Ayurveda means " science of life " or " knowledge of life ", it’s one of the world's oldest whole-body healing systems from India dating back to 5000 years. It uses natural and holistic approaches to keep our mind, body and spirit healthy. One of the best ways to keep ourselves in balance is through our daily food intake and by adjusting our lifestyle.
The Ayurvedic diet is based on the principles of Ayurvedic medicine and focuses on balancing different types of energy within our body. It is based on our individual body type, because everybody, organism and digestive system is different. Knowing our own body and its basic needs helps us to choose our diet based on what our individual body type requires to keep it in great health on a daily basis.
Ayurveda is a form of holistic medicine from India that focuses on promoting balance between our body and mind. According to Ayurveda, five elements make up the universe — vayu (air), jala (water), akash (space), teja (fire), and prithvi (earth).
These elements are believed to form three different doshas, which are defined as types of energy that circulate within our body. Each dosha is responsible for specific physiological functions.
The Ayurvedic diet is a component of Ayurveda and has been practised for thousands of years. It’s based on determining our dominant dosha and eating specific foods to promote balance between all three doshas.
The Ayurvedic diet is a type of eating plan that sets guidelines for when, how, and what you should eat based on your dosha, or body type. According to this diet, your dosha determines which foods you should eat to promote inner balance. There are 3 main ones, we all have dominant one(s) and not so dominant one(s), the key to Ayurvedic diet is to keep all 3 balanced within our body.
Pitta (fire + water) = Intelligent, hard-working, and decisive. This dosha generally has a medium physical build, short temper, and may suffer from conditions like indigestion, heart disease, or high blood pressure.
Vata (air + space) = Creative, energetic, and lively. People with this dosha are usually thin with a light frame and may struggle with digestive issues, fatigue, or anxiety when out of balance.
Kapha (earth + water) = Naturally calm, grounded, and loyal. Those with a kapha dosha often have a sturdier frame and may have issues with weight gain, asthma, depression, or diabetes.
Choosing the right food for our body is the easiest way to keep our spirit, body and mind in balance, it works down - up. For example, the pitta dosha (too much fire in the body) focuses on cooling, energising foods and limits spices, nuts, and seeds. Meanwhile, the vata dosha (too much dryness in the body) favours warm, moist, oily and grounding foods while restricting dried fruits, bitter herbs, and raw veggies. Finally, the kapha dosha (too much fat & heaviness in the body) limits heavy foods like nuts, seeds, and oils in favour of fruits, veggies, and legumes. Artificial sweeteners, and processed ingredients are limited for all three doshas. Instead, the Ayurvedic diet encourages eating healthy Whole Foods.
Depending where on the planet we are at, Ayurveda is all about what is locally fresh and seasonal. It encourages us to use local herbs and spices because adding them to our food and cooking, helps the body to break down different types of food intakes. Our diet as humans has changed tremendously and it’s not as simple as it used to be. We mix and eat a lot of different ingredients all together, which for the body takes different times to break down. Ayurveda is all about making our food easier to digest in the body to prevent disease happening within our system. For example soaking our legumes, dried fruits & nuts prior to cooking and eating.
Ayurveda is connected to the climate as the doshas themselves represent natural elements of the earth. Living in a hot climate like Bali increases pitta dosha (fire), the body often requires more cooling foods. Bali and the people born here, are predominantly pitta dosha and spicy food is actually not suggested for them, it’s adding more inner fire to already a lot of outer fire and the reason why many locals here end up with disease in their bodies.
The purpose of Ayurveda is understanding your own individual body to eat right for your body time and lifestyle, it helps you to find the perfect balance and make conscious choices in your everyday life to keep your health in check. Once you get an understanding of it, it’s very easy to follow without needing to pay much attention to it. It comes intuitively with simple daily practices and becomes a habit you follow naturally. Bear in mind that cooking just for yourself and/or cooking for your whole family is not the same!
Hi, I’m Helen 🙂 A highly passionate content creator specialising in the field of effortless style, natural beauty & sustainable luxury. As much as I love dressing up my outfits, I’m well aware looking great on the outside starts with looking after my inside. It’s been my absolute pleasure to team up and collaborate with my favourite local brand, Alive, to share more about my infits. Stay tuned for some colourful, delicious and healthy Ayurvedic recipes 🙂
I was born and grew up in Estonia, which for my thin and lean predominant vatta-pitta body type (kindly read the other article about ayurveda to understand more:) was a challenge itself to keep myself warm from the inside out specially during cold winters. I am fortunate enough to be raised in a household, where healthy home cooked food was a daily activity. We grew and made our own produce as much as possible from scratch, I still do. I spent much time in the kitchen with my mum, whom I learned how to cook. Thank you, mum 🙂 As a young girl, I also vividly remember my German grandmother making her own natural medicines. It all impacted the way I saw life and up to this day I never buy anything from the pharmacy and pay very close attention to what I put inside and outside of my body. I follow holistic approach to life and believe in natural healing using the power of our own body and mind.
I started dancing when I was 7 years old and in my early 20s I was introduced to modelling. My whole life was based on my outlook & body, which I never felt very confident in at the time and which made me very body conscious. I also experienced many health issues including decades long of constipation and battling with eating disorders. Moving to sunny Spain in 2007 opened a completely different way of living for me and since 2016 I’ve lived on the magical Bali island, where I discovered yoga. It deepened my longing to know more about my own body, myself and life in general.
In 2019 India was calling and I embarked on a journey to deepen my knowledge about my inner self. I studied nutrition, became a certified yoga teacher, studied reiki and astrology and discovered ayurveda (read the full article about it also:) It’s an understatement to say, it completely changed my life but mostly it changed me and how I saw life and myself in general. I completely changed my diet based on my own individual body type and my way of living and being. The more I learned and practised it, the more I saw my own body and mind changing and healing from the inside out, naturally. It saved my health, which is to say, it saved my life. I saved my own life by making conscious choices with my whole lifestyle (food is ultimately everything we do on a daily basis) and understanding my own body and mind from deep within.
I hope you love learning more about ayurveda and holistic health in general and enjoy my upcoming posts and recipes. Kindly keep in mind, I cook for my personal vata-pitta body type, therefore take them as an inspiration and cater them based on your own personal body type in mind. I hope you are as excited as I am to share more about it all so we can be even more Alive together 💚
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