If you’ve explored Ayurvedic nutrition in the past, you may have been intimidated by all of the rules, complicated food combining and what seems to be endless meals of rice and lentils. With this intro, I hope to give you a fresh outlook on how you view nutrition and food choices, and to help you experience the freedom that accompanies a compassionate relationship with food.  The principles of Ayurvedic nutrition are more about tuning into what your body and mind need each day, connecting to nature through food and optimizing digestion.  

What is Ayurveda

Ayurveda is the sister science to Yoga, and literally means the study of life.  It’s a complex medical system from India, over 3000 years old, focusing on the root cause of dis-ease, rather than covering up symptoms.  It emphasizes the relationship of mind, body and spirit, as well as our interconnection to nature and the cosmos. 

Within Ayurveda, like any medical system, there are many disciplines including general medicine, surgery, gynecology, psychology and so on. Nutrition is used for healing in all of these disciplines.  Its purpose is to bring the mind, body and energy into the natural balanced state by manipulating the elements. 

The Five Elements and The Three Doshas

Everything in existence is a manifestation of some combination or interaction of the five elements. Here we’ll focus on how the elements manifest in the food we consume. 

The Five Elements

• Earth
• Water
• Fire
• Air
• Space (Ether)

The elements combine to form the three doshas, or constitutions.

The Three Doshas

• Vata - Air and Space
• Pitta - Fire and Water
• Kapha - Earth and Water

Everyone is made up of all three doshas, but one or more will be your dominant constitution.  Your current dosha is your Vikriti.  Your dosha at birth is your Prakriti.  All of our life experiences, relationships and environments influence our dosha.  The purpose of Ayurveda is to bring us back to our Prikriti, our original, balanced constitution.  We can use nutrition as a tool to promote balance.

There are several dosha “quizzes” available online that can help determine your dosha. Most of them, however, are focused on what your Vikriti (current constitution) is.  If the goal is to get back to our original, balanced state, we need to know what that state is, and it’s different for everyone.  

The Twenty Gunas

Understanding the gunas is a great way to work toward balance whether or not you are familiar with Ayurveda. Your current predominant dosha is generally an indication of where you have imbalances.  For example, if a dosha quiz says you are Vata, that means you have a lot of the air and space elements in your being. This could be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. Bringing balance to Vata (air and space) means increasing Pitta (fire and water) and Kapha (earth and water).  So what does it mean to increase fire, water or earth?  That’s where the gunas come in.  

The gunas are ten sets of opposing qualities that make up everything.  The qualities are representative of the elements (which make up the doshas). Qualities are easier for most people to identify than doshas or elements, and the general rule is this:

LIKE CREATES LIKE, AND OPPOSITES BRING BALANCE 

When your body, mind or energy are feeling overpowered by a certain quality, (even though you will tend to desire more of that quality) you need to bring in the opposite quality to create balance.  Selecting foods that bring balance to the qualities you are experiencing, as well as strengthening digestion is the basis for Ayurvedic nutrition. 

How to Balance the Gunas

Without being an expert in Ayurveda, or even having never heard of the word Guna, you can bring balance to your mind, body and energy by identifying the qualities in your physical, mental/emotional and spiritual/energetic bodies.  Manipulating the opposites with the foods you eat is an effective way to promote balance. Some qualities, like hot and cold, are obvious in foods, while others, like dull and sharp, take a little more practice to identify. Here’s a list of the gunas, along with some food examples that increase that quality. 

HEAVY AND LIGHT

HEAVY

• Elements: earth and water
• Balanced feels like: grounded, relaxed, content
• Imbalanced feels like: sluggishness, exhaustion, poor digestion
• Foods that increase heavy qualities: meat, cheese, cream, root vegetables

LIGHT

• Elements: air and space
• Balanced feels like: fast, alert, healthy digestion
• Imbalanced feels like: anxiety, spaciness
• Foods that increase light qualities: leafy greens, popcorn, berries, apples, cherries

DULL AND SHARP

DULL

• Elements: earth and water
• Balanced feels like: grounded, relaxed
• Imbalanced feels like: sluggishness, lethargy, poor digestion
• Foods that increase dull qualities: milk, yogurt, meat

SHARP

• Elements: fire and air
• Balanced feels like: moving with ease, sharp intellect, concentration, healthy digestion
• Imbalanced feels like: stress, anxiety, brain fog
• Foods that increase sharp quality: spices, chilies, pineapple

COLD AND HOT

COLD

• Elements: air and space
• Balanced feels like: refreshed, calm
• Imbalanced feels like: constricting, contracting, poor digestion
• Foods that increase cold quality: foods that are cold in temperature, limes, mint, celery, cabbage, grapes

HOT

• Element: fire
• Balanced feels like: relaxation, expansion, moving with ease, healthy digestion
• Imbalanced feels like: irritability, burning, excessive perspiration
• Foods that increase hot quality: foods that are hot in temperature, garlic, ginger, black pepper, spicy foods, red meat

OILY AND DRY

OILY

• Elements: water and earth
• Balanced feels like: fluidity in movement, healthy digestion
• Imbalanced feels like: heaviness, sluggishness, poor digestion
• Foods that increase oily quality: ghee, avocados, olives, pork

DRY

• Elements: air and space
• Balanced feels like: hydrated, moving with ease, healthy digestion
• Imbalanced feels like: stiff, slow, dehydrated, exhausted, loney
• Foods that increase dry quality: dry grains, broccoli, cauliflower, kale

SMOOTH AND ROUGH

ROUGH

• Elements: air and space
• Balanced feels like: firm, flexible, empowered, healthy digestion
• Imbalanced feels like: strict, insensitive, dry
• Foods that increase rough quality: raw vegetables, beans, artichokes

SMOOTH

• Element: water
• Balanced feels like: love, care, healing, flexible
• Imbalanced feels like: lack of control, sluggishness, poor digestion
• Foods that increase smooth quality: avocados, oils

DENSE AND LIQUID

DENSE

• Element: earth
• Balanced feels like: grounded, stable
• Imbalanced feels like: strict, unpleasant to be around, poor digestion
• Foods that increase dense quality: meat, cheese, root vegetables

LIQUID

• Elements: water and fire
• Balanced feels like: ability to “go with the flow”, moving with ease, hydrated, healthy elimination
• Imbalanced feels like: inflexible in body and mind, poor digestion
• Foods that increase liquid element: water, grapes, berries

SOFT AND HARD

SOFT

• Element: water
• Balanced feels like: love, tenderness, relaxed
• Imbalanced feels like: excess phlegm or mucus in the body, poor digestion
• Foods that increase soft quality: avocados, bananas, sweet potatoes, rice

HARD

• Element: earth
• Balanced feels like: strength, healthy boundaries
• Imbalanced feels like: tension, anger, poor digestion
• Foods that increase hard quality: nuts, seeds, crunchy foods

STATIC AND MOBILE

STATIC

• Elements: earth
• Balanced feels like: grounded, stable
• Imbalanced feels like: tight, restricted, poor digestion
• Foods that increase static quality: wheat, root vegetables

MOBILE

• Elements: air, water and fire
• Balanced feels like: adaptable to change, moving with ease, healthy digestion
• Imbalanced feels like: resistant to change, restless
• Foods that increase mobile quality: coffee, spices, chilies

GROSS AND SUBTLE

GROSS

• Element: earth
• Balanced feels like: safe, protected, sturdy
• Imbalanced feels like: blockages in body, mind and energy, poor digestion
• Foods that increase gross quality: meat, mushrooms

SUBTLE

• Elements: air and space
• Balanced feels like: expansion of awareness, spiritually sound, healthy digestion
• Imbalanced feels like: spaciness, confusion
• Foods that increase subtle quality: ghee, honey

CLOUDY AND CLEAR

CLOUDY

• Element: water
• Balanced feels like: clear thinking
• Imbalanced feels like: overly attached, cloudy perception, unclear thinking, poor digestion
• Foods that increase cloudy quality: milk, dairy, oatmeal

CLEAR

• Elements: air and space
• Balanced feels like: cleansed, clarity, healthy digestion
• Imbalanced feels like: toxic, unclear thinking
• Foods that increase clear quality: water, turmeric, neem

The Six Tastes

Another way to promote balance through food is being aware of the six tastes.  Each taste is associated with one or more elements. When all of the six tastes are incorporated into your meals, all five elements can be balanced within you.

The Six Tastes

• Sweet
• Sour
• Salty
• Bitter
• Pungent
• Astringent

This chart shows the six tastes, the elements that make up each taste, and their impact on the doshas. 

Prana and Digestion

Pop Quiz.  Where does digestion begin? I’ll give you a minute to think about that. 

In Ayurvedic nutrition, it’s not what you eat that matters, but what you digest.  A meal could seemingly have all the nutrition you need, but if your body is not digesting it properly, it’s not getting the benefits of it.

Everything we consume must go through some process of digestion.  From the food we eat, the conversations we have, the media we consume and the people we choose to spend time with, everything is processed in the body, mind or spirit.  

Everything we consume has prana, or life force energy.  Foods like fresh picked vegetables and herbs are rich in prana, while a bag of cheetos is severely lacking. The closer something is to its natural, balanced, whole state, the higher the prana, and the more healing benefits it offers.   

To the contrary, if we perpetually consume highly processed, lab created, food-like substances, our bodies are not receiving the healing life force energy, but are instead manifesting imbalance and disease. This is true not only about the specific foods we consume, but also about the thoughts, judgements and beliefs we have about those foods.  For example, if we believe a food is bad, our nervous system will translate that as danger and turn off digestion.  If we start our meal with worry and fear about weight gain or calorie consumption, this can also promote poor digestion.

We’ve all experienced a loss of appetite after hearing bad news, or attempting a heated conversation or argument over dinner.  This is the body’s way of shutting down the digestion of food in order to put energy into processing the other material we are experiencing.  

So back to the pop quiz.  Where does digestion begin?  

Digestion begins in the mind.  Not the mouth, not the stomach, the mind.  Before we even taste the food, our current mind state or thoughts around that food are establishing how well we will digest it.  

If you’re going to eat the triple chocolate brownie with whipped cream, rather than telling yourself it’s bad, remind yourself that indulging in a delicious treat once in a while is one of life’s pleasures.  Joy is an emotion that is high in prana, even when it comes in the form of a sugary dessert. 

Gratitude

Giving thanks before a meal is a beautiful practice for many reasons, but for the sake of digestion, it can completely change your mindset and prepare your nervous system for digestion. Taking that moment to shift your attention from any discontent from your day, and focus on gratitude for a nourishing meal is such a simple practice that can have profound physical, mental and spiritual benefits. 

How You Eat

Now that we’ve discussed an elemental formula for choosing what to eat, and preparing our mindset before we eat, let’s touch on how to eat.  It can be summed up in three simple instructions:

• Sit down
• Slow down
• Chew

Sit Down

Your body simply can not put the appropriate amount of energy into digestion, when it's using energy to stand up, walk, drive, work at a computer or whatever other task you’re trying to do while you eat.  

Not only is this taking physical energy from digestion, but if you’re eating in a traffic jam, or during a stressful work meeting, your mindset is far from optimal digestion mode. 

Slow Down and Chew

We all rush through meals once in a while, but doing this regularly can cause a multitude of digestive disorders.  Stomach acid isn’t meant to chew your food for you.  If you swallow a large chunk of broccoli, it will stay in your stomach for a longer period of time, causing fermentation that leads to excess gas and bloating.  At this point, you’re not getting the nutrient absorption from that highly nutritious vegetable.  

According to Ayurveda, each bite should be chewed 32 times for optimal digestion and nutrient absorption.  Chew on that!  

Food Freedom

Incorporating Ayurvedic Nutrition principles into your life is not limiting or restrictive, but empowering.  Being aware of the qualities you’re feeling in your body, mind and energy, and then balancing them with the qualities of foods gives you the power to improve symptoms and imbalances.  

Recognizing the elements in different types of foods allows you to be more connected to nature, and realize how we are nature; we are the elements; we are the cosmos. Eating fresh, seasonal foods in their natural state optimizes the prana, or life force energy that we get from the food.

Enjoying as many of the six tastes as you can throughout the day not only creates balancing meals, but also opens you up to delicious foods you may have not tried before. 

Break free from the limiting, disease- causing belief that a food is inherently good or bad, or that you are good or bad for eating it.  Change your mindset from good and bad to nourishing and balancing.  Stop counting calories and points and start counting your chews. 

Most importantly, take a deep breath and give thanks for your food, because that meal in front of you is truly a gift.