By Sara Jane
Block 2 Student - SDCOA
AYURVEDIC NUTRITION VS WESTERN NUTRITION
Today we have so many different diets or we can call them “lifestyles” that we are given to try in order to feel better with ourselves and lose weight. For example, we have the raw food diet, whose fundamental principle is to eat
foods in their most natural state - uncooked and unprocessed. Then there is the vegan diet, which is free of any animal products, macrobiotic diet eat mostly grains but can also eat fish, the vegetarian diet is free of meat, poultry or fish. Along with many more.
Ayurveda is one of the world’s oldest systems of traditional medicine and looks at nutrition in a different perspective than we do in the western world. Ayurveda looks at eating as a ritual, that not only nourishes the body, but nourishes the mind and soul too.
In Ayurveda food is our medicine and our healer. It provides the building blocks to nourish and replenish the dhatus (tissues) which make up our entire physical foundation.
The aim of the Ayurveda nutrition is to achieve balance of doshas, dhatus, agni (digestion fire) and mala (elimination). Therefore, Ayurveda Nutrition takes in
consideration the food that is best for us according to our type of dosha.
One of the main differences between Western nutrition and Ayurveda nutrition are the calories. Western nutrition is almost obsessed with it, instead of focusing on what it is right and good for our body. Calories don’t even exist in Ayurveda!
This is because there are some elements present in the foods we eat and so we ask ourselves: are they balancing or imbalancing to our prakruti?
According to western nutrition “we are what we eat” .
According to Ayurveda “we are what we digest”. It is so important what goes into the body because it can be beneficial or harmful. With the word digest we mean: what we eat, but also what we think and what we breathe in.
Western doctors may give you a diet low in carbohydrate and really high on protein, or giving you processed food full of additives and sugars but low calorie! Just to lose weight without knowing what type body and its characteristics and what it needs.
Another difference it is that Ayurveda achieves the balance through the six rasas or tastes, which are sweet, sour, salty, pungent, astringent and bitter; when Western nutrition divides food into five groups: carbohydrate, protein.
The six tastes are composed, like all organic matter including food, by the five mahabutas and some of them will be good for a dosha and some for another. This is really important for Ayurveda because giving spicy food to a Pitta person for example, who is already hot and fiery, can be harmful and aggravates the imbalance on all levels (body, mind and consciousness). If we give the wrong food for that type of person it will affect the digestive fire and it will make the digestion process less efficient.
In Western nutrition this is not taken in consideration and what really matters, like we said above, are calories and what we burn during the day. They tell you to eat beans and peas and vegetables and most people buy and eat this food out of a can, not aware of the additives, MSG, sugar, loads of sodium, and that’s just a few.
I believe it is possible to develop Ayurveda nutrition in America. Ways to accomplish this would be, to write articles about it in the most popular magazines, let people know how this science of life approaches the person on several different levels. As well as starting introduction classes in schools about Ayurveda nutrition and make the
students reflect on what they are eating, their unique body constitution and its needs.
I personally haven’t used any principles of Ayurveda before but since I have been introduced to them I discovered a new way of looking at my body and now I am getting more in touch with myself as well as my mind and spirit.
Now that I have acquired this knowledge there is no going back, I am on my path and willing to spread the message that there is another way to look at life.