Monthly Archives: June 2014

Ayurvedic Summer Recipes

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One of the delights of summer is the joyful abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables tumbling off the grocery shelves. According to Ayurveda, sweet fruits and bitter greens help pacify Pitta dosha.  According to the scientific community (and our own common sense) they also protect us from falling ill. A recent international research study conducted by the University of Adelaide found that people who consumed a diet high in fruit, vegetables and certain grains had a lower risk of developing not just one but multiple chronic conditions including anemia, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, arthritis, hepatitis, coronary heart disease, asthma, stroke, fracture and cancer. The study found that people who eat a higher amount of fruit are less likely to develop any chronic disease, while a high intake of vegetables helps prevent people with one chronic disease from developing a second.

So pile your plate high with these health-creating foods! Here are a few fun summer recipes to try out:

Asparagus and /or carrots with lemon-herb sauce

Steam your chosen amounts of asparagus and/or carrots to the point where they are asparagus-and-carrots“fork-friendly”. This means a bit more than al dente but not soft or mushy. Then pour the following lemon-herb sauce over the vegetables.

Lemon-Herb Sauce

Juice one lemon. Add a pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon of honey (use only unheated honey). Mix together in a blender with a few leaves of fresh basil and mint. Puree until smooth.

Cucumber Raita

This side dish goes well with dal, rice, curries and other Indian dishes.

Combine in a mixing bowl:

1 cup fresh yogurt

1/4 cup cucumber (peel and dice finely_

1 tablespoon ginger root, peeled and grated

1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro (the leaves of the coriander plant)

1/8 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

salt to taste

Cooling Mint Tea

mata-peprna-pouziti1 cup fresh peppermint leaves

1 quart boiling water

1 quart room temperature water

2 teaspoons sweetener

Pour the quart of boiling water over the mint leaves. Cover and let steep for 20 minutes. Strain the tea into a pitcher or glass jar. Add cool water sweeteners. If you are adding honey, make sure the water has cooled down first. This is a great drink for aiding digestion. Drink at room temperature for maximum assimilation. Remember that iced and chilled drinks dampen our digestive fires, making it difficult to properly digest our food.

Dandelion Salad

If your lawn is full of dandelions, stop complaining and start picking. Dandelions are one of the most nutrient-dense plants you can eat. Their leaves, when young and tender, have a slightly bitter taste like arugula. The older the pant, the more bitter the greens. Before you start picking, be sure that the yard in which the dandelions are growing has not been treated with chemicals.

1 cup dandelion greens, washed and dried

8 large leaves of butter lettuce, washed and dried

1/2 cup feta cheese or goat cheese, chopped or crumbled.

Dressing

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/8 cup olive oil

sweetener to taste (just a bit is needed)

1 tomato chopped

fresh basil

fresh ground black pepper to taste

Boiling the dandelion greens is better for older, larger leaves as it removes their bitterness. Some even recommend boiling the older greens twice: once for 2 minutes, drain and boil again for 2 minutes.

For information on consultations with Ayurveda experts or to take a dosha quiz and discover your individual mind/body type, visit The Raj, Ayurveda Health Spa:

www.theraj.com

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Soothing Summer Foods

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Pomegranate_close_upAccording to Ayurveda, as the temperatures rise, the qualities of Pitta dosha (sharp, hot, penetrating) increase in our physiology. One might assume that that our digestive fire (or “agni”) would also become stronger. But in fact, in an attempt to regulate body temperature, our phyiology does its best to dispense heat and lower its own internal heating mechanisms. As a result, our ability to digest food actually diminishes. This is why we often feel less hungry and want to eat less during the summer months. It is important at this time to follow the body’s impulse to eat lighter and smaller meals.

Summer Food Tips

Increase sweet, bitter, and astringent tasting foods that are light in nature.  Eat plenty of bitter salad greens. Lettuce, arugula, radicchio, basil, and endive are particularly Pitta balancing. Include cool drinks and raw foods in the diet, including cucumber, mango and coconut water. Natural fruit juices without added sugar, mint teas, and raw berries are good choices.

Reduce sour, salty, and pungent tastes

Favor:  coconut water, watermelon, cilantro, leafy greens, okra, zucchini, asparagus, olive oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil, ghee, cucumber, soaked/peeled almonds, kale, broccoli, pomegranate, apples, cranberry, mint, dill, fennel, cardamom, coriander, saffron.

Avoid: tomatoes, eggplant, chili peppers, garlic, dry ginger, black pepper, fermented foods, spicy foods, sour fruits, heavy protein, mustard oil, molasses, coffee, alcohol.

Drink up!

Be sure to drink plenty of water to offset the drying and heating nature of Pitta. Add fresh mint or lime to your water. Cooling herbal teas such as peppermint, licorice, fennel or rose, taken at room temperature, can be extremely refreshing.

Avoid iced drinks. While it is important to keep cool in the summer it is more important to keep our digestion strong. Room temperature liquids will be assimilated into your body more quickly and they will not extinguish your digestive fire.

Remember that incompletely digested foods create toxins and impurities that are eventually absorbed, travel throughout the body, localize in the tissues and disrupt their functioning. This process can play a major role in wide variety of chronic conditions, including insomnia, chronic fatigue, arthritis and heart disease.

Try this easy, Pitta-pacifying dessert:

Poached Peaches with Raspberry Coulee

Blanch peaches in boiling water. Remove skins. Blend raspberries and strawberries together with sugar or honey to taste. Spoon the berry mix over the poached peaches. Serve with a garnish of mint leaf.

(Be sure to always use unheated honey. When honey is heated beyond comfortable “sipping” temperature, it creates a sticky toxin that adheres to the body tissues and is difficult to cleanse. Adding honey to hot tea is fine, as long as the tea has cooled enough to sip comfortable. Never use honey for baking.)

 

 http://theraj.com/ayurveda/ayurvedic-diet.php

 

 

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Ayurveda and Milk

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golden-milk-recipe-secret-of-the-ancient-indian-medicineTo drink milk or not to drink milk? Advocates on either side of the milk debate are adamant in their arguments. Funnily enough, Ayurveda agrees with both sides. According to the ancient Ayurveda text book, the Charika Samhita, the misuse of milk turns the nature of milk from sattvic to tamasic. Sattva is a state of lightness, balance and clarity, and, in terms of food, strengthening and nourishing. Tamas, on the other hand, reflects dullness and confusion. By compromising the essential qualities of milk we can turn a health-supporting food into one that can lead to ill health, congestion and allergies.

Ayurveda experts recommend cows milk, taken in the correct manner, as a satvic and nourishing food. Accordingly, milk provides special and unique nutrition that cannot be derived from any other type of food. When digested properly, milk is able to nourish all the tissues within 24 hours. It also helps to balance the doshas, especially Vata and Pitta. It is also one of the most important foods to promote ojas.

Ojas is said to be the refined substance that the body produces at the most subtle level of proper digestion. Ojas brings strength, strong immunity and contentment to the whole mind/body system.

Ayurveda experts point out that many of the problems associated with digesting milk are in fact linked to the way in which milk is consumed and how it is processed. Cold milk, ice cream and cheese are indeed very heavy and difficult to digest. Following a few simple guidelines will help address many of the problems associated with drinking milk.

If you boil milk before drinking it (even if the milk has already been pasteurized) the milk will not only be lighter and easier to digest but it will also create less congestion. Boiling milk is a must, even if you do not have difficulty digesting milk.

In addition, you can add heating spices (such as ginger, turmeric, clove, cinnamon and cardamom) to milk before boiling it. These spices help to enhance our digestive fires and also help reduce Kapha dosha, lessening the tendency toward congestion. An added benefit is that the milk will act as a carrier for the spices, thus allowing the physiology to gain more benefits from the health-promoting herbs.

Milk should never be mixed or eaten with sour, bitter, salty, astringent, or pungent tastes. This means the traditional American lunch consisting of a glass of cold milk with a sandwich should be avoided. Milk should either be taken separately from meals by at least one half hour or taken only with other sweet tastes (such as breakfast cereal, toast, rice, dates, mangos and almonds.) Be careful not to add sour fruits to your breakfast cereal or to drink fruit juices with your cereal. When combined with incompatible tastes, milk becomes indigestible and causes the build-up of harmful toxins in the body.

Dishes made from cooking milk with fish or meat should also be avoided (such as clam chowder).

Milk (or yogurt or cottage cheese) combined with bananas can be extremely difficult to digest and can lead to congestion and head colds.

Ideally any milk that we drink should be organic, whole and non-homogenized. Non-homogenized because homogenized milk is very difficult to digest and can easily clog the finer channels of circulation. Whole milk because the fats in whole milk build and balance the nervous system and act as carriers to deliver the calcium and fat soluble Vitamins A, D3, E and K directly into the cells.

If you are not able to purchase organic milk, however, it is better to drink skim milk, as many hormones and chemicals are fat-soluble and will be transferred into your physiology via the fat.

Even if you do not notice ill effects of drinking milk, if you have a long habit of drinking cold milk or drinking milk along with foods of other tastes, it is probable that you have a build-up of ama, or toxins, in your tissues. This can lead to joint pain, constipation, dullness, lowered immunity, frequent colds and  imbalances that can lead to chronic disorders.

An ayurvedic expert can determine which type of toxin is in the body and where it is located. This is very important, because any treatment plan will be different depending on the type of toxin and where it has settled. For more information on consultations or for information on the detox therapies of Panchakarma, visit website for The Raj Ayurveda Health Spa and Treatment Center:

www.theraj.com

 

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Are Night Owls Lazy Owls While Early Birds Stay in Shape?

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAccording to a new study from the Academy of Sleep Medicine, night owls tend to be more sedentary and feel that they have a harder time maintaining an exercise schedule.

“We found that even among healthy, active individuals, sleep timing and circadian preference are related to activity patterns and attitudes toward physical activity,” said lead researcher Kelly Glazer Baron, associate professor of neurology and director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at the Feinberg School of Medicine.

“Waking up late and being an evening person were related to more time spent sitting (particularly on weekends) and with difficulty making time to exercise… Even among those who were able to exercise, waking up late made it perceived as more difficult.”

To anyone who knows about Ayurveda, this makes total sense. From an Ayurveda perspective, sleeping into the Kapha time of the day allows the heavy, slow, lethargic qualities of kapha to influence our mind/body system. Let’s examine the mechanics of this phenomenon.Alarm_Clocks_20101107a

According to Ayurveda there are three time periods in every twelve hours: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. The Vata dominated period is from 2 until 6, the Kapha from 6 to 10, and the Pitta from 10 to 2. The cycle repeats itself in the next twelve hours, so that there are two Vata times, two Kapha times, and two Pitta times each day, one during the daytime and one during the nighttime.

Quickly reviewing the qualities of the doshas:

Vata dosha is a combination of air and space. Vata’s qualities are light, mobile, dry, cold, erratic and subtle.

The Pitta dosha is comprised of fire and water. Pitta’s qualities are hot, sharp, light, and intense.

The Kapha dosha is comprised of earth and water. Kapha is heavy, steady, dull, stable, soft, and static.

We know that the doshas exist not only within our bodies but throughout all the world around us. Our bodies experience increased balance and ease of functioning when we follow a daily routine that is in tune with the natural rhythms of the day.

To stay in sync with the cycles of nature, we should go to bed before 10:00 so that we take advantage of the slow, stable and heavy quality of Kapha time, which is ideal for falling asleep. Following the same reasoning, we want to rise before or near to 6:00 am, taking advantage of the light, energetic quality of Vata time. If we extend our sleep into Kapha time, we bring that heavy, dull quality of Kapha into our waking hours. Sleeping as late as 8:00 or 9:00 am can make us feel sluggish —and it makes sense that exercise would be perceived as uninviting.

As we discussed in last week’s blog, increasing the influence of Kapha, especially during the spring and summer, can lead to an accumulation of ama throughout the body. If you are find that you have gotten into bad habits in terms of bedtimes and rising times, and notice any increasingly sedentary habits, it’s time to take steps to reset your daily routine before serious imbalances develop.

For tips on resetting your sleep schedule, visit our February post, Time to Wake Up.

For information on consulting an Ayurveda expert or information on the balancing and detoxifying treatments of Ayurveda, visit The Raj, Ayurveda Health Spa and Treatment Center.

WWW.THERAJ.COM

 

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Support Brain and Heart Health With Ayurveda

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While most people now understand that cholesterol is not uniformly “bad”, not everyone knows that cholesterol, a fatty acid produced in the liver, is actually essential to many bodily functions. Without cholesterol the body could not build cell membranes or synthesize vitamin D, or hormones.

Western medicine teaches us that cholesterol is available in two forms: high-density cholesterol (HDL) (“good” cholesterol) and low-density cholesterol (LDL) (“bad” cholesterol).

LDL (Bad) Cholesterol

LDL cholesterol is considered the “bad” cholesterol because it contributes to plaque, a thick, hard deposit that can clog arteries and make them less flexible.

HDL (Good) Cholesterol

HDL cholesterol is considered “good” cholesterol because it helps remove LDL cholesterol from the arteries. It is believed that HDL acts as a scavenger, carrying LDL cholesterol away from the arteries and back to the liver, where it is broken down and eliminated from the body.

From the Ayurveda perspective, cholesterol is only “bad” when it is out of balance. It is “good” when it is balanced, supporting and lubricating the body’s numerous circulatory channels, known as the shrotas. There are many kinds of shrotas. There are micro-shrotas, which carry nutrients to the cells and waste from the cells. There are larger shrotas, such as the arteries and veins, which carry blood to and from the heart. And there are delicate shrotas that lead to our brain.

For our physiology to be healthy and functioning well, all of these shrotas must be flexible and elastic. When in balance, cholesterol plays an important role in lubricating and maintaining our shrotas.

“Good” cholesterol becomes “bad” cholesterol when we have large amounts of ama in our system. Ama is the sticky waste product of poor digestion, absorption and metabolism. It accumulates as a toxin in the fat tissues. Ama thatis present for a very long time and is not cleansed from the system begins to spread throughout the body, and blocks the important channels of circulation, nourishment and detoxification.

For years, high levels of “good” cholesterol and low levels of “bad” cholesterol has been linked to a healthy heart. In December of 2013, a study was released linking high levels of “good” cholesterol and low levels of “bad” cholesterol to good brain health as well. It was established that high “bad” cholesterol levels were linked to brain deposits that cause Alzheimer’s. A healthy ratio of good vs. bad cholesterol was associated with lower levels of the plaque in the brain. An unhealthy ratio was associated with higher levels of plaque. The findings were independent of age or presence of specific a specific gene that has been linked to some forms of Alzheimer’s.

Natural Ways to Lower Cholesterol: Diet and Purification

Diet

To lower “bad” cholesterol Ayurveda recommends a two-pronged approach: Improve digestion and follow a Kapha-balancing diet to enhance fat metabolism.

A Kapha-pacifying diet favors bitter, astringent and pungent foods. Astringent foods include dried beans such as lentils, split mung dhal, and garbanzo beans. Astringent tastes also include many vegetables, such as the cruciferous family (brussels’ sprouts, food52_06-12-12-5121broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower) and fruits such as apples and pears. Bitter foods include greens such as spinach, chard, kale and mustard greens. The Kapha-pacifying grains include barely, quinoa, amaranth and oats (whole oats, not processed oats.) Avoid sweet tastes, including rice, wheat, pasta, breads, and sweet milk products. Avoid sour foods such as sour fruit (lemons), yogurt, cheese, tomatoes, vinegar, salad dressings, ketchup, mustard and pickles. Oddly enough, while it is recommended to avoid yogurt, digestive lassi, made of yogurt and water, turns out to be good for balancing cholesterol. Avoid sweet lassi and mango lassi and opt for the digestive lassi. Favor warm foods cooked with small amounts of ghee or olive oil.

Purification

Detoxification is a natural body process to reduce ama. Our natural ability to detox, however, can become compromised when our system becomes overloaded from stress, poor diet and environmental toxins. So what can we do to support the body’s natural process of detoxification? Panchakarma, the traditional purification treatments of Ayurveda, help remove ama from deep within the tissue beds. Cleansing and detoxifying the body also helps build up our natural digestive fire, which itself naturally burns ama from the body.

For more information on Panchakarma, the traditional purification and detoxification treatments of Ayurveda, visit The Raj Ayurveda Health Spa and Treatment Center:

www.theraj.com

 

 

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