Category: Ayurveda

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Are you Eating Good Food? Part 1

“Never take what I say as gospel truth…I am human, which means that I make mistakes. Always first try out what I say, experience it yourself, and then you will know whether or not it actually is the truth. Because you are human you too make mistakes; that is inevitable. Just always make sure that you make different mistakes each time. Then you will never cease to progress.” – Vimalananda (shared by Dr. Robert Svoboda in his recent newsletter)

What popped into your head first? Yes, or no? Or an “I don’t know if I am eating food that is good for me?”

The answer should be simple, but the solution might not be so easy.

We are bombarded by health information.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, though it seems like there is just an overwhelming amount of it coming at us.  In my experience, it seems that this tyranny of choice leads us to feel frozen in place, even though it’s meant to inspire us to change.

This kind of information is not exactly what we need, though we think we crave it.  It can be helpful, but really only to a point.  If you’re familiar with yoga, you might have heard the Sanskrit word jnana before. Jnana means knowledge.  Jnana mudra is a common hand position, thumb and index ginger touching, taken during meditation, sort of like a sign language ‘d.’  By taking this mudra, the meditator invites in experience and knowledge of truth, or reality.

Jnana is a kind of knowledge, a way of acquiring information that implies wisdom gained through personal experience, or experimentation.  It is said that this is the toughest path to nirvana – perhaps because one might need nearly be immortal to have time to experiment with all the different ways of being to find which one works to bring enlightenment (enter Ayurveda, the Science of Longevity 😉 ).  It eventually becomes beneficial to have some sort of structure to begin working with, some sort of framework within to experiment, so it doesn’t take you ‘forever.’

Ayurveda is a Balancing Act

There are no Ayurvedic foods. There are no good or bad foods within Ayurveda.  Ayurveda just gives us a framework, a language, a lens through which to view the world – our food, our body, our balancing act.

We talk about the principle that every substance in Ayurveda can be medicinal, neutral, or poisonous – depending on it’s affect on their agni, or power of digestion. I have been integrating Ayurveda into my life since I heard about it 8 years ago.  The more I learn, the more I experience, the less slipping I do.  I am more in tune with this idea of agni – more in tune with ow much or ME it really affects.  It’s not only the ability to digest food, but the cascade of after affects when that is efficient, or not.

Outside Influence

Last week I went on my annual family vacation to Maine. I am from Maine originally, but now it’s even more special because we travel from Vermont towards the ocean.  Family ties, and familial influence run deep.  And as you know, it’s tough to  control your food choices when you are away from home and not always cooking for yourself. My husband and I bring a suitcase of food with us, and do as much cooking, and sharing, as we can. Then there is seafood, bread, cheese, and Summer happy hours on the beach to contend with.

Don’t get me wrong – these things are not ‘bad.’ In fact, there is so much good, so much connection and heart-opening that can happen when sharing these foods with loved ones.  I simply had the powerful visceral experience of what happens when agni is dampened. When food combining is not addressed, and the point of overindulgence is reached.

I was not experiencing these foods in a healing way after a certain point. And for me, 5 weeks post-partum at that point, agni and ojas depleted already from birth, that point was reached very quickly.  Though I went past it.  I had this ah-hah moment: I was coping with what I was ingesting.  This was not using food in a healing way.  I experienced my agni struggling to keep up.  I experienced yes, gas and nausea, due to ama, or toxin build up, but also irritability, exhaustion, and some bodily aches and pains.

I have the tools, and I still made my choices, the ones easier made with the influence of those around me.  Not ‘bad’ choices, though choices that happene to bring me into a state of imbalance. Away from healing, into dealing with dis-ease.  And long term choices like this really do lead to disease.

*Just a side note, my awesome red lentil soup I made mid-week with ginger and turmeric and yummy curry was tossed out because it must have looked suspicious on the stove to one of my family members 😉

Keep good company

Re-read the quote from above: “Never take what I say as gospel truth.  I am human, which means that I make mistakes. Always first try out what I say, experience it yourself, and then you will know whether or not it actually is the truth. Because you are human you too make mistakes; that is inevitable. Just always make sure that you make different mistakes each time. Then you will never cease to progress.” 

There are a few keys to success in your ‘progress.’

For one, it’s necessary to have tools to experiment with, and two, surround yourself with positive influences. In the words of my teacher Dr. Claudia Welch, we must ‘Keep good company.‘

When working with my students in The Healing Diet, I try to stay away from using those words ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ though I really like the simplicity of this statement. I give my students a different vcabulary to talk about and understand how food affects their body and mind.   Then, over ten weeks, they get to experiment – with guidance of course, and the framework of Ayurveda to bounce off from.

Did you know that Picasso had very traditional art school training, before he went off to do all those abstracts?  Can you imagine his still lifes, his portraits?  Like Picasso, we must learn the rules before we push the boundaries.

I plan to continue this conversation. In part 2 I need to talk about colostomies…a scary but very real reality for too many.  This is about how we must move away from our coping diet before daily discomfort becomes a lifetime of suffering.

Hang in there, and check this out while you’re at it, if you’re ready for those tools we talked about.

Love,

 

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Make Ayurveda your Ally

I flew out to California last May and met an awesome herbalist.

We sat in a circle around 3 cups of tea, and sipped them while we meditated on the energy of the plants within. I might have dismissed this as quite a bit of hippie stuff, if it wasn’t for the strong images and information I downloaded from each of them.  We spent probably 25 minutes meditating on each tea/herb, and then journaled on and shared our findings – the similarities were remarkable, and the few differences were really informative.

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This is the Wise Woman Way of herbalism.  This is a term coined by a famous western herbalist, Susan Weed.  In this way of medicine, everyone is an herbalist, everyone is their own best healer.  The aim is to find your allies – the herbs that work for you and feel right in your body.

I had an ah-hah moment there – THIS is how I teach Ayurveda.  THIS is what I am always driving home in The Healing Diet.

This might seem overwhelming – the idea of finding your own medicine. But it’s really about taking a bit of time, moving slowly, trial and error, all while having a good and supportive guide to keep you safe while you explore and heal.  The guide is key to keeping you on track and focused.  I have my own guides, and that day, Marisa, the herbalist, was mine.

In my work with clients, it is affirmed over and over again how individual each person can be. Even if it seems like they’re all coming to me with questions about painful periods, or bad acne, or awful bloating…we always spend time finding a very personalized plan of attack for each of them.

It’s easy to read about Ayurveda – there are so many awesome books and blog articles out their expounding the principles.  It’s not as easy to systematically apply it to your life, to actually put those concepts into practice.  To make it reality.

Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to share more about how I live Ayurveda this way.  Hopefully my small victories are inspiring to you, too.

This way of living and learning is not for everyone. It really takes someone who is ready to change their lives – someone who is ready to take part in their healing process.  To tune in an listen.  I have taught this ten week program in Ayurveda, Food and Digestion twice now.  Coming up on round 4, I am so excited and more confident than ever that this program really helps people.

This Spring, we start March 12, and meet for one hour every Saturday, in the comfort of your own home.  I am honing in on real healing for those who struggle daily with digestive complaints.  They can really, truly, affect your quality of life.

I want to help you find your allies – food, community, self.  Think this sounds cheesy. Then apply.  Early registration pricing ends January 31. When you fill out the application, schedule your free 20 minute phone consultation with me to learn more about the Ayurvedic perspective on your stuff.

Love,

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Summer Recipe | Palak Paneer (Local Greens and Fresh Cheese!)

Palak Paneer basically means Greens and Fresh Cheese! These two ingredients are balancing for Pitta dosha, and are also most-likely easily made with local ingredients from your area all Summer.  This is one of my favorite Summer recipes – use more greens than you think! Like pounds…yum. palakpaneer copy STEP 1:

How to Make Fresh Paneer  

45 mins plus overnight (or 6 hours)

Make your own cheese! I recommend making this the night before you want to use it, so it can hang over night.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

3/4 Gallon of whole milk

8 T of lemon juice

1/2 tsp salt

cheesecloth

INSTRUCTIONS:

Get out your largest pot, giving yourself 6 inches (at least) above the surface of the milk.  Pour in your milk, and heat on med high heat until foaming.  Keep your eye on it, and stir regularly, so it does not burn, or foam over.  Once it foams, shut off the heat, remove it from the heat source, and immediately add all of the lemon juice.  Stir the milk in one direction for about 20 seconds, then allow it to sit.  You may immediately start seeing curds form.  Allow it to sit for 10 minutes or so.

Fold your cheesecloth over 3 times, and place it in a colander, which is set over the sink – or if you want to save the whey and use it in your chowder recipe (so good!) over a big bowl.  Slowly pour the curds and whey over the cheese cloth.  Add the salt. Once you have poured all of the curds and liquid out, lift the four corners of the cheesecloth, encompassing all of the curds. Twist the ends together, gently allowing that twisting to squeeze the curds into a ball-like shaped, as the whey begins to drain out.  Rinse once for just a few seconds under cool water. Tie the ends together, and hang the bolus somewhere, over a bowl to catch the liquid, for at least 6 hours, or overnight.  In the morning, untie the cheesecloth, and the curds should be stuck together in a loose ball. To store, place in a large ziplock bag.  Will only last up to a week.  Use on a whole grain bread, with a good glug of olive, hemp or avocado oil and some salt and pepper.

PART 2: Putting it all Together

If you do not have time to make your own paneer, you can purchase this as a grocery store, OR for protein, use cooked chickpeas instead.

INGREDIENTS:

1 inch fresh ginger root, finely chopped

1 green chili, finely chopped (though pungent, cooking will remove much of the heat, and retain the flavor for you.)

1 T ground coriander

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp Pitta/Summer Spice blend (optional)

5 T ghee or coconut oil

1 or 2 cups fresh paneer cheese, cubed (cooked chickpeas may be an optional replacement.)

2 pounds of fresh, local greens (collards or kale or swiss chard or spinach or a mix) washed and chopped roughly

water

salt to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

Heat the ghee in a skillet or wok over medium to medium low heat, and add all spices, including ginger and chili.  Allow them to cook slowly for a minute or two, become aromatic, cooking out some of the heat.  Add the cubed paneer, and let that brown for 1 to 2 minutes in the ghee.  Then add the greens, which have been washed and chopped.

Add 4 or 5 tablespoons of water, and cover and cook for 7 or 8minutes.  Uncover, and stir, turning over the greens and paneer.  Cover again, add  4 or 5 more tablespoons of water, and cook for another 8 minutes.

Get more recipes like this in my Pitta Recipe Book, only available through the Seasonal ECourse for Pitta, which begins on June 5, 2015.

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The Deal with Leftovers | Does Prana really Matter?

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I always have a hard time with the “leftovers” discussion with my Healing Diet students.

It is my not-so-secret agenda to get people back in the kitchen and cooking for themselves. In fact, I think it’s a HUGENORMOUS part of our health epidemics, and one of the most important, and empowering parts of natural healing, and self-healing.

It can also be one of the biggest obstacles.  Our lives are so full.  Busy is our mantra.  In the past generation or three (perhaps especially for women)  spending your time out of the kitchen and in the world working was liberation.  Being able to pay someone else to cook and perhaps even clean for you has become more desirable and even enjoyable.  And it seems now, there is less and less choice – we don’t have or feel we have the time to cook for ourselves and family, even if we want to – and many of us also don’t know how to cook (!) because perhaps our parent’s did not, either, and could not teach us or lead by example.

Though, when we leave our food preparation up to others, even our ingredient choices up to others, we’re literally putting our life in their hands.

Am I being too dramatic?

When my students do begin cooking for themselves, so often they’re thinking big – “If I can make time to cook a whole bunch on Sunday, I’ll have meals for the rest of the week, right?”

Right. Sort of.  How would that meal taste by Friday?  Do you want to keep eating it? Will it go to waste? Will it be satisfying?  These questions are important in Ayurvedic medicine.  Our food is our medicine.  Medicine expires.  Its effectiveness diminishes over time.  Fresh ingredients offer their nutrients, their prana and life force, up to us readily, which also means it goes out just as quickly.

How to encourage them to keep going, without getting too nit-picky?  How to introduce this idea of Prana without sounding woo-woo or disconnected? Without making Ayurveda seem impossible?

Simple tips, and learning from experience.

Leftovers are considered to be less optimal, because the Prana in the food dissipates as time goes on.  Most of my teachers share a 24-hour rule.  Basically, food is ideally composted after 24 hours, because the quality becomes tamasic, rather than sattvic. Or to use other words, it becomes dull and lifeless, promoting those qualities rather than brightness, energy and clarity.

We are what we eat.  Down to our cells, from our emotions and enthusiasm for life.  Do we want the energy of day old pizza? Or of wild dandelion greens?  Do we want the energy of grandma’s lasagna, or an angry chef’s cacciatore?  There are, of course, multiple layers to this – we are all individuals, and we are quite complex beings.

Though which did you lean towards, and why?  The subtle does matter.  Over time, the subtle becomes not so subtle.  It permeates our being.

Prana is often translated as life force energy.  It is sort of the direction, the intention, the intelligence contained within something.   Maya Tiwari says that Prana “is the ‘Soul within the Body’…the cosmic breath of the Essential Self.”  Subtle, but vital.

It’s Spring here in Vermont, and everyone’s getting excited about foraging for wild foods.  For one, finding ‘free food’ can be financially liberating.  Though, as you can imagine, the excitement is beyond that.

My husband was given one stalk of wild asaparagus by our neighbor yesterday. Plucked right from the ground, he munched in it.  When he came home, he told me about his experience, saying, “Why do we even cook asaparagus? It was so tender, so fresh…”  He was high on that one piece of asaparagus, on the Prana, so pulsing, so alive, so ready to commune with his being.

This might sound cheesy, but haven’t you experienced this?  Eating something picked so fresh, it’s still living?

Most of the food in our grocery stores has been plucked days, if not weeks before we buy it, bring it home, and ingest it.  That life force energy is diminishing the longer something is detached from its source of energy.  I think we can all get behind that.

It’s the reason we shop at farmer’s markets, among many others.  That produce is not only grown and nurtured by our neighbors, but it is also closer to the source. It is allowed to ripen in the soil or ‘on the vine’ and come to maturation and full flavor.  It is perhaps hours or days from growing, so more of that life stuff is preserved.

Fresh produce, as we know, will wilt and start to actually rot if we do not use it in time.  Tis the nature of nature, everything dies and returns to the soil.  When something is cooked, some of that prana (since we’re looking at this from an energetic perspective) becomes more immediately available for your assimilation.  That also means that it dissipates more quickly – cooked food is going to go off long before the raw ingredients when left un-refrigerated.

And even if you pop it in the fridge, a bag of greens properly stored, say, will hold on to its life force longer than cooked, which might get slimy or moldy within a day or two.

And when you’re healing – which is to ay, all the time – which do you want feeding your cells? Regardless of the energy/calories, which ‘energy’ do you want to become you?

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Cooked vs Raw in Short

This might get you thinking – well, then why cook that produce at all?  This comes back to Ayurvedic principles of Agni, the power of your digestion, and the gunas, or qualities.  This is how we make food choices for healing.  Anything can be medicine or poison, depending on how it affects our digestive capacity – because in Ayurveda, is is NOT just the what, but they how that may be equally or more important.

Sometimes raw food is completely appropriate, and even preferred.  At other times, your digestive abilities, or agni, may not be optimal and you’re unable to assimilate that beautiful prana from the raw foods – and light cooking can help.  The addition of external fire helps the internal fire of digestion assimilate the prana. This is another, and important discussion that we’ll save for The Healing Diet.  (Feel free to check out this past post as well for more of Agni.)

Simplicity is Healing

When we are used to eating out, we’re used to eating big, complex flavors and dishes.  We may even feel like we’re not ‘getting enough’ if we don’t eat like that at home.  Cooking and eating this way, for certain, takes a lot of time, and it is expensive – this can be really discouraging when you’re trying to start cooking for yourself more at home.  It does not need to be this way.

Once you learn how to use what to have on hand, and get a little routine around it, it can be super simple to cook healthily at home.  And then you can more easily start experimenting with more ingredients and bigger flavors. (See references!)

HOW-TO TIPS to COOK for YOURSELF more OFTEN:

  • One tip that I share with my students is to start your mornings, each day, or every other day, with turning on a pot of grains or legumes to use as a base for some of your meals for that day.
  • This said, head to the bulk department of your grocery store this weekend and buy a pound or so of grains and legumes you think you can cook easily to stock your pantry. I recommend red lentils, puy lentils, adzuki beans, chickpeas, basmati rice, mung beans, millet, or brown rice.
  • For a truly, simple, Ayurvedic cook book that is not going to make you go out and buy 7 zillion spices and exotic ingredients, I recommend Myra Lewin’s, Simple Ayurvedic Recipes
  • Allow yourself to buy something you’re excited about – whether you see a sign for a farmer’s market and stop in, or are just running into your health food store – grab something seasonal and fresh or interesting, even if it’s not on your usual radar.
  • Use food blogs for inspiration – try these: 101cookbooks.com, vidyacleanse.com, ashleyneese.com, mynewroots.com

I’d love to hear from you – what has helped you with cooking more at home? What would make it easier for you?

Love,