Vata (air) is elevated by foods that taste bitter, pungent or astringent. Vata is lowered by foods that taste sweet, sour or salty.
Pitta (fire) is elevated by foods that taste sour, salty or pungent. Pitta is lowered by foods that taste sweet, bitter or astringent.
Kapha (water) is elevated by foods that taste sweet, sour or salty. Kapha is lowered by foods that taste bitter, pungent or astringent.
To maintain balanced doshas and therefore health, Ayurveda recommends including at least a little of all six tastes in your daily food intake. In order to include all six tastes, you must eat from a wide variety of foods, thus ensuring that you will be eating a varied and well-balanced diet. Even if you are trying to bring one of the doshas back into balance by eating foods with tastes that balance that dosha, you should still try to include the other tastes in your daily meals.
Besides taste, there are other qualities that should be considered when choosing what to eat. Lightness, heaviness, wetness, dryness and temperature are some of these other qualities. Choose foods that have qualities least like the qualities of the dosha you are trying to balance. For instance, ice cream is sweet, cold and wet. Since kapha dosha has these same three qualities, eating ice cream to balance kapha would not work. However, eating spinach, which is light, bitter and essentially dry, would help balance the kapha.
It is not only what we eat that affects the doshas, but also how, when and where we eat. The following is a list of poor eating habits that can affect our doshic balance.
• Eating at irregular intervals. According to Ayurveda, the body loves regular schedules. Eating your meals at consistent times every day is best.
• Eating too much of anything.
• Not eating enough or going on a starvation diet.
• Constantly favoring one or two tastes to the exclusion of others. Many people prefer sweet and salty foods and therefore don’t eat a balanced diet. Junk foods and fast foods are predominantly sweet and salty.
• Eating foods that increase the effects of weather conditions. For example, eating a spicy Mexican meal on a hot summer day.
• Eating any of the following foods too often: red meat, fried foods, alcoholic beverages and foods made with lots of refined sugar. These foods should be eaten very seldom (if at all) since they easily throw the doshas out of balance.
• Eating hurriedly, in an unsettled environment, or while watching television, reading or listening to loud music.
Part Two of this book is a guide to the types of foods to increase or reduce, alleviating symptoms of imbalance for each dosha. Recipes are offered that emphasize foods and cooking methods that help balance each dosha. But this section need only be used when there is an imbalance, and not all the time. The basic rule of eating according to Ayurveda is that when you feel healthy and energetic, have good digestion and no pain, eat whatever healthful foods you prefer as long as you continue to feel healthy.
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