Experience the best of ayurvedic luxury cuisine A Guide to Mindful Eating

Mindful eating is a skill you can practice to improve your digestion. By minimizing distractions while you eat, you can focus more on the texture, aroma and taste of your food, as well as how it makes you feel.

In Ayurveda, we’re all made of five elements – vayu (air), jala (water), akash (space), teja (fire), and prithvi (earth). Each element has its own unique functions.

The Basics

Ayurvedic cooking prioritizes anti-inflammatory spices like turmeric, ginger, and cardamom.

Many people are hesitant to try Ayurvedic cooking, but it's not as complicated as it seems. All you need is knowledge about the ingredients that balance your constitution, and a few basic spices, such as cumin, coriander, fennel, and turmeric.

This holistic approach can help you feel more at ease with food and make wiser choices. Ayurvedluxury philosophy teaches us to be aware of what our body needs, and to eat in harmony with our mind-body type.

The Dosha-Balanced Meal

A dosha-balanced meal is one that is cooked and spiced to maximize digestion. This helps keep your digestive system healthy and prevents toxins from building up in your body.

A meal should be warm and well-cooked with plenty of vegetables, grains, fruits, and spices. These foods increase the ojas or life force in your body.

For example, fresh foods that are harvested in the moment have more prana, a vital energy. You can find high-prana foods at farmer’s markets and local community support agriculture.

Ayurveda also says that the tastes in a food can affect the doshas. Astringent tasting foods like unripe bananas, pomegranate and chickpeas reduce Pitta and Kapha doshas while increasing Vata doshas.

The Seasonal Meal

The seasonal meal – a nourishing feast of seasonal produce, spices and healing ingredients - is an important part of Ayurvedic eating. It supports harmony in the elements, which leads to healthy organs, hormone levels, weight, immunity and much more.

It also helps you to be mindful of how you eat, and it encourages eating in a relaxed manner. The ancient philosophy of Ayurveda suggests that eating should be a pleasant experience, and not a chore.

For this reason, Ayurvedic cuisine focuses on nourishing and detoxifying foods, especially green leafy vegetables. This is because these vegetables purify the blood and hydrate the inner cellular fluids.

The Healing Foods

Ayurveda considers food to be a powerful influence on the mind and emotions. Choosing the right foods promotes balance, harmony, easy digestion, mental clarity and spiritual awareness.

A good diet can help you prevent and heal many health problems. For instance, if you're suffering from a chronic illness like diabetes or heart disease, you can reduce your risk by following a healing foods diet full of nutrient-dense, low-fat ingredients.

Similarly, if you're experiencing a physical injury or illness, the healing foods can help you recover. For example, kale is an excellent source of vitamin K, which helps blood cells group up and clot, thus stopping bleeding.

Ginger root is also an effective healer. It promotes digestion and removes ama, the buildup of harmful waste in your system. It can also increase your absorption of iron and other minerals, and is an excellent anti-inflammatory.