Ayurveda in Oakland

The food we eat is that unique aspect of our life that we have almost total control over. Because we are what we eat, according to Ayurveda, it can be a very powerful tool for balancing and for promoting and maintaining health. One ancient authority says that food is our medicine – a good regimen of diet is worth a hundred drugs but no amount of drugs can overcome a poor regimen of diet. Generally, one should eat warm, freshly cooked foods. We can use the tastes in food as a guide to what qualities those foods have. For example, foods which have bitter, pungent, and astringent tastes have those qualities (especially lightness, dryness, and warmth) necessary to balance kapha qualities of heavy, cold, oily, etc. We will give below examples of foods with these tastes common in our culture. This information has been provided by Dr. Lad, in his book: Ayurvedic Cooking for Self Healing (www.ayurveda.com) and Maya Tiwari in her book A Life of Balance (www.wisearth.org). These books are good resources of knowledge and recipes. Please note that agreement about the qualities of foods is not universal. Another important point is that a list of balancing foods is not a blanket proscription for kapha to totally avoid the foods with tastes of sweet, sour, salty (heavy things). Rather, do eat foods having these other qualities to help promote balance in the emotions and in the physiology but eat them less often and in smaller quantities. The foods to favor (everyday foods below) will provide a theme of influence but in a gentle and sustained way.