tummy complaints

-
Sometimes our digestion seems to be weakened for various reasons and we need to provide it with easy to digest and nourishing foods. Starting the morning with stewed fruit - apple or pear cooked with cloves is a good way to gently introduce food to the system. Apple and pear have good amounts of malic acid that gently supports liver function and cloves have a great deal of beneficial properties ( see previous blog)

Once the fruit have digested and you start to feel hungry that is a good time to have your hot morning cereal. Quinoa, amaranth, oats, buckwheat - all nourishing and easy to digest. Buckwheat is particularly good as it has many bioflavinoids. See link to the benefits of buckwheat - wonderful for heart and cholesterol. http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=11

Once breakfast is digested we can start planning for lunch. Lunch or the mid-day meal is the biggest meal. For according to ayurved when the sun is highest in the sky - that is the time when the digestive fires are strongest. So the midday meal is when we can digest the most food in the easiest way to the best product. Now is the time for our delicious meal. Ayurved usually recommends adding spice to the cooking process. These support the digestive and help make the food into intelligent blood that will feed every cell in our body. The standard spice mix of turmeric, cumin, coriander and fennel is a good place to start when cooking with ayurvedic spices. (see previous blog for recipe) They help digestion and support liver function. At this time it would be good to have a lassi - or diluted yogurt as our drink to supply to digestive process with "yoginis" or beneficial bacteria. Most people now know about the importance or "probiotics" in digestion.

The evening meal is best eaten at around 6 PM but no later than 7 - for now the body is slowing down and getting ready to rest. So some lightly steamed veggies with a good grain. My favourite is "asparagus soup" I cook asparagus with enough water and spices and a bit of ghee and soma salt and then blend it to a soup - having that with a bit of buckwheat is nourishing and also easy to digest.

Enjoy!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From Drugs to Herbs

-
Image
 I have been writing this blog for several years and realized that some people are now reading it that might not know me. Here is my story. My story as a healer started early in life. At 15 my first job was as a care aide for retarded children. Then working at children's hospital in Winnipeg as a pharmacy student and after graduating as a Hospital Pharmacist working in large teaching hospitals in both Winnipeg and Ottawa. Four years into my career as a hospital pharmacist I had a rude awakening at work one day. As I was handing a large bag of medications to a man, I looked at him and in that moment "saw" that his mind and the stress in his life was the root cause of his "dis-ease".  That led me on a journey of studying psychology, becoming a teacher of The Transcendental Meditation Program and eventually getting a Master's degree in education from Maharishi International University.  I continued working as a community pharmacist and expanded my scope to incl
Read more

To Drink or Not to Drink Milk

-
Image
  To drink Milk or Not to drink milk? ......That is the question. Milk is considered a nectar in Ayurveda.   It is the loving fluid coming form the mother’s blood carrying immunity and nourishment to the offspring   - whether cow, goat or human or whatever.   When we drink milk within 24-48 hours it nourishes all our deepest tissues. All other food that takes 30 days to reach the deepest levels of our physiology. In other words, to make Ojas or all the neurotransmitter and hormones that are essential for intelligent communication and transformation of all tissues, takes 30 days.   Yes, you heard me. What you eat today is not fully assimilated for about 1 month, whereas milk is assimilated within 2 days.   That is why it is considered a nectar. However there are certain rules around drinking milk.   Firstly the source must be of good quality.   The cows have to be well treated. The individuals caring for the animal but treat it with kindness and respect.   They do not take the baby calf
Read more

Detox Soup

-
Harsh detox protocols can be very dangerous and many modern day toxins are "hot" or can burn the delicate fine channels of elimination in the kidney and other tissues.  Shaka Vansiya Ayurved teaches that there are 4 categories of toxins. Ama or undigested food that is sticky and cold and we need hot spices to eliminate this type of toxin. So ginger and pepper and fenugreek and other heating spices would work well. However once that toxin has been sitting around for a long time it becomes hot.  We might call it a "free radical" in modern scientific terms. Shaka Vansiya Ayurved (now referred to as SVA) calls this Amavisha.  This type of toxin needs a different approach to detox. Before moving the toxins out of the body we need to bind them with mucilaginous food like barley, okra, tapioca, arrowroot, taro root and others.  I find zucchini and other summers squashes are most readily available, even though they are not extremely mucilaginous.  Then you can start moving
Read more