Ayurvedic Nutrition

In order to balance a dosha with food, we look at the dosha’s qualities and the qualities of different foods. We want to balance a dosha with foods that contain opposite qualities to the qualities of the dosha.

For example, vata is cold, dry, light, mobile, subtle. We want to balance vata with warm temperature, warm energy, cooked, moist, oily (healthy fats), grounding, and dense foods such as stews, soups, root vegetables, ghee, olive oil, avocado, dates, and warming spices. Cold, raw, and dry foods such as salads and crackers should be avoided as this would increase vata’s natural qualities and cause it to go out of balance. Vata pacifying diet principles should be followed by everyone to a certain degree according to their individual needs, in the fall, as fall is the season of vata. And being the most powerful dosha, it is especially important to keep vata under control in the fall for everyone, regardless of whether it is dominant in one’s prakruti or not. Vata also dominates in the winter alongside kapha.

Pitta is hot, sharp, light and oily, so we want to balance it with cooked, cooling energy, warm temperature, mild, dense, and grounding foods that are not too oily and not too dry. Some examples include rice bowls, squashes, green vegetables, cucumber, spices that are not too heating such as fennel, coriander, and fresh cilantro. Spicy foods and too many heating foods should be avoided. Pitta is most dominant in the summer months, so this is when we want to incorporate pitta balancing foods into our diet.

Kapha is heavy, cool, oily, dense, dull, slow, and sticky, so should be balanced with mostly cooked (a small amount of raw veggies in the appropriate season), light, warm temperature, warm energy, dry, and rough foods. Such foods include mostly cooked leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, quinoa, millet, barley, soups, warming spices, and salads in the appropriate season (late spring/ early summer). Heavy, cold, oily, fried foods should be avoided. Kapha is predominant in the Spring and so including kapha balancing qualities in the Spring is helpful in avoiding kapha imbalance. Kapha also dominates in winter alongside vata.

It is not important to get too caught up with food charts, but rather noticing the qualities showing up at the present time within yourself and finding the opposite qualities within foods. This is how we balance those doshas! This takes some time to get used to and start recognizing. And luckily, we can change the qualities and properties of foods with how we cook them, what we combine them with, and what spices and herbs we add to them. Ayurvedic eating need not be restrictive, especially as it may come across in food charts. 

Eating seasonally and counterbalancing the qualities present in each season is also important to remain balanced and prevent (further) imbalance. This also takes time to adapt to but luckily fruits and vegetables, and certain foods that we already tend to associate with each season, usually contain the qualities we want to balance that season. Nature does it for us already! Let’s go back to that.