by Om Swami
There are two stints of nine nights, called Navaratra, that come twice a year at the time of the cusp of seasons. Navaratras are widely celebrated in India. These nine nights are considered the festive nights of Mother Divine. Mother Nature is Mother Divine. During this period, people stay mostly indoors and avoid eating any food that is cooked outside in restaurants. They go on a gluten- free diet consisting of only cow’s milk, fruits and certain vegetables. Some also fast completely for the whole nine days, subsisting on just a liquid diet of fruit juices.
It has been observed that these people may completely avoid seasonal allergies. Every time there is a change in season, there is a festival in India. The seasons are not four but six in Vedic scriptures, namely spring (vasanta), summer (grishma), rainy (varsha), autumn (sharada), winter (hemanta) and the cool season (shishira). The purpose of the festivals is to express gratitude to Mother Nature and introduce the new foods of the season in a cheerful manner. How a food is introduced can be the decisive factor in whether your body accepts or rejects it. For example, if you force a child to eat a certain food, and he doesn’t like it, he may develop a lifelong repulsion towards that food.
Vata ailments (meaning all disorders arising out of vata) – especially seasonal allergies – germinate in the body during the summer; they get vitiated in the rainy season and pacified in autumn.
Pitta afflictions accumulate during the spring; they are aggravated in the summer and pacified in autumn.
Kapha accumulates in the body from the dawn of winter but doesn’t manifest its disorders till the spring. It is pacified in the summer. See the table below for the relationship between doshas and the seasons.
Doshas and Seasons
Accumulates
Aggravates
Pacifies
Vata
Summer
Rainy
Autumn
Pitta
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Kapha
Winter
Spring
Summer
Your constitutional disorders are likely to be in the seasons as per the humours above. It is best to go on a light diet during the change of seasons. Light means avoiding all processed, fried, fatty and fast foods. Ideally, you should be on a gluten-and-dairy-free diet for one week during a change of season. This is the easiest way to avoid many seasonal allergies and physical weaknesses.
The food you eat may have any of the six tastes; it may be hot or cold, oily or dry, hard or soft, liquid or solid or semi- solid. It may be chewable, lickable, drinkable, suckable; it may be nutritious or junk. There are numerous other properties of food. Ultimately, however, the real nature of the food you consume can be ascertained by considering its two crucial aspects: light or heavy and acidic or alkaline. Either it is heavy to digest or it is light to digest. And the food acts either as acidic or as alkaline on your body. If you consume foods that are light on your digestion and alkaline in nature, you naturally remain healthier.
9
What to Eat
For years I researched the issue of nutrition. I tried to align the Ayurvedic dietary guidelines and the modern system of nutrition. I worked with my doctors to understand the implications of various foods for various people; I experimented with foods based on the constitution of an individual. What I found was nothing short of startling. While Ayurveda is extremely accurate in determining which foods vitiate various doshas, it is not the physical nature of the food but its tendency (svabhava) that has the most impact on patients.
There were some kapha patients who didn’t respond well to yogurt, and there were just as many who did, for instance. This was intriguing. But there was no confusion once we considered the alkaline or acidic nature of various foods and the natural tendencies of such foods. Now we could arrive at a simple food chart that could be used by anyone.
Appendix 1 of the book presents two lists of acidic and alkaline foods, with the categorization of goodness (sattvic), passion (rajasic) or ignorance (tamasic). The more alkaline and sattvic foods you consume, the healthier you become. Additionally, if you take care of the quantity, time and manner of eating, you are most unlikely to fall sick. This is one way of ensuring good health: eat wholesome foods at the right time, in moderate quantities and with a sense of gratitude.
Ayurveda recommends a balanced diet – a sattvic diet. In line with the modern system of nutrition, it suggests that our food should be healthy. But it also places an emphasis on the food being sattvic, and also on its tastefulness and its agreeableness with one’s body. There are five important terms in Ayurveda, namely, fat (sneha), protein (snigdha), tasty (rasya), agreeable (hridya) and carbohydrates (madhura, literally sweet).
Although the terms sneha and snigdha literally mean oil and gluten, in terms of their effect on the body (the fourth stage of food), they are identical to fats and proteins. Five thousand years ago, most people were routinely engaged in physical labour. Therefore, Ayurveda recommended that a diet should have a decent proportion of carbohydrates, because the human body directly derives energy from carbohydrates to sustain work. And the rishis reasoned that anything with sweetness in it will contain carbohydrates. The sweeter the food, the more the carbohydrates. Even bread, rice and milk have a natural sweetness, because they all have carbohydrates.
The rishis didn’t stop at nutrients alone. They stated that for us to receive the optimum benefit from food, it must be tasty. If we dislike the food we have to eat, we put ourselves under stress. And when we are stressed, our brains release a whole heap of chemicals that have an adverse effect on our digestion. These chemicals withdraw the proteins from the gastrointestinal tract and direct them to the hypothalamus – a region of the brain that regulates body temperature, thirst, hunger and other homeostatic systems – thus leading to indigestion. All of this can be avoided if food is tasty.
Further, as I’ve explained earlier, some foods sit well with us while others don’t. Some of us can digest milk easily, whereas some others are highly lactose intolerant, for example. This is called hridya – agreeableness of the food in Ayurveda.
To find the right foods, start by listening to your body. Your body has an infallible feedback system. It tells you what is sitting well with it and what’s not. As long as your diet is balanced, you will continue to feel energetic and healthy. I frequently meet people who are well into their eighties but extremely fit. They are mostly vegetarians and have eaten a basic but healthy diet throughout their lives. They have no Parkinson’s disease, no Alzhiemer’s disease, no diabetes, no hypertension and no heart disease. In fact, they are not on any medication. They journey from distant places to my ashram; they do a trek of forty minutes and cross a river. If you look at them, you will guess their ages to be in the mid-sixties.
These are not people who have consulted Ayurveda for their dietary needs. They haven’t even taken vitamin supplements. They have just lived a life of physical and mental purity. There is one more factor in common. They have all eaten a diet of sattvic foods that are alkaline. This is the basis of their health and longevity. Let me elaborate on acidic and alkaline foods.
ACIDIC AND ALKALINE FOODS
In Ayurveda, acidic foods are called amla and alkaline foods are called kshara. Understanding the pH factor is paramount for determining which foods are acidic and which are alkaline. The earliest pH testing methods involved burning a substance at a high temperature and reading the residue to ascertain the pH. Five thousand years ago, while they did not have the sophisticated testing methods and tools available to modern science, they were remarkably insightful.<
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Ayurveda was surprisingly advanced. It understood that while burning a substance to test for its acidity was a viable method of testing, this was only one way of doing so. Ayurvedic practitioners would caramelize some substances, squeeze others, extract some and press many to understand the nature of the essence of that food. In its truest sense, this is what alchemy is: understanding the essence of matter to utilize it for consumption, transmutation or treatment purposes. The amount of butter and cream you can get from milk, for instance, can accurately determine its fat content. If you heat milk and ‘split’ it, it turns into a type of curd cheese like ricotta called paneer (the Indian cheese). This allows you to gauge the protein content of the milk.
The sage-physicians of Ayurveda didn’t call acidity and alkalinity pH, they called it vipaka (the effect of the food – the fourth stage of the food). They figured that madhura or kshara vipaka (alkaline effect) bestowed the finest health on a person. Therefore, Ayurveda greatly emphasized the consumption of alkaline foods. Most alkaline foods are highly sattvic in nature; they promote mental and physical well-being.
All meats, intoxicants, condiments, processed and canned foods are very acidic. Modern science considers dairy mostly acidic, but Ayurveda considers all dairy products generated from cow’s milk to be alkaline. All herbs, spices and most vegetables are alkaline. Avocados and coconuts are very alkaline, as are rock salt, sprouted beans and vegetables like spinach, cucumber and broccoli. Kemp (sea vegetable), horseradish and miso are very alkaline. All citrus fruits are acidic before ingestion but they act alkaline on the body during and after ingestion.
In this day and age, we are obsessed with data, but the truth is that selection of foods is a natural, simple and instinctive process. Your mind and body will tell you if a certain food is good for you or not. An acidic diet aggravates vata and pitta. Alkaline foods pacify all the three doshas. Indian gooseberry (amlaki or amla as it is commonly known) is a very alkaline food. It pacifies vata, pitta and kapha. It is sour but leaves a sweet, honey-like aftertaste in the mouth. All alkaline foods are light in digestion and their effect is soothing or cooling (sheetala) on the body.
The pH Factor
From the current scientific perspective, the pH value is the sole factor in determining whether a food is acidic or alkaline and how acidic or alkaline it is. The modern concept of pH has been around for more than a century, in fact. A Danish chemist, Søren Peder Lauritz Sørensen, invented the pH scale in 1909. pH values exist at the fluidal, glandular and cellular levels and in the tissues and organs. Each individual cell in your body has a pH level. pH stands for potential for hydrogen. It refers to the concentration of hydrogen ions. The fewer the hydrogen ions, the greater the pH level; the greater the pH level, the more the alkalinity. Your cells, tissues or fluids could be acidic, alkaline or neutral.
Measured on a scale of 0–14, anything above 7 is alkaline and anything below 7 is acidic. A pH reading of 7 is neutral. When the three doshas are in balance, your body is in a state of homeostasis. You achieve this outcome by maintaining the acid–alkali balance in your body. In other words, maintaining a pH between 7 and 8 is ideal for your body.
Every food you consume has an acid–alkali status. Acids generate hydrogen ions and alkalis absorb them. The greater the concentration of hydrogen ions in a substance, the more acidic it is. A higher pH means more alkaline. This is what you need in your diet – higher pH. Hydrogen ions are positively charged particles. They are highly unstable, active and reactive. They attach to a protein and are capable of completely modifying its structure.
People with low pH levels age quickly, because skin, hair and most muscles are made from protein. pH is measured in molecular weight also known as moles per litre. An increase of one point on the pH scale represents a tenfold or one thousand per cent decrease in the concentration of hydrogen ions. And a decrease of one point on the pH scale means a thousand per cent increase in hydrogen ions. Therefore, the difference between a pH of six and eight is not merely two points but a twentyfold change.
The Natural Mechanism
Over millions of years, the human body has evolved to be an extraordinarily intelligent system. There are three primary organs that maintain the acid–alkali balance in your body. They are your lungs, kidney and skin. In addition, your body has a buffer system made up of proteins or phosphate-containing molecules that try to maintain a pH balance in various bodily fluids.
The process of metabolism produces a number of gaseous acids. Most notably, carbon dioxide mixes with water to produce carbonic acid. The process of respiration flushes out these acids. Yogic texts place great emphasis on regulation of breath. Deep breathing is the easiest way to flush out the gaseous toxins. Shallow breathing is synonymous with ill health, according to Ayurvedic texts. Contemporary medical science supports this view, as shallow breathing leads to a condition called respiratory acidosis. It causes hypoventilation (abnormally decreased speed and depth of breathing) and retention of carbon dioxide, directly harming one’s health.
In olden times, householders started their day by offering oblations to the sun while standing in a river or a pond. This reduced the positively charged particles in their bodies, thereby keeping acidity in check. Your body produces a lot of acids while you are sleeping, especially if you eat just before bedtime. After the oblations, they would breathe deeply twenty times. This produced an instant alkaline effect on the volatile or gaseous acids in the body. The yogis were required to do meditation and deep breathing before even leaving their beds. This is the first thing true yogis do even today.
All the acids in the bloodstream produced by metabolism are filtered by the kidneys. While the lungs filter the gaseous acids, kidneys filter the fixed acids, notably uric acid. Shaped like a bean, your kidneys are not much bigger than your thumb. The kidney tissues are quite tender. If your acid intake is too high for the kidneys to tackle on their own, they borrow reserve base compounds from the bones and muscles. Strong body odour is usually a clear sign that you are on an acidic diet. Over a period of time, an acidic diet will rob your muscles of their suppleness and may cause osteoporosis. If it doesn’t lead to osteoporosis, it will certainly weaken your bones. It is worth noting that the pH of most alcoholic drinks ranges between 3 and just over 5. They can play havoc with your kidneys.
What lungs do with respiration, your skin does with perspiration; it flushes out the acids. The amount is not significant, nevertheless anything is better than keeping those acids inside your body. In Ayurveda, the benefits of abhyangama (massage) have been stated in abundance. Massage is also another way of making your skin more responsive, strong and healthy. It gives life and lustre to your skin. The healthier your skin, the better its capability to breathe. Perspiration of skin is its respiration.
Alkaline diets lead to healthier skin; you remain young longer. Premature wrinkles, lines, freckles and dryness are the signs of an acidic body. Ayurveda states that your skin has seven layers. Cosmetics, no matter how good they are, can only take care of the first three layers – at most. If you really want healthy skin, that is breathing and strong at all seven layers, an alkaline diet is your best bet. It is extremely difficult to avoid wrinkles with a highly acidic diet.
While acid–alkali imbalance is at the root of almost all physical diseases, excess acidity or alkalinity can lead to either of two conditions in the body.
Acidosis
As it is, the human body is acidic in nature. All secretions are basically acidic. Most secretions in the body have an element of heat; they are designed to either break down, digest or absorb various substances. Even saliva is acidic in nature. From rasa to shukra (saliva to semen), they are all acidic in nature. The essence of semen – sperm – is alkaline, though. Prostatic secretion is acidic while seminal vesicular fluid (which comprises the greatest proportion of semen) is alkaline. Stress and diet can make it vary, though. All glandular secretions are acidic in nature and
the human body is constantly producing them. Therefore, it is all the more important to soothe your body through alkaline foods.
When you deprive your body of the minimum alkaline needs and your body continues to produce metabolic acids, it leads to a build-up of these acids in your body. This condition is known as chronic low-grade metabolic acidosis. Acidosis hardens your arteries, weakens your bones and kidneys, spoils your skin and affects your well- being. Think of the ring in the bathtub. After you have bathed, the acid in the water leaves marks on the bathtub. Similarly, if you consume an acid-rich diet, the acidic residue remains in your system, and it is a burdensome job for your kidneys to cleanse it. Not to mention the additional load on your digestive system. This acidic residue is called ama (pronounced aama) in Ayurveda (explained in more detail later in this book).
With age, as the kidneys become weaker, acidosis gets worse. Metabolic acidosis can also be caused by insufficient production of bicarbonate. Bicarbonate is a natural alkaline chemical produced by your body. Renal (kidney) problems, and gastrointestinal conditions like diarrhoea and pancreatic disorders, can also cause the loss of bicarbonate. Dietary negligence or ignorance, however, is the foremost cause of metabolic acidosis. Therefore, the easiest way to fix acidosis is by changing your diet.
Cola drinks, for example, have a pH level of around 2.5. This is extremely acidic. To neutralize one glass of cola in your body, you would need to drink thirty glasses of water. Acidosis can lead to chronic headaches, sleepiness or even insomnia, vertigo, seizures, diarrhoea, shortness of breath, chronic cough, palpitation, indigestion, reflux, heartburn, loss of calcium in the body, weakness in the bones, dry skin and other skin disorders including rashes, acne, body odour, increased risk of formation of kidney and bladder stones, accelerated ageing, degenerative diseases, fatigue and hormonal and glandular disorders. And I have only just scraped the surface here.
