A balanced as well as nutrient rich diet is no less than a boon for our health. The abundance of beneficial and micronutrients in traditional food provides medicinal properties to our food, which lays the foundation for better health as well as a healthy and happy life. Let us learn how diet works as medicine.
Change your Diet according to the Season
Whatever is available around us works like medicine. Be it environment or diet or our lifestyle. They have a special effect on our body. If we talk about diet, it becomes a medicine when it is used judiciously. If you give food to someone who is hungry, it is like medicine for him. If someone is sick and you give him a specially prepared food, then that too is a medicine for him. Similarly, if you take food keeping in mind the balance of weather and diet, then it gives health.
Health can remain good only if there is knowledge of proper diet. The body can get energy. These days, the eating habits are contrary to Yuktahar, hence a large population is facing metabolic disorders. Lifestyle diseases can be controlled to a large extent through a rich diet.
Food should be according to season
If we choose food according to the season, we can remain healthy. It is spring now. This has been called the Kapha predominant season. There is heaviness in this season. Remains lazy. Appetite also decreases, hence anti-phlegm food should be taken during this period. Like, moong dal, green vegetables, maize, millet etc. Stay away from heavy food. Consume less rajma, urad,dal etc. in this season.
Incorporation of Six Rasas
Make sure that the food you eat contains the six Rasas. It is called Shadaras in Ayurveda. These six tastes are – sweet, acid, salt, bitter, pungent and astringent. Each juice has its own properties and effects, which when consumed maintain proper balance in the digestive process in the body. But it is most effective only if these Shadaras rich foods are taken in proper proportion. If more or less than the prescribed quantity is taken, there is a possibility of the body suffering from diseases. For example, sometimes eating very spicy food and sometimes eating very sweet or sour food is harmful.
How is the Diet
Food is divided into four parts as Pathya (edible, healthy) and Apathya (not edible, harmful).
- Quantity (of food)
- Time (when it was cooked and when it was eaten)
- Process (of making it)
- The place or place where its raw materials are grown (land, weather and surrounding environment, etc.)
- Its composition or structure (chemical, biological, properties, etc.)
- Its disorders (subtle and gross disorders and unnatural effects and impure defects, if any)
If you feel indigestion
If you feel heaviness after eating food. If there is stiffness in the hands and legs or there is a sweet-sour taste in the mouth, it means that the food is not digested properly. If you have eaten a heavy meal at night and feel heavy after waking up in the morning, then sleep for some more time. If you cannot sleep, drink hot water. Don’t eat anything for a while.
Keep these things in mind
- Consume seasonal fruits and vegetables, rather than eating whatever vegetable or fruit you like.
- Consumption of old grains is antiphlegmatic. Consume old grains in this season.
If you consume a half-inch piece of ginger with salt before eating, your digestion process remains healthy. - Drink hot water. If you cannot take it lukewarm, you can consume it by adding fennel or coriander.
- Make a rule to eat less than what you are hungry for. Divide food into four parts, keeping two parts solid, one liquid and one part empty.
- Eat only when you are hungry.
- Eat fully cooked food.
- Eat hot food i.e. eat fresh food. Do not heat food again and again. Do not bring food from outside and heat it again and again.
- While eating, remain calm and concentrate on eating. Don’t eat in a hurry.
- Understand counter diets. Eighteen types of anti-diet have been mentioned. For example, consuming salty food with milk or heating honey can have adverse effects on the body.
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