Most of the health problems start with the stomach. In today’s era, everyone is rushing toward the consumption of pills and drugs for gas and indigestion. Most of these problems start with an incongruous combination of food. Indulging some simple changes in our daily eating patterns can help to get rid of gas and bloating issues.
What Ayurveda says about bad food combinations?
According to the life science of Ayurveda, good health is defined as having a balanced dhatus (tissues), doshas, agni (removing toxins), and a contented mind. Food is the main component needed to maintain the balance of all these.
In Ayurveda, the three stages of digestion are assimilation, absorption, and evacuation. All of these are centered around Agni, which feeds the dhatus, transforms food into energy, and supports the body throughout. Disturbances in Agni cause imbalances in energy, which in turn cause illnesses.
There are 7 tissues(Dhatus) in our body including blood(Rakta), Plasma(Rasa), Fat(Meda), Muscles(Mamsa), Bone(Asthi), Bone marrow(Majja), reproductive fluid(Shukra).
The food first converts into blood and then goes down the line to reproductive fluid. Everything goes well, but when incongruous food (viruddha anna) is ingested, things go wrong. A poor diet disrupts our metabolism, preventing our tissues from receiving enough nutrients.
Bad Food Combinations?
In Ayurveda, a food combination diet consisted of the below two factors –
- pH levels – Some foods are alkaline in nature and some foods are acidic in nature. A combination of foods at different pH levels can affect our digestion process.
- Digestive speed – Some foods digest faster and more easily and some foods take longer time to digest. Incompatible combination of foods results in gas, bloating and indigestion.
Incompatible food combinations table –
- Milk should not be consumed with fruit or sour fruits and also avoid consuming milk with salty food items
- Avoid consuming grains with fruit and tapioca.
- Don’t mix beans with eggs, milk, fish, fruits, yogurt and meat.
- Avoid combining yogurt with cheese, hot drinks, sour fruits, milk, mangoes, nightshades, beans, eggs and fish.
- Don’t mix fat and protein food items because they need different digestive juices.
- Proteins are not incongruous with starches and the consumption of these may result in delayed digestion.
- Avoid pairing cheese with eggs, fruits, hot drinks, milk, beans and yogurt.
- Nightshade vegetables like tomato, potato, etc. are not compatible with fruits like cucumber, melon and dairy products.
- Don’t mix lemons with milk, yogurt, tomatoes and cucumber.
- Avoid cooking honey. Cooking transforms the molecules into a non-homogenized glue that sticks to mucous membranes and clogs tiny channels, which results in the production of toxins. Honey that hasn’t been cooked is nectar.
Factors that can lessen the effect of bad food combinations
- Strong digestive power – The most important and powerful tool is strong digestive power. Consume a small piece of ginger before eating. It will increase the digestive power and will help in digestion. Ginger stimulates agni.
- Drink small sips of warm water while eating or drink a glass of warm water after food, it will aid digestion and absorption of food.
- Make a habit of adding natural antidotes like cardamom in coffee or tea, black pepper and ghee(purified butter) to food. It will aid digestion.
- Add herbs and spices to ease the powerful effect of spicy foods. Herbs provide a cooling effect in spicy foods.
- Salty lassi is one of the best drinks to aid digestion and drink it just after taking the meal. Take a half cup of curd or yogurt and add one cup of water to it. Mix it thoroughly with a pinch of salt in it.
- Chew your food properly for good digestion. the more we break down the food in our mouth, the better digestion our stomach gets.
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