freelance health writer, and book author based in Chandigarh, India. She has authored the natural home cure books Herbal Healers and Home Remedies, and is presently writing for national and international publications. She may be contacted at drsonica@herboveda.co.in or visit www.herboveda.co.in.