Ayurveda’s top tips for a healthy diet

Ayurveda, yoga, food

How to integrate yoga and Ayurveda into your kitchen

10 Simple changes to your diet that will have a positive lasting effect on your health:

1) You eat your environment: Create a comfortable environment around of you and within. Be joyful when you eat. Take a few deep breaths before to let stress or any negative emotions leave, if that doesn’t help, take a slow short walk, outside or just to the bathroom. It is good to empty the bladder before eating.

2) Sit down when you eat: Take your meals in an environment that are different to where you spend your time working. If possible sit outside, at least move away from the computer. Stay with your food. Take a break from social media while you eat. Eat and do only eating. Remember to sit down, and slow down.

3) Avoid mixing grains in one meal: If you eat pasta, stick with wheat. If you are eating rice, stick to rice. You can mix veggies, seeds and nuts. But choose wheat or rice (or none of those)

4) Fill your body 1/3 solid, 1/3 water and leave 1/3 empty for digestion.

5) Eat early dinner and make lunch the main meal: Different organs thrive in different parts of the day. Sleeping is deeply rejuvenating for the body and mind to process your experiences of the day. If we go to bed with a full belly we don’t get the benefits of the sleep because the digestive systems is on overtime all night. 

6) Cut out all white sugar and processed foods: Eat simple, freshly cooked and organic. It is easier and cheaper than you think !

6 1/2 ) Add spices: Use fresh ginger, turmeric powder, black mustard seeds, herbs and coriander powder. Use fresh lime or lemon juice to drizzle before serving.  

7) Keep meals regular – This is harder for many. Avoid snacking. Skip an evening meal once a week to give your digestive system a break. For some even one day water fast is great, for others not. Always listen to your body and inner teacher.

8) Breakfast is the breaking of a fast: Make this meal meaningful – eat a bowl of fruit, freshly homemade nut milks, make smoothies, or porridge with stewed spiced apples and dates (our favourite).

9) Make true treats: I often see the habit of eating something and calling it a “guilty pleasure” or calling a sugary chocolate bar a treat. I wonder how this can be a treat if it makes you feel guilty afterward or leaves you with a regret. just drop that..

Make a batch of raw chocolate treats and keep them in the freezer for those days where you need some extra sweetness in your life.

10) Best diet is SHARING: This quote says it all

>> Food still remains an object that is picked up and put in the mouth when one craves it or when one gets hungry. A person experiments with diet and says, “I am going to eat raw fruit only” but when he eats it or how much he eats is ignored…… there are two people sharing an apartment and there is one apple. The person who comes into the apartment first picks up the apple, eats it, finishes it. That is not diet. Leave half of the stomach empty. That is the yoga idea of revolution in diet – sharing with love << 

  • By Swami Veda Bharati in his book Philosophy of Hatha Yoga

Happy Prana and love