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The Yoga of Cooking & Eating

9/3/2014

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Why do we eat ? On the most basic level,  we eat to satiate hunger and get the nutrition we need to sustain our physiology. In the West we talk about recommended daily allowances in terms of caloric intake, minerals and nutrients. Reading  nutrition labels  is like  a chemistry experiment gone awry . On the other hand , the  Ayurvedic approach to food is so simple, pure   and perfectly harmonious. In Ayurveda ,eating is a purification of  the body and like Yoga,  it is  a communion with the divine. 

The preparation of  food, the offering of food , and the eating of the food  that is offered to us is sacred.  Food is  a gift from Mother Earth and the Divine and  it should be eaten as it was gifted to us without being irradiated, bleached, treated with chemicals. If we recognize  food as a communion with the divine  and  as medicinal in nature, it changes  our entire attitude of how we eat,  when we eat , why we eat and what we eat . And it changes the energetics of the food.

In order to understand the energetics of food, we must first understand the gunas.

 The Gunas

The three Gunas as  described in Yoga & Ayruveda are  Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. The gunas  can be described as the qualities of energy in all things and describe the "tendencies" of the mind, body and consciousness and describe our behavior, thinking, health and diet as well.

Rajas  is characterized by excitement, desire activity, restlessness, stress and anger.

Tamas is characterized by lethargy, dullness and laziness.

Sattva is  characterized by  balance  happiness, contentment, virtue, patience &  forgiveness

There is an interplay of all gunas within us. Without Tamas we would not sleep and without Rajas we would lack the drive to get things accomplished  and without Sattva life would be uninspiring and without the higher human qualities.  Yogis  aim to increase sattva  guna   through a healthy body and a peaceful mind and diet plays a major role in creating harmony.


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"One man's food is another man's poison":

 We can eat the most beautiful, nutritious organic food , but if it is not right for our dosha it can cause an imbalance and  how we  cook, eat and   store our foods can affect  the gunas of the food and our consciousness.

We can be  more or less dominated by one of the three gunas and depending on what kind of energy we need more of in our lives we can  regulate these gunas in body and mind  through ayurvedic cooking.

If we eat  or cook when angry, depressed, bored, or feeling  emotionally unstable, or immediately after any physical exertion  that energy will  infuse  the food.  It is best not to eat or cook in this state of mind as it can give a rajasic or tamasic quality to the food. In general, it is best to  cook for yourself or let only someone  who loves you cook for you. With that being said, it is best to avoid eating out too much.  Restaurants are in the business of making profits and not  balancing  your gunas. You do not know  how the food was prepared nor what energy from the  cook or  server is pervading the food.

Sitting while eating in a clean area, facing  the direction of the sun, the earth's source of heat and fire, engaging  in pleasant conversation or  eating  in silence allows us to digest our food well rather than watching t.v., talking about politics or eating on the run or  in the car.  Eating alone or with people with good energy and  engaging  all the  sense organs  while eating or cooking  colorful foods   with pleasant music, fresh flowers has a sattvic quality.

 Overeating is  tamasic.  How much is the right amount? In Ayurveda we divide the stomach into 3 parts : 1/3 is for food, 1/3 for liquid and 1/3 for air.  The quantity of food is  1 Anjali which would equate to placing  your hands in prayer and opening  them up. So whatever fits into the palms of your two hands is how much we should eat.  The  liquid should be  warm water as it aids with digestion (ice drinks and cold drinks put out your digestive fires)  and the last space remains empty so that your stomach can churn.


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Cooking with a gas flame is most  sattvic  , pervading the food with a quality of Agni that is not there when cooked on an electric stove . While cooking on a gas stove is the best option, it may not always be  possible and  to save time and not cook in a hurry and infuse your meal  with nervous energy, we can use a crockpot and rice cooker. Food that is cooked with love and care has a sattvic quality even if the ingredients or the cookware  may not be as sattvic. When we do use this type of cookware, we can infuse the food with loving energy as we prepare it, increasing the prana of the food. Microwave cooking is  void of agni, lacking prana as it scrambles the chemistry of the food and therefore is considered  tamasic.

Food cooked with cookware or utensils of unnatural qualities make foods tamasic because things like non-stick pots/pans or plastic utensils seep toxins into our food without us even realizing it.  “Non-stick” cookware is a MAJOR source of PFC’s, particularly perfluororooctanoic acid, known as PFOA Three to five minutes  after heating a  non-stick pot or pan   at least six toxic gases are released into the air and in the food.  These chemicals are easily absorbed by the  body and the food in the pan, turning that healthy organic  home-cooked meal toxic. PFC’s have been linked to a range of health dangers:  elevated LDL, infertility, birth defects  thyroid disease immunosuppression  and cancer.

Certain metal cookware can leach tamasic  toxins into food.  Cooking in aluminum  cookware produces hydroxide poison which neutralizes digestive juices, producing stomach and gastrointestinal trouble, such as stomach ulcers and colitis  Stainless steels which is a  widely used material in food preparation and in home cookware  when it reacts  to organic acids and salts  in foods , allows chrome and nickel to bleed into the foods  If one is going to use stainless steel cookware, it should only be high -grade surgical stainless steel. Nickel has been  implicated in numerous health problems, notably allergic contact dermatitis.  While women  do not typically need to worry about iron leaching from cast –iron cookware as long as they are still menstruating and losing blood, and growing children require more blood and more iron, cast iron cookware can cause iron  overload in adult males and menopausal women.

So the best thing is to think nature! To increase the sattvic quality of food,  cook with  cookware and utensils that are   closest to nature : ceramic, clay, and wood utensils.  Ceramic cookware is made of  an earth mixture which is fired to create ceramic and  clay is of the earth.

In the age of "convenience" instant foods that are eaten on the run,  we have given up on our health for the sake of time and convenience. Making wholesome nutritious meals and tapping into the  energetics of  food can be done without taking too much time out of the day and without a strain on the wallet. Ultimately if we change our vision of food from one that is just fuel to realizing that food is divine, it will have a huge impact.

 While there are many paths of yoga,  a yogic life that leads to  transformation   includes  making choices that honor ourselves, family, humanity, all living things and the planet; by eating ethically, seasonally, and gratefully. Ayurveda, the sister science of Yoga  is  all about balance: physical, emotional, mental  and spiritual . Food according to  Ayurveda is both  medicine and is divine.

Our greatest  wealth is health  and  the how, the what, the  where, the  when and the why of our food choices can have  a huge impact on our physical and mental  health, the health of our families and our planet.


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