Spices play a big part in all of our lives. There are groups of
herbs and spices that we all find common depending on where we live on
the globe and what grows in each region.
Some herbs are more rare than others and harder to find not to mention, they are also more expensive.
We
enjoy the flavor of the herbs and how they enhance the flavor of our
food. Sometimes the herbs and spices make the food colorful and we can
always count on them to spice things up. That's all, many people don't
think of herbs and spices in any other way here in America.
The main reason to use herbs and spices is to assist digestion. In order to do that you need to include all 6 of the tastes:
Sweet
Sour
Salty
Pungent
Astringent
Bitter
Sweet
Sour
Salty
Pungent
Astringent
Bitter
Ayurvedic cooking is unique because it incorporates
each of the tastes into each meal allowing our food to be optimized in
our body. Because all of the tastes are incorporated we will absorb more
nutrients and utilize the nutrients in a more optimum way. When we are
able to absorb and utilize our food, we have less chance of producing
"sludge" in our system that slows us down and makes us feel sluggish. We
call that "sludge" Ama in Ayurveda.
Because disease has only two
ways to enter the body and one of those ways is the gut, our digestion
has the ability to keep us well and healthy or when it is having a
problem it can lead to disease.
One way disease enters is through
our digestion and the other way is through stress. Stress is pretty
tricky. Stress can be internal or external. We can name external stress
all day long, especially if you have a stressful job.
What type of
stress is considered internal stress? Some of our internal stress comes
from eating wrong food combinations, eating out of time, eating too
much or too little, eating when we aren't hungry and other digestive
related things.
My point here is that digestion can give you
issues and stress can give you issues and some of the issues that stress
comes from is the diet. It all effects the digestion. I am sure you are
getting the point here, it's a vicious circle, one leads to the other.
Let's
get back to the reasons that Ayurvedic cooking is unique. As we stated
it incorporates all the tastes to allow our digestion to work better so
that we are enhanced and we absorb and utilize our food, all of this is
preventing disease.
So when we eat the correct foods in the correct amount at the right time we are able to be preventative about our health.
When
we manage our diet in such a way, we completely cut off one route of
disease. In addition we cut off part of the path of internal Stress
which comes from the diet.
This is Natural healing at it's finest.
When we are able to manage our health with fresh food, herbs and spices
that are local, the natural healing will happen