Ayurveda, a 3,000 year old Indian
science ensuring the total health of mind, body, and spirit, is
one of the fastest growing alternative health models today.
Publications from Vegetarian Times and Prevention Magazine to
Business Week herald the growth of interest in Ayurveda. Research
shows that Ayurvedic practices strengthen the body, enhance the
immune system, and perform a wide range of preventative
functions. FARM FRESH offers an accessible, informed, and
passionate approach to transforming your eating and your health
with Ayurvedic principles.
AYURVEDA AND PICKLES
In Ayurveda, a balanced
diet does not revolve around calories, vitamins, carbohydrates
and proteins. These nutrients are known to us intellectually but
the tastes are a direct experience and give enormous and useful
information directly to the tissues in the body. Ayurveda allows
us to eat a balanced diet naturally, guided by our own instincts,
without turning nutrition into a complicated intellectual
exercise.
Tastes should be balanced
in the diet for optimum nutrition and health. All of the
Ayurvedic herbal formulas are based on the science of the six
tastes. For example, the bitter effect of herbs helps in the
fight against infections.
There are six tastes
described in Ayurveda. The term taste not only applies to the
perception of taste buds located on the tongue, but to the final
reaction of food in the acid medium of the stomach. These tastes
are sweet, sour, salty, astringent, bitter and pungent. Vata
dosha is balanced by sweet, sour, and salty. Pitta dosha is
balanced by bitter, astringent and sweet, and Kapha dosha is
balanced by pungent, bitter, and astringent.
All the six tastes are
combinations of the five building blocks of nature. Each taste
contains all five elements in it but has a predominance of two
elements. This is known as the prakriti of the tastes. They are
as follows:
- Sweet - earth and
air
- Sour - earth and
fire
- Salty - water and
fire
- Bitter - air and
fire
- Pungent - air and
fire
- Astringent - earth and
air
It is best to include all
six tastes in each meal, but include more of the tastes that
balance your individual physiology and follow the rhythms of the
seasons and a lesser amount of the tastes that create imbalance
in your body and mind.
As a general guide, the following are a list of foods in each of
the taste categories:
Sweet -
Increases Kapha
and balances Pitta and Kapha, brings satisfaction to the mind and
body, feels nourishing, brings contentment and generates a
soothing feeling. However, too much of the sweet taste brings
dullness and drowsiness. Sugar, honey, cream, rice, wheat,
butter, milk, ghee, dates, sweet fruits, coconut and licorice
root are examples of the sweet taste.
Sour -
Increases Pitta
and Kapha and balances Vata, sparks digestion, adds flavor to
food, can add to fluid retention. Lemons, grapefruits, olives,
yogurt, cheese, pickles, tomatoes, and vinegar are sour in taste.
Ayurveda recommends avoiding sour tastes from vinegar, fermented
foods, and alcohol because they are toxic to the system and
agitate the mind.
Salty -
Increases Pitta
and Kapha and balances Vata, adds flavor to food, stokes the
appetite, starts the flow of saliva and stomach juices, aids
digestion and heats up the body. Too much salt causes bloating
and skin disorders and can be overheating for Pitta. Salt, kelp,
and salty pickles are examples of the salt taste.
Bitter-
Increases Vata
and balances Pitta and Kapha, a corrective taste that brings
cravings for sweet and salty into balance, tones the tissues and
cools the body in hot weather, good for balancing Pitta, reduces
bloating, and is good for the liver. In excess, the bitter taste
depletes the tissues and creates a Vata imbalance. Raja's Cup,
bitter melon, leafy greens, turmeric, aloe vera, nettles, basil,
golden seal, iron, lemon rind, spinach, bitter gourd, barley, and
fenugreek are examples of the bitter taste.
Astringent
-
Increases Vata
and balances Kapha and Pitta, purifies the blood, helps
digestion, helps decrease diarrhoea. In excess it creates gas,
heart pain, and constipation. Pomegranates, legumes, coral,
turmeric, Raja's Cup, apple, quinoa, sprouts and coriander are
examples of the astringent taste.
Pungent -
Increases Vata
and Pitta and balances Kapha. The pungent taste helps to reduce
fat, is an appetizer, and helps to alleviate allergies. Ginger,
garlic, horseradish, black pepper, and chili are examples of the
pungent taste.
In general, for a balanced
Ayurvedic Diet, you should eat a predominance of the foods and
corresponding tastes that correct any imbalances and include a
lesser amount of food groups that include the other tastes. For
example, if you have a Pitta imbalance, then you should eat
primarily astringent, bitter and sweet tastes but include small
amounts of the pungent, sour, and salty tastes.
FARM FRESH products are convenient
and easy to use and are precise blends of spices and seasonings
that include all six Ayurvedic Tastes. Add our products to your
food shelf and see the difference it makes in your healthy
eating.
Mango -- The King Of Fruits, Therapeutic Uses And
Favours
Mangoes are not eaten as
routinely in America as are apples and pears, for instance, but
if you ever try a fully ripe, sweet juicy mango, you will want to
try it again and again. Eaten by themselves or in a variety of
dishes, mangoes add antioxidants and fiber to your
diet.
The “king of
fruits” has been around for at least 6,000 years. Native to
India and Burma, this sweet fruit was described in the ancient
Sanskrit literature, for example in Valmiki’s Ramayana. The
mango was also the fruit of the kings in ancient India, where
princes used to pride themselves on the possession of large mango
gardens. Persian traders took the fruit into the Middle East
while the Portuguese brought it to Europe and the New World.
Mango cultivation arrived in Florida in the 1830s and in
California in the 1880s, and now it is also grown in Hawaii,
Mexico and South America.
Ever since the Vedic
period, mangoes have been highly appreciated in ayurvedic healing
and cooking. All parts of the tree are used for different
purposes. The leaf plays an important role in Hindu festivals and
ceremonies. The bark, leaf, flowers, fruit and seed offer a
variety of medicinal purposes. There are also over a thousand
varieties of mangoes that vary in shape from round to pear-shaped
to narrow and oval, and that can weigh as much as four pounds
each.
Ripe mangoes are succulent
and sweet, with a yellow-orange or red skin. They are ready to
eat when they are soft to touch and yield to gentle pressure.
The best eating mango is fibre free, but even a stringy mango can
be sweet and juicy.
Ayurveda considers mango
sweet and heating. It balances all the three doshas and acts as
an energizer.
Green, unripe mango is also
used in Indian cooking. Several varieties are especially
cultivated for using raw. The fruit is grated and added to dhals
and vegetables, or made into chutneys and pickles. The ayurvedic
qualities of green mango are sour, astringent and cooling.
Mangoes if prepared ayurvedically, in combination with sugar or
spices ( for example in a chutney or in the form of a murraba )
helps in digestion , improves the flavor of food and enhance
the use of the six tastes in our body.
Mangoes are rich in
antioxidants such as beta-carotene, and Vitamin C. Antioxidants
have been shown to play an important role in the prevention of
cancer and heart disease. They also contain bioflavonoids, the
compounds that help plants capture energy from the sun, and when
eaten they aid our immune system. Mangoes also supply potassium
and fibre and are low in calories. The insoluble fibre, abundant
in mangoes, aids the elimination of waste from the colon and
prevents constipation.
Mangoes
support all the seven dhatus (body tissues) and provide a very
satisfying snack or dessert. Mangoes can also be added to
puddings, salads or fruit desserts. Try to use fresh mango
instead of canned mango puree which is void of the nutritional
benefits of fresh fruit and may contain added sugar.
Vegetables and ayurvedic
uses
Bitter gourd (karela) (memordica charantia)
Properties
Bitter
gourd is cool loosens up the hardened stool, light, bitter and
does not cause the formation of the wind. It eliminates excessive
wind, excessive bile and the blood impurities. It is beneficial
in many diseases like jaundice, emanation of semen through urine
and worms in the stomach.
USES
-
The juice of
bitter gourd's leaves mixed in warm water eliminates the worms in
the stomach.
-
If the powdered
roots of bitter gourd plant is made into a paste and then applied
on the face it cures pimples and eczema.
-
The juice
extracted from the leaves of bitter gourd mixed with some
turmeric powder in it is beneficial in small pox.
-
Make small
pieces of bitter gourd allow these pieces to dry in the shade.
Grind it into powder. Use 6 grams of this powder daily for four
months. It will cure diabetes and the problem of
sugar.
-
Take three seeds
of each bitter gourd and black pepper. Grind it into powder. If
this powder in liquid form is given to a child who is vomiting.
It will be checked.
-
Vegetable
prepared from bitter gourd is beneficial to person having
fever.
-
A patient
suffering from piles is benefited if juice of bitter gourd leaves
mixed with turmeric powder is given to him.
-
Drinking juice
of bitter gourd in the morning and in the evening cures many
diseases like, worms in the stomach, leprosy, diabetes, jaundice,
cough and emanation of semen through urine.
CARROT
PROPERTIES
Carrot
is sweet, sharp, bitter, hot, an appetizer, and light and checks
loose motions. It has curative effects in many diseases like
plethora, piles and phlegmatic diseases. It also eliminates the
excessive humor of wind in the body and worms in the intestines.
Carrot if consumed regularly in any form like Murabba improves
your eyesight because it is full of vitamin A.
USES
-
If a person
suffering from loose motion drinks the soup made of boiled
carrots he gets relief.
-
If crushed
carrot mixed with wheat flour is applied on the boils or wounds,
it acts as an excellent antiseptic compound.
-
Four to five
drops of carrot juice in the nostrils checks hiccups and
breathlessness.
-
Sniffing the
crushed carrot checks hiccups too.
-
The daily use of
carrot develops blood. The blood gets purified and skin diseases
like eczema, itches boils and pimples are cured. It also gives
strength.
-
Carrot
strengthens the vision and makes the liver strong.
CAULIFLOWER
Properties
It is sweet in taste and stimulating and digestive. It causes
the formation of the wind in the body. It is beneficial in many
diseases like fever, leprosy cough , blood impurities enlarged
liver and excessive bile in the body. Cauliflower is more
nutritious than cabbage.
Uses
-
It strengthens
the uterus of the woman.
-
Eating the
boiled roots of cauliflower cures diarrhoea and bleeding
diarrhoea .
-
A wholesome
cauliflower along with its roots, flower, seeds , fruit and stems
boiled in rice water is beneficial in stomachache.
-
If dried up
roots of cauliflower in its powdered form is mixed with some
powdered black pepper and is applied on painful tooth gives
relief from toothache .
GARLIC AND
AYURVEDA
During the ages Garlic has
been a valued natural healer. It has been used to promote the
body's energy and strength. Garlic is used in today's natural
medicines to help prevent heart disease, strokes, and
hypertension.
Garlic's essential oil has a
powerful disinfectant that is known for killing tough germs.
Garlic has a powerful active ingredient called allicin that is
responsible for it's powerful odour.
In preventing heart disease
and strokes, garlic decreases the cholesterol levels that can
cause heart attacks and stokes and promotes better blood
circulation through the heart.
