New Years Tip #3

New Years Tip #3- Proper Food combining with Ayurveda.
 
In the American food culture, we have been taught to eat a “balanced diet.” However, this sometimes is taken literally as a “balanced meal.” We throw every kind of food on a single plate and have it with a big glass of milk, thinking we are getting all the different types of nutrients our body needs. From an Ayurveda perspective this whole concept is wrong. You do not need to fit protein and starch and fat and sugars and dairy all in one meal. In fact, you shouldn’t because even healthy foods eaten in the wrong combination will create digestive issues (short-term) and disease (long-term).The western culture also like to mix nuts with fruit and beans with milk, not a good Ayurvedic choice.
 
In Ayurveda, having a “balanced diet” is accomplished by making the proper food choices for ones’ energetic constitution and unique Agni. Also, every food has its own, taste, cooling or heating effect and post digestive effect and how these are used by the individual is part of creating a balanced diet. These concepts can be complex unless you are working with a practitioner. Using food combining is a good place to start because poor food combing will create indigestion, gas, fermentation and putrification. It will also change the intestinal flora, increase candida, congestion and allergies.
 
Here are some simple changes you can make.
 
From an Ayurvedic perspective, eating bitters such as salad after a meal is better than doing so before. The bitter taste is cold and weakens agni. Taken at the beginning of a meal it can diminish the digestion of all that follows. Likewise, sweets are digested first. Desserts are best eaten before a meal or as between meal snack. Taken immediately after a meal it may upset digestion. So contrary to the western way of living!
 
Mixing foods of opposite potencies (heating and cooling effects) can sometimes be problem. Milk, which is cool, should not be mixed with yogurt, which is warm; even though both are dairy.
 
Incompatible Food Combination:
 
 
Yogurt with fruit, cheese, eggs, fish, meat, milk and nightshades.    
             How often do you buy yogurt and fruit?
Milk with bananas, melons, cherries, bread, sour fruit, fish and meat
            How often do you have banana smoothies or milk-based sauce on your meat?
Fruit should be eaten alone and not within one to two hours of other foods.
Eggs are not to be eaten with milk, fish, meat, cheese, fruit and yogurt.
             How often do you eat scrambled eggs with cheese?
Nightshades with melons, cucumber and dairy.
Lemons with cucumber, milk, tomatoes and yogurt.
Carbohydrates and proteins -One of the worst food combinations
Human body requires an acid base to digest proteins and an alkaline base to digest starches –lengthen time of digestion –> cause fermentation –> bloating and indigestion
 
Try incorporating one food combining change at a time. There is no rush. The incorporation of the principal is more important about understanding how the digestion feels than getting it all done at one time. Also, many times if you have been eating wrong combinations, the body is use to that but it is still not a good thing to do to your digestion.
 
You don’t have to diet and over exercise just use all three principals and by the end of 2019 you will have more energy, lose weight and general health will improve.