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| I'm wondering if anyone has tried living Aruveyvedically, espeically for their body type?
Any good internet resources on it?
I"m not sure if I could fully commit to it all but I"d like to try doing more of what they say. I've also read about eating certian types of food for certain seasons too. |
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| There are many people who have done this. But, it will be less useful to communicate with them on occassional internet exchange, than actually meeting them. Please see whether you find them in your area. Or, best is : Visit the state of Kerala, India and stay there for 30 days to get a real good feel of it. I know many people in USA who study a lot on Ayurveda, attend many workshops, and think they know it a lot, but they do not have a good understanding of it. And, some of the teaching of Ayurveda is difficient as it does not apply to the today's circumstances exactly. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
 
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | Hi Lady Celt,
To live Ayurvedically first you have to strip away everything you know, then start all over again. It's a way of life and relationship to all natural things. Ayurveda is the art of life. Having that said, I agree with Neelbhai. However, there is a book by Robert E. Svoboda called "Ayurveda - Life, Health and Longevity". This book will give you some basics in Ayurvedic History, Principles, Anatomy, Routine, Food, Pathology, Diagnosis, Treatment, Medicinal Substances, Diseases, Rejuvination & Virilization, etc. Please note, you will only get some basic information. To study and then practice Ayurveda takes time and years of mastering this art. Once you learn the basics and live from that knowing, a lot of things will fall into place naturally. Sure, it helps to learn it from a good teacher, however, there are lots of good teachers in the west. If I were to pursue a study course, I would want to study with Dr. Vasant Lad at the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I believe he is the authority here in the West. I recently saw where Deepak Chopra has a center that teaches the Ayurvedic Method, but I feel more comfortable with Dr. Lad, he teaches more traditionally and I think that is important.
As for living the Ayurvedic way....I guess I live that way and I also live according to Traditional Chinese Medicine Philosophy which go hand in hand and compliment each other very nicely. Once you start, you never can go back. It's not about just eating for the seasons, it is eating according to your dosha type and the foods energy and benefits etc. Every time you eat a banana, apple or eat a cucumber or anything, meat...it has a certain function for the human body system. For instance; Like I'm Pitta. I do not like HOT HOT 110 degree Yoga. I also do not eat too much ginger and spicy foods....it's like setting off a firecracker,  I also enjoy living in the mountain ranges and do much better around green leaves and nature. If I travel, it really messes with my balance, therefore, I have to work extra hard at maintaining myself. I eat very lightly when I am out of balance like this so that my body does not have to overwork itself to stay balanced. Because I know how to do these things, I recover much much faster than the average person who doesn't understand the nature of these kinds of things. It is really nice to be able to know how to live according to nature, because if you can do this, you have so much power to control what goes on in your world, your life and most importantly - within your body so that way you don't fall prey to DIS-EASE. Good luck with your endeavors. If you can't commit to anything, try starting with small baby steps just to see what happens. You'll be surprised at how fast your kitchen will change its features...like the kitchen cupboards will become bare with store bought items, only to be filled with natural food products, no chemicals and dies, less white sugary things, no MSG laden items, etc. Your frig will start looking like nature's garden. You will have little canisters filled with powerful protection spices and herbs such as Tumeric, Cumin, Coriander, Methi, and Curry leaves......along with large containers of Basmati and Jasmine Rices, legumes and dal, and then before you know it, you'll have 2 frig's instead of one, 
I'll give you a good example of what happened in my kitchen the other day. I was peeling some fresh Tumeric with a potato peeler. I literally peeled my skin on my finger - OUCH!! Anyway, as the blood started flowing, I kept peeling the Tumeric and I would place the peels onto my cut. Do you want to know why???? Because Tumeric is a natural antibiotic, it stops bleeding and pain. It is also a blood purifier if taken internally and it balances all three doshas. Used with Sandalwood, it purifies and beautifies the skin. So, because I knew this, I was able to treat myself right there on the spot....that wound was healed overnite with no bandages and no further treatment. Later on I had another mishap with a plastic splinter in my forefinger. Same application with Tumeric. So there you go. No chemicals and faster healing time.
Edited by Cyndi 2006-05-03 7:52 PM
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| are whole grains cooked in water considered aruyvedic?
how about honey?
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | What do you mean whole grains cooked in water??? That would be one way of cooking grains, such as rice, barley, corn, and wheat - that I know of. I prefer to cook my grains in water. Ayurveda claims that the chief article of diet for the average person should be grain. A typical Indian meal from many other traditional cultures, consists of a large quantity of grain served with smaller portions of legumes, with meat, vegetables, greens and all other foods added as optional condiments to enhance the tastes and qualities of the main grain.
For instance, Rice is cooling and sweet, sweet in postdigestive effect and light. Rice forms condensed stools, cures pitta and may be slightly vata-stimulating. As a gruel it is the primary diet in illness, especially in fevers and intestinal inflammations, and in convalescence. It is used in the preparation of various medicines and is itself a medicine. For example, it is repeatedly washed and the wash water is given in excessive menstrual bleeding. Rice combined with barley, dispels fatigue. Brown rice is warming, heavy, moist and rough, sweet and astringent. It is balancing for vata, but slightly unbalancing for pitta and kapha. I do not do well with Brown Rice as it is hard for me to digest, although it does have a much higher fiber content and prevents constipation. It also has the B vitamins and minerals, along with certain proteins which is in the germ and bran. Basmati is known to balance all three doshas. Basmati is the preferred rice used in Khicheri, which is an Ayurvedic gruel which is similar to the Rice Gruel that the Chinese would prepare called Congee. Speaking of water and grains.....I like to soak Basmati rice for an hour or so before cooking. This makes it really long when you do cook it. Afterwards, you add saffron and ghee to it, it has a beatiful texture and look to it. It's very Traditional Indian cooking.
Wheat is cool, sweet, heavy and unctuous. Wheat is good for the kidney function according to TCM and builds the yin.
HONEY.... That is my favorite subject...I am an apiarist, for real,  . To me.....Honey is an elixer from the Gods! I eat honey every day with my morning tea. According to Ayurveda, Honey is sweet - haha, drying and astringent. It is good for burns and wounds. It is aphrodisiac and strengthening, and because, like poison, it quickly moves to the deepest tissues, it is the best of medications, and is used as the base for preparing and adminstering medications.... but indigestion due to honey is reported to be very difficult to treat. Honey must be eaten raw...not cooked, and never heated past 110 degrees...otherwise it forms into Ama and becomes toxic to the system. Honey with warm water is a laxative. With Black Pepper it is a popular remedy for coughs and colds. I don't like to mix honey with Black Pepper...I have a traditional Nepali method for this kind of treatment that I think works better. Me and BP in my honey don't favor too well, |
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| reason I ask is over the past five years breakfast has become oatmeal with honey and flaxseed and lunch is gruel (assorted grains)---this is what I just sorta got attacted to.
dinner is whatever the wife has cooked, i have no control over what she prepares, and I'm okay with that, normally it has chicken in it. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | Actually, Oatmeal is a great Brain food. It is exceptionally good for children and their developing brains. In TCM, Oatmeal is given on a day with lots of tests. There are so many other good benefits from oats such as prevention of infections and contagious diseases...especially in children. I like it because it is good for the skin and helps indigestion and abdominal bloating. It removes cholesterol. It also builds and regulates the qi energy.
Its funny about Chicken. My TCMD told me once that Chicken was a rarity in China once upon a time. You only got it once a year and that was usually on the New Year Festival. Its amazing how much chicken we consume. It's no wonder we are having an Avian Flu Situation...I compare it with the mad cow disease syndrome. When I think about when I was growing up. I'm from the south and we love our fried chicken. Only we got to eat it maybe twice a month. I grew up eating pinto beans and corn bread, or black-eyed peas and cornbread, or Great Northern Beans with cornbread....or sometimes we would have collard greens or turnip greens to go with them. Of course, sometimes, we would have ham hocks to go with these varieties. In the summer time...it was salads with Catalina dressing, watermelon, tomato sandwiches with Blue Plate Mayo, or Pineapple Sandwiches with Blue Plate Mayo....or just plain ole' peanut butter and jelly. Breakfast consists of eggs, bacon and good ole' southern GRITS, and/or Oatmeal. Me and my sister used to make French toast on Saturday mornings. |
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| I grew up eating meat
eating meat, specifically lean beef, it seems, is a sign of success.
But, as I grew I got to the point where I don't want meat.
My wife only wants meat. My son only wants cheeseburgers. My oldest daughter won't eat any meat, except the occasional piece of bacon.
But I find it interesting just how weird, to the majority of society (in the USA), eating vegatarian is.
I'm not a vegatarian, but I'm criticised at lunch time nearly every day because my lunch has no meat, and it's bland gruel.
I understand that eating gruel is not synonymous with success but why are we so hard wired to associate food with success and satisfaction?
I'm trying to reprogram myself to consider food as a way to sustain my body, and it really is an up hill battle.
Society and civilization is based around feasts of all sorts.
It seems that if anything noteworthy happens you gotta put out the buffet spread and have a feeding frenzy.
It reminds me of when I was young and would go fishing on the Chesapeake with my father and we would spot the birds going to a blue fish feeding frenzy. We'd follow the birds to where the blues were breakin' (they'd surrounded a school of smaller fish) and we'd put our lines in and catch blue fish. These prehistoric animals were hard wired to eat and eat, then puke, then eat and eat, and puke...on and on.
Humans sometimes act like these fish, but we just get fatter and fatter moving from one feeding frenzy to the next.
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | Well, I almost went on an eating frenzy yesterday...they were having an all you can eat catfish fry at my local diner here in the mountains...with hush puppies (homemade), baked pototoes and fresh cole slaw....YUMMMY!! Instead, I ate my veggie burger and my 10 french fries, and half slice of blueberry cheesecake. Now, I'm getting ready to make oatmeal for breakfast, then I'm going to make some of that Saffron Rice I mentioned earlier with Bitter Melon for a late lunch. This evening when I come back home from dance class and errands, I will eat some fruit, then call it a day. |
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| SCThornley:- Your post # 51151of 2006-05-04. Mention has been made by you about Honey.You can certainly call Honey as an Ayurvedic food. Here is a small write up from me for your information on "Honey, the most neglected food." I am not an ayurvedic practitioner, but one very much interested in the science of Ayurveda. All members can read this note.
When we talk of food, what that comes to one's mind are cooked food-veg or non-veg,Vegetables,cereals, grains etc, Since our intestines cannot tolerate certain items, they are cooked for easy digestion. There is, however a natural food which needs no cooking obtained from nature, ignored by many and put to use by few, called as 'HONEY. Honey is a food in itself and a tonic too. Easily digestible, it is assimilated in the human system very fast. Highly nutritious it is, and regular use of the same- a teaspoonful or two daily can strengthen a weak heart. This should form a regular item of one's diet. One can write pages after pages about the beneficial effect of honey on the human system. But space compulsion limits this small note. A word of caution. It is better that persons having Diabetes avoid Honey
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| Banana--The most under-rated fruit.
This is a tribute to one of nature's most under-rated and neglected fruit, namely Banana. Our eyes fall on this fruit in the stall, only when our pocket is down to its last fiver, and at other times when our pocket is full, this poor banana is lost sight of, and costly fruits such as apple,orange,grapes etc reach our eyes.
It is said that , of all the health benefits of banana which are so many,research has shown evidence to this fruit's protection against high blood pressure, high cholestrol, heart disease and even heart strokes. Banana is one of the best natural sources of potassium, which mineral is crucial to keep blood pressure under check. Bananas are again a best source for vitamin B6 and B1 and an average banana has more vitamin B6 packed in it than any other fruits. Deficiency of vitamin B6 can lead to skin and nervous disorders. For women, vitamin B6 is a special boon, since it can relieve symptoms of pre-menstrual tension like irritability,headache,water retention, depression etc. And if one is pregnant, bananas are the fruit of choice to tackle morning sickness. Bananas have the effect of tonics too.The fruit can pep up one, if he is moody or depressed.
More than anything else, banana has antacid properties. Its natural alkaline qualities neutralise the over-acid condition in the stomach. It also forms a protective lining, particularly in the walls of the stomach ,which keeps off acidic condition affecting the stomach. It helps to fight stomach bacteria , one of the chief causes for stomach ulcer. Hence bananas are now recommended , not just for heartburn and hyperacidity but also for chronic ulcers.
The carbohydrate content in banana estimated at 20 to 25 percent combined with high fibre content and the high level of vitamin C, make it a complete energy food. The potassium in it helps to boost concentration and memory. It is said that Bjorn Borg, the world famous Wimbledon Tennis star has been seen eating a big yellow banana during the little time available when a game is over. May be because it keeps the muscles toned up and prevents cramps, acting as a sportsman's friend. No wonder Bjorn Borg is very fond of this humble fruit.
So, eat banana to stay healthy and feel happy.Also remember to keep
banana always as a must in your home. A word of caution:- Those with Diabetes should consult a doctor before taking it. .From: T.S.Sundaram.
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Aruyvedic Food
