Food and Diet Basics: How Diet Shapes Dosha Balance

FOOD AND DIET We have already touched on the effects of food on the doshas, and chapter 8 will discuss this important topic in depth, so we won’t go into it at length here. The principle is simply that eating the right kinds of food for your prakruti maintains vitality and balance, while eating the wrong kinds creates imbalance in the doshas, the first step in the genesis of disease. Eating spicy food or sour or citrus fruit and drinking alcohol all increase heat and acidity in the body, something a pitta person cannot afford. For a vata individual, dried fruits, beans (including garbanzo, pinto, and aduki) are hard to digest and will provoke vata.

Raw salads, which are cold and astringent, will likewise increase vata. For a kapha individual, dairy products, cold drinks, and fatty fried foods definitely add to kapha. So a vata person eating a vatagenic diet, a pitta person eating a pitta-provoking diet, and a kapha person eating kapha-aggravating food are definitely creating imbalance and sowing the seeds for ill health. Wrong food combinations (see table this page), stale food, food with chemical additives, and wrong eating habits, such as eating too much late at night or eating in a rush, also contribute to imbalance and lead to poor digestion and poor health.

Diet is thus one of the main potential causes of ill health—but by understanding these principles and eating according to the guidelines for our constitutional type, it is also one of the major ways we can take control of our lives and maintain healthy balance. SEASONS Ayurveda classifies the seasons according to their predominant dosha. The windy, cool, dry weather of autumn is largely vata, followed by the dark, heavy, damp, cloudy kapha qualities of winter. Early spring is still primarily kapha, but as late spring arrives, the increased warmth, light, and brightness express pitta qualities, which blossom in their full intensity in the summer.

Each of these seasons brings its own challenges to health. The predominant dosha of the season will tend to build up at that time and can cause aggravation especially in someone of the same prakruti. If we act intelligently, we can avoid this accumulation and aggravation. For example, because autumn and early winter tend to increase vata, individuals with a vata-predominant constitution need to eat warm foods, dress warmly, avoid cold food and drinks, and stay out of nasty weather.

Otherwise they will fall prey to vata illnesses and discomforts, such as constipation, insomnia, and lower back pain. If pitta individuals want to remain free of anger, as well as hives, rash, and diarrhea, they need to keep cool in the summer, avoiding spicy foods, overexertion, and overexposure to the hot sun. Kaphas need care in the heart of winter and early spring if they are going to avoid colds, coughs, allergies, and sinus congestion in the damp, cool, heavy weather. We will look further at the seasons, their effects, and how we can best live in harmony with their rhythms and changes in chapter 5, where we discuss the ideal Ayurvedic lifestyle, including daily and seasonal routines.