As promised, a follow up to my post on Ayurveda, here are some dietary recommendations for each of the doshas. I've also included a fun "how to imbalance your constitution" for each of the doshas. This was written by one of the instructors at IHN, so I cannot take credit for it! Please also see my kitchari recipe; this dish is excellent for balancing all of the doshas. Let me know if you have any questions or if you're interested in learning more about the doshas and/or Ayurveda in general.

Food	Vata (sweet, sour, salty)	Pitta (bitter, sweet, astringent)	Kapha (bitter, astringent, pungent)
What	Warm, moist, nourishing, grounding, rich	Cool, dry, not very spicy, not oily, some raw, some sweet	Dry, low GI foods, warm, light
How	Eat when free from anxiety, with attention, eat with others	Don’t eat when angry, irritated or rushing, cultivate gratitude for food, don’t skip meals and eat when it’s too late at night or when you’re too hungry	Be extra careful about emotional eating, are you really physically hungry? Good to occasionally skip a meal and don’t nap after eating
When	Smaller meals, snack throughout the day	Classic schedule: Breakfast, lunch, dinner	Don’t snack, wait to eat until you are physically hungry. Main meal at noon, light breakfast and dinner. Exercise before eating, avoid sleeping after eating
Grains	Encouraged to eat pasta, rice, potatos, bread. Basmati and jasmine rice (be careful with brown, wild and black), quinoa, wheat (unless celiac) grain porridges are good but soak grains overnight and cooked well with digestive spices such as ginger, cinnamon), oats, millet (but not all the time)	Can handle most grains, drying grains are particularly good i.e. millet and rye. Pittas should have a good amount of whole grains in their diet	Millet, basmati, quinoa, rye, barley, buckwheat are all okay but are also dry and heavy. Porridge is not a good idea but millet is okay in small quantities, soaked overnight and served with digestive spices
Veg	90-100% of veg should be cooked and seasoned with oil and spice, only 10% raw, unless juicing. Avoid cruciferous veg, careful with artichokes and asparagus	All vegetables are good, up to 50% can be raw	All vegetables are good as long as they are cooked. Not a lot of raw (25%)
Fruit	Avocado is excellent, other fruit is okay in medium quantities, juicing is good, apples should be cooked, avoid dried fruit unless they are stewed	Fruit is good but careful with acidic fruits i.e. lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit. Pittas should eat lots of fruit	Eat low GI index fruits, low quantities, avoid dried fruit
Animal	Need to eat meat and fish, eggs, chicken, turkey, fresh fish. Small amount of raw fish is okay	Fish is better for pitta. Should not eat large amounts of meat but can eat all meats. Be careful with pork and lamb	Medium amount of raw fish okay. Kapha needs meat the least because kapha retains nourishment best. Small quantities, but all types are fine. Careful with seafood. Eggs are good for kapha
Dairy	All dairy good, raw organic milk is best, served warm with spices. Fermented dairy is particularly good i.e. kefir, aged cheeses	All dairy is good, but minimize fermented dairy and strong cheese	Avoid dairy. If having dairy, most strongly fermented is best, and also light cheeses (cream cheese) in small quantities
Legumes	Mung, lentil, are best, cooked with digestive spices, tofu	All beans, but cook with digestive spices	Mung, lentil and other light beans (black beans)
Nuts and seeds (all doshas should have more seesd than nuts)	Small quantities, must be prepared i.e. sprouted or roasted, avoid raw. Nut milks are fine, nut and seed butters are fine in small quantities	Good with nuts in terms of digestion, but need to be careful with quantity because oil tends to show up as some sort of inflamed condition in the body i.e. skin. Raw nuts and seeds are fine for pitta	Avoid raw nuts and seeds but roasted and sprouted are okay in small quantities. Kapha can handle more nuts than vata but must be careful due to heavy/oily nature.
Oils	Sesame, ghee, coconut, but mostly all oils are good	Small quantities. Olive, grapeseed, coconut, almond, ghee	Olive and grapeseed in moderation, hemp and flax, almond, sunflower
Sweeteners	All in small quantities: fruit, fruit juices, molasses, jaggery maple syrup	Stay away from refined sugars, have whole sweeteners (raw honey, maple syrup, jaggery)	Minimize sugars, small amounts of raw honey, maple syrup

Remember, below are suggested ways to imbalance your doshas!

How to imbalance Vata: worry, fast, don't get enough sleep, eat on the run, keep no routine whatsoever, eat dry, frozen, leftover foods, run around a lot, never moisturize your skin, work the graveyard shift, avoid tranquil, warm, moist places, use drugs, indulge all of your feelings and thoughts.

How to imbalance Pitta: drink plenty of alcohol, eat spicy food, engage in highly competitive activities, eat lots of tomatos, chilis, raw onions, sour foods and yogurt, exercise at the hottest time of the day, wear tight, hot clothes, avoid cool, fresh, peaceful places, snack on salty foods, eat as much deep fried foods as possible.

How to imbalance Kapha: take nice long naps after meals, eat lots of fatty foods and sweets, overeat as often and as much as possible, refuse to take any risks, be a couch potato, assume someone else will do it, avoid invigorating, warm, dry areas, don't exercise, dwell on dead romances, unrequited love, old grudges, and thinks you can't leave behind, make sure you get at least one dessert every day, preferably cheesecake or ice cream.

Did any of these make you giggle?

Awareness is key,

About a week and a half ago, I started the course that I largely based my decision on attending IHN for...Ayurveda. Since then, people have been asking me what it's all about. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to go into the fundamentals and theories behind Ayurvedic therapy, and I will follow up with a later post on diets for the different constitutions. What's a constitution, you ask? Patience, young grasshopper.

Ayurveda is the Sanskrit word for "knowledge of life". It is a 5,000 year old system of natural healing grounded in the Vedic culture in India. It follows a model of constitutions, that primarily consider the unique qualities of the individual and also integrate the mind and spirit into the healing process. Similar to Traditional Chinese Medicine (whose roots are also grounded in Ayurveda), Ayurveda contains a system of anatomy and physiology that follow an energetic and qualitative model that show us how our life energies work and how to balance them. What's the point? Health of body and mind.

Two of the most popular Ayurvedic therapies many of us are engaging in without even knowing it are asana (yoga postures) and pranayama (breathing exercises). I'll save my ~~rant~~ commentary regarding the practise of yoga in the west for another day, but want to point out here that what most of us are practising when we attend classes here in North America is actually not yoga, in the traditional sense; in fact, it's Ayurveda. I am not intending to make a global generalization or judgment here; and, I don't think that many can argue that the majority of the yoga that we are practising at our community studios is much different from the yoga being practised in ashrams in India. In India, yoga is practised in order to attain union with the divine. Many of us in the west attend yoga for the purposes of maintaining a healthy body. Anyway, potay-to, potah-to - and something to keep in mind the next time you're flowing through a vinyasa : ) Other types of Ayurvedic therapies include: diet, herbs, meditation, oil massage, and steam therapy.

Ayurveda's foundation is in the law of like and unlike: everything you experience increases like parts of your being and decreases those parts unlike it, making every experience you have medically significant. The ultimate cause of illness is potential, ripened and current karma. Karma can be (very simply) described as the idea that our intent and actions influence our futures. In other words, suffering comes from what has happened in the past as well as the karma we're presently creating. Ayurveda also recognizes that we are a a manifestation of universal energy and describes three fundamental energies or "doshas" that are responsible for the characteristics of our mind and body. They are, in Sanskrit, Vata (wind), Pitta (fire) and Kapha (earth). Each of us contain a unique proportion of these three doshas that shape our constitution. There's that word again ; )

While each of us are thought to have all three doshas, most of us are dominant in one or two of the elements. The Ayurvedic system operates under the idea that there is a balanced state of expression of each of the elements. When an individual is imbalanced or excessive in one or any of the doshas, therapies are used in order to decrease the expressions and bring the individual back into their own unique state of balance. If Vata is dominant and balanced, the individual tends to be lively and enthusiastic. An imbalance in Vata may present as constipation, anxiety and irregular sleep. If Pitta is dominant and balanced, the individual tends to be passionate, friendly, disciplined and a good leader and speaker. An imbalance in Pitta may present as diarrhea, anger and irritability. Finally, if Kapha is dominant and balanced, the individual tends to be stable, loving and calm. An imbalance in Kapha may present as depression, weight gain and sinus conditions.

So now comes the fun part - which dosha are you? The best way to determine that is to see an Ayurvedic consultant, such as our teacher, Matthew Gindin. There are also a number of online questionnaires you can fill out, Deepak Chopra's is a popular one.

Below is a table I put together from my study notes of the physical and psychological qualities for each of the doshas:

Dosha	Physical qualities and issues	Positive psychological qualities and issues	Negative psychological qualities and issues	Other
Vata	Olive coloured skin (relative to ethnicity), hair may be wavy or thin, facial features are small/irregular, frame is tall, thin; hands and feet may be small or fine, bones are frail, prominent, teeth are fragile, dry skin and hair, digestion issues i.e. intestinal dryness (IBS, irritation, constipation, gas, bloating), irregular sleep, digestion, nervous system, chronic pain, cold hands and feet, cold body temperature	Creativity, enthusiastic, good at putting things/thoughts together, ability to see multiple points of view, broad-minded thought, intuition, mentally flexible	Moody, hypersensitive, insecurity, indecision, scatterbrained, flightiness, psychological instability, respond to stress with fear, worry and anxiety, impulsive	Little body odor, variable appetite, variable and erratic libido, sensitive to cold weather, wind, strong reaction to medications, high energy in short bursts, tend to over exert and tire easily, think outside the box, quick to learn and grasp new knowledge but also quick to forget,
Pitta	Face is medium sized, angular. Skin is oily and has pink or reddish tone, freckles. Hair tends to be fair, straight and medium bodied. Eyes are sharp, piercing and bright, medium frame, tends to be naturally muscular, strong, joints are flexible and well-lubricated, Inflammatory conditions (joints, skin, intestines, some auto-immune disorders), bacterial imbalances, digestion tends to be strong, may run fast (diarrhea) “I can eat anything”, warm to hot body temperature	Passion, ambition, clarity of thought, enthusiasm, analytical thoughts, self-confident, driven, focused	Anger management problems, obsessiveness, close-minded, judgmental, irritable, aversion, workaholic, subject to temper tantrums, impatience	Body odour tends to be strong, strong appetite and libido, may sleep lightly or little. Get irritable if a meal is messed, sunburns easily, responds to stress by getting angry and irritable, perspires a lot, uncomfortable in hot weather, good public speakers, good leaders
Kapha	Skin is fair, pale. Hair tends to be wavy, thick. Eyes tend to be large, almond shaped/doe-eyed. Face is full and shapely. Frame tends to be larger, carry more weight, bones are strong, thick. Digestion tends to be slow, weak, tendency towards constipation, body temperature tends to be cold. Excessive weight gain, edema, respiratory problems, sluggish digestion, diabetes, circulatory problems, cardiovascular disease, hormonal imbalance	Grounded, stability, love, loyalty, compassion, consistency, forgiveness, calmness, affectionate, non judgmental	Stubborn, melancholy, needy/clingy, heavy lethargic depression, inflexible, slow when change is needed	Small appetite but constant, weak libido, sleeps heavily, easygoing, relaxed, slow-paced, stable, reliable, slow speech, low, soft voice, slower to learn but outstanding long-term memory, undemanding approach to life, excellent health and immune system, strive to maintain peace and harmony in surroundings, not easily upset, can be a point of stability for others, don’t like cold, damp weather

Based on the diagnostic exercises we did in class, and the feedback I got from Matthew, it comes as no great surprise that I am pitta dominant and vata secondary. Obviously ; )

We are starting to see a resurgence of traditional alternative medicines in the west, which I am very excited about. Gaia Gardens on West Broadway is a great herbal dispensary, and Metropolitan Relaxation Studio in East Van offers Ayurvedic oil massage. I've been for one and it was lovely (prepare to get reaaaaaaaaaaaaally oily though!). I've also been told that the Chai Gallery restaurant in Kits (on top of East is East) has an Ayurvedic buffet on certain nights.

Whether you believe in it or not, it's really just another way to approach illness and allows us the opportunity to involve ourselves in the healing process in a meaningful way. Last time I checked, going for an oil massage and meditating hasn't resulted in any weird side effects. At least, not in my opinion ; )

stay open,
xo

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