Food Wise

My Grandmother always had a lot of dos and donts for our dietary habits. She would say -  " you just ate that, you cannot eat this immediately after ".I would get annoyed and ask her why ? She couldn't really explain the reason behind it, but she always said it with so much conviction, that I always complied. I think people from the previous generations were very food wise. They had a deep understanding of the effects different foods have on our body. As a grown up, I decided to study the science behind it all. The concept of incompatible food combinations in Ayurveda (called virudh aahar) took a while for me to grasp and understand .And I am still trying to incorporate it into my own diet.

Foods may be incompatible because they create a negative reaction in the body, generate additional water in the body that can lead to skin conditions, block the body’s channels, contribute to heart disease or simply lead to indigestion. And certain foods may be incompatible because they are simply not right for a particular season. So eating  chilies in the summer is not recommended as the added heat will lead to rashes, cold sores, acne, and heartburn. Incompatible foods lead to a lot of different types of allergies, which are largely in-explainable by modern medicine. Every food has its own taste, a heating or cooling energy and post-digestive effect. When two or three different food substances of different taste, energy and post-digestive effect are combined together our digestive tract can become overloaded, inhibiting the enzyme system and resulting in production of toxins in the system.

Here are a few examples of foods that dont go togather, most of us have heard it from our elders but we just didnt know why :

1) Milk and Fruits : milk and melons (or any fruit for that matter) are not to be consumed together because milk is a laxative and melon a diuretic. Also, the fruit is digested very quickly and milk takes longer for the body to process. During that processing time, the fruit curdles the milk potentially creating a sour stomach and lots of acidity.

2) Milk proien and meat protien : Milk should not be eaten with fish as the two foods are incompatible: milk is cold and fish is heating. Combining the two vitiates the blood and causes obstruction of the body’s channels. Salt and milk together is another combination that should be avoided due to antagonistic qualities in the two.

3) Milk and Bananas : Banana should not be eaten with milk, curds, or buttermilk because the combination can diminish digestion and produce toxins in the body. Eating this combination can lead to cold, cough, and allergies.

4) Honey : Always use raw, uncooked honey. Baking with honey or heating it in general turns it into a sticky glue that clogs the body’s channels and produces toxins. This includes having honey in your tea or drinking something hot after eating honey.

I cringe, at the sight of kids eating non-veg burgers with milk shakes in fast food joints. And I feel like telling at the parents " you cannot let them eat that ". But I get a hold of myself and hope that the food wisdom of our ancestors will dawn upon us someday !