Dosha Diet

By Adam Ruggiero

It’s 3:00 in the afternoon, too late for lunch, too early for dinner – you’re hungry, but you don’t know for what. With cupboard and refrigerator doors open, you scan the miscellaneous offerings: an apple, some celery, leftover pasta, tortilla chips, chocolate-covered espresso beans – nothing seems right. Why is that?

Our last post introduced Doshas – our unique, elemental mind-body fingerprint. Our individual appetites are one of the primary mechanisms in which our particular doshic nature makes itself known. Those times when nothing available feels like what we want are prime examples of the body seeking nutritional balance for our specific constitution. Our appetites go beyond simple caloric demand and are more nuanced than the macronutrients listed on food labels. As such, Ayurveda understands appetite according to the six tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent (dry foods, legumes) and pungent (spicy foods, chiles).

The Ayurvedic diet accounts for calories and nutrients, but does so as a sidebar to fulfilling the changing needs of our doshic nature. It accomplishes this by incorporating the six tastes into every meal, in varying amounts that meet the needs of our intrinsic balanced state (prakruti) while accounting for any current imbalances (vikruti). Incorporating all six tastes into every meal is not daunting; a squirt of lemon juice (sour) on a soup made with chopped kale (bitter), sea salt (salty), beans (astringent), black pepper (pungent) and a slice of wheat bread (sweet) is a complete meal.

Once you know your dosha, you can prepare meals your mind/body needs at that time. In the Ayurvedic diet, it’s necessary to counter one’s nature in the food they eat to bring balance – remember, “like aggravates like.” A Kapha nature – heavy build, oily skin, slow, methodical disposition – should avoid meals that are largely sweet or salty and instead center meals around dry beans (astringent) and spices. Likewise, a Vata (thin, dry skin, sensitive) should avoid overly spicy meals and embrace sweet and sour flavors.

We’ve set up this highly scientific table to help you create a healthy Ayurvedic dosha diet! Please share any recipes you’ve tried or want to try that brings your dosha into balance!

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Please share any recipes you’ve tried or want to try that brings your dosha into balance!