Quick & Easy Ayurvedic Cookbook. Eileen Keavy Smith
COMPARATIVE TOTALS
VATA__________
PITTA__________
KAPHA__________
Your highest-scoring dosha is your dominant dosha. For example, if you scored 42 for vata, 30 for pitta and 21 for kapha, your individual constitution is vata. Many people have two high-scoring doshas, which means both doshas dominate. I score lowest for vata and score nearly the same for pitta and kapha, with kapha a few points ahead of pitta. My constitution, therefore, is kapha-pitta. In my constitution, kapha leads, but not by much. If all three doshas have about the same score, you are tri-doshic. This is rare, however.
BALANCE AND IMBALANCE
Ayurveda teaches that a perfect balance will maintain the same proportion of the three doshas with which you were born. Your inborn constitution represents your balanced state of health. If your present ratio of doshas does not match your constitution, you are out of balance and are likely to be experiencing some degree of poor health.
Most of us recognize when we are in good health. During daily activities we feel alert, energetic and physically comfortable. We get enough deep sleep and wake up refreshed. When there is a lack of energy, physical discomfort, irritability or sleeplessness, something is “out of whack.” This something is likely to be one (or more) of the doshas.
What causes the imbalance? Ayurveda suggests that, by the principle of resonance, like increases like. A hot summer day will increase pitta (fire) in the body. By the same token, a cold day will decrease pitta. Since kapha (water) is cold and wet, a cold and rainy day will increase kapha. Environmental conditions influence the balance of the doshas and come in the form of climate, food, odors, noises or any outside influence on the body. Emotional states are also considered environmental conditions. The emotion of anger, for instance, will elevate pitta, the fire principle.
To illustrate how environmental conditions can upset the balance of the doshas, I’ll use two examples from my own situation. I can’t tolerate direct air from an air conditioner. My constitution is kapha-pitta. Since one of the qualities of kapha is coldness, I tend to become cold easily. The warming quality of pitta moderates this tendency somewhat, but not enough to eliminate it. Direct flow from an air conditioner throws me out of balance and can result in sinus congestion and sneezing, which are typical signs of a kapha imbalance. Low, indirect air conditioning or a slow-running fan work just fine in my case.
Another example concerns a pitta imbalance that occurs in the summertime. I love spicy food and have no problem digesting it most of the year. But in the summer, spicy food gives me heartburn. So, I avoid spicy food and instead, eat foods that are cooling. No more heartburn!
The following chart lists the common symptoms that result when each of the doshas is elevated to the point of causing an imbalance in the body.
AYURVEDA AND FOOD
According to Ayurveda, all life is regulated by the three doshas. Our food comes from living organisms, so food, like our bodies, also has the three doshas within it. Like us, each kind of food has its own combination of air, fire and water. For example, bananas, being sweet, wet and sticky, have the qualities of kapha.
Since bananas have a high proportion of kapha, eating one is likely to elevate your own level of kapha. So, if you have sinus congestion (a typical symptom of having too much kapha), eating a banana may worsen the condition. Eating an apple, however, would be a good idea. Apples have an astringent (drying) quality, a characteristic of vata (air). The apple might help to alleviate your sinus condition because its drying quality would reduce the mucus and congestion.
Eating foods that have qualities opposite to the dosha that is out of balance can help eventually balance the dosha and clear up the symptoms. The beneficial results of eating foods that balance a particular dosha will probably be gradual, taking a few hours or even days, depending upon the extensiveness of the imbalance. A sniffle, for instance, may clear up in a few hours after eating a spicy, kapha-balancing meal. The alleviation of an advanced case of sinus congestion, however, may require a week or more of kapha-balancing meals.
During the 5000 years of Ayurveda’s development, all types of foods have been analyzed for their affect on the balance of our doshas. It has been found that the way a food influences our doshas is largely a matter of its taste. Ayurveda categorizes tastes into the following six types:
• Sweet (bread, honey and milk)
• Sour (vinegar, grapefruit)
• Salty (table salt, soy sauce)
• Bitter (black coffee, mustard greens)
• Pungent (hot spices, garlic)
• Astringent (dry and mealy, as in lima beans and apples)
Vata (air) is elevated by foods that taste bitter, pungent or astringent. Vata is lowered by foods that taste sweet, sour or salty.
Pitta (fire) is elevated by foods that taste sour, salty or pungent. Pitta is lowered by foods that taste sweet, bitter or astringent.
Kapha (water) is elevated by foods that taste sweet, sour or salty. Kapha is lowered by foods that taste bitter, pungent or astringent.
To maintain balanced doshas and therefore health, Ayurveda recommends including at least a little of all six tastes in your daily food intake. In order to include all six tastes, you must eat from a wide variety of foods, thus ensuring that you will be eating a varied and well-balanced diet. Even if you are trying to bring one of the doshas back into balance by eating foods with tastes that balance that dosha, you should still try to include the other tastes in your daily meals.
Besides taste, there are other qualities that should be considered when choosing what to eat. Lightness, heaviness, wetness, dryness and temperature are some of these other qualities. Choose foods that have qualities least like the qualities of the dosha you are trying to balance. For instance, ice cream is sweet, cold and wet. Since kapha dosha has these same three qualities, eating ice cream to balance kapha would not work. However, eating spinach, which is light, bitter and essentially dry, would help balance the kapha.
It is not only what we eat that affects the doshas, but also how, when and where we eat. The following is a list of poor eating habits that can affect our doshic balance.
• Eating at irregular intervals. According to Ayurveda, the body loves regular schedules. Eating your meals at consistent times every day is best.
• Eating too much of anything.
• Not eating enough or going on a starvation diet.
• Constantly favoring one or two tastes to the exclusion of others. Many people prefer sweet and salty foods and therefore don’t eat a balanced diet. Junk foods and fast foods are predominantly sweet and salty.
• Eating foods that increase the effects of weather conditions. For example, eating a spicy Mexican meal on a hot summer day.