Vegetarian Balance

What an enthusiatic group of participants for my seasonal brunch workshop on Ayurvedic nutrition today, the last day of Swiss Taste Week!

After covering  the basic principles of Ayurvedic nutrition, the participants enjoyed a brunch of 8 dishes to illustrate the theoretical points raised and had a chance to get their questions answered.  Among others I had questions about the merits of eating particular foods including garlic & onions, wine, milk.

In Ayurveda, foods can be considered as a medicine, as nourishment or as poison. It depends how they are used. The  action of particular foods within your body is very important. That’s why it’s important to be conscious of what you eat, how you eat and how you feel after eating it.

I was fortunate to have a concrete case to deal with during the workshop. The oldest participant, a lady of eighty, commented, while partaking of dishes 6 & 7 (kitcherie and cucumber raita) that she felt that one of these dishes was  too acidic for her since she was feeling the effects in her body. She felt that the raita was to blame since there had been other dishes with an acidic taste that she had eaten without problem.

The acidity she felt could have been a result of eating too much of the sour taste from various dishes. It could also have been that she was particularly sensitive to natural shop-bought yogurt (I suggested that freshly made home made yogurt could be an alternative since it would be less acidic). However, after further enquiry it, it turned out that she didn’t normally eat dairy but was enjoying herself so much that she had eaten the raita anyway.

I had a quick think, looked at what I had accesible and, since, cucumber is sweet and cooling, offered her a little cucumber juice to neutralise the acidity.  A short time after she reported that she felt much better.  By her immediate awareness of the effect of the food on her body, this lady was able to get help in a simple natural way.

How often do we ignore “alarm bells”  from our digestive systems only to find them ringing even more loudly a few hours, days, weeks, months or years later?

Share your comments below!

Winter is the season of Kapha and the following are some of the characteristics that indicate balance in this Ayurvedic type: nurturing, forgiving, faithful, loving and giving.

Recently I went to the Christmas party at my local yoga centre. I heard a story taken from the book “The Yogi: Portraits of Swami Vishnudevananda” that I felt summed up how important the act of giving, in particular, is to create your own “paradise” or balance in your life.

Here’s my rendition of the story :

There were some people who had heard about paradise and hell and wanted to see what it was like to live there. Since paradise and hell were next door to each other – there was just a wall separating the two – they set off to explore the two places.

First of all they visited hell. Everyone there was sitting round a long table groaning with food. They had long wooden spoons attached to their arms. The spoons prevented the diners from bending their arms at the elbows. The only way they could eat was by throwing the food up into the air and catching what they could in their mouths. There was food flying everywhere.

The visitors quickly left hell to visit paradise on the other side of the wall. When they got there they saw that everything was the same. The only difference was that the people had golden plates and long golden spoons attached to their arms. However, everyone was enjoying the food because they were using their spoons to pick up the food and serve it to each other.

At this time of year when we are surrounded by abundance – in the form of food, loved ones, time to rest and enjoy etc, our environment both internally and externally is changing all the time. The best thing we can do is to practise acceptance and adapt to deal with the changes. If we resist and hold on to challenges, our health and vitality will be adversely affected. A simple example on a physical level is constipation. And we all know how that makes us feel.

So this holiday season I encourage you to remember to “give a little”. Be thankful and say “yes” to that which comes your way – just try it out and experience how much better you feel and how well your immune function responds. It means you’ll stay in good shape to enjoy the holidays. You and everyone around you will be able to appreciate the nurturing and enduring Kapha energy that comes from giving and receiving.

Have a Happy and Healthy holiday season!

(c) 2008 Janet Gomez

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About the author:  Janet Gomez, nutritional consultant, produces the “Nutri-Jyoti News”, a free monthly e-newsletter for busy professionals. Feel ready to learn how to use nutritional strategies to manage your energy levels? Then sign up for her FREE e-course “5 Nutritional Keys to Vitality in your Life” at http://www.nutrijyoti.com

A friend of mine recently sent me this story about how your attitude can make a difference. Read on and enjoy!

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, ‘If I were any better, I would be twins!’He was a natural motivator.If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, ‘I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?’  He replied, ‘Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or … you can choose to be in a bad mood .  I choose to be in a good mood.’  Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. 

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.  ‘Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,’ I protested.  ‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood.   You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.’  I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.   Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.   After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.   I saw him about six months after the accident.   When I asked him how he was, he replied, ‘If I were any better, I’d be twins…Wanna see my scars?’   I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place. ‘The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,’ he replied. ‘Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or…I could choose to die. I chose to live.’ 

‘Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?’ I asked   He continued, ‘..the paramedics were great. 

They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’. I knew I needed to take action.’ 

‘What did you do?’ I asked. 

‘Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,’ said John. ‘She asked if I was allergic to anything ‘Yes, I replied.’ The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity’.'   Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’   He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude… I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully… 

Attitude, after all, is everything.   Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’   After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.