Diet & Digestion
Drinking with meals, and the classical instructions about water
Classical texts give specific instructions about when and how much to drink around eating, and several popular claims about this have no support at all.
Diet & Digestion
Agni, food combining, and what nutrition science makes of it.
Diet & Digestion
Cooking oils: the classical selections and the current evidence
Ayurveda assigns properties to different oils and recommends them for different constitutions. Nutrition science asks different questions, and the answers do not entirely align.
Diet & Digestion
Honey: the classical instructions and the evidence
Classical texts treat honey with unusual specificity, including a prohibition on heating it that corresponds to a real chemical change, and one absolute safety rule.
Diet & Digestion
The sattvic diet: what the category means and what it does not
Food classified by its supposed effect on the mind is a philosophical category rather than a nutritional one, and it produces a diet that is defensible for reasons unrelated to the classification.
Diet & Digestion
Buttermilk, yoghurt and the gut
Classical texts recommend fermented dairy in specific ways and for specific conditions, and gut microbiome research has become one of the more overhyped areas in nutrition.
Diet & Digestion
Rice, wheat and the staple grain question
Classical dietetics assigns properties to different grains and preparations, and contemporary nutrition has a specific concern about the staple that dominates South Asian diets.
Diet & Digestion
Milk and dairy in Ayurvedic dietetics
Classical texts recommend milk warmly and in specific ways, and a majority of the world’s adults have reduced ability to digest lactose. Both things are true.
Diet & Digestion
Cumin, coriander, fennel: the digestive spices and what they do
Traditional Indian cooking uses particular spices in particular sequences, and several of them have carminative properties that are better supported than most herbal claims.
Diet & Digestion
Fasting in classical practice, and what modern research adds
Upavasa appears in classical texts as a therapeutic measure with specified indications and contraindications, which is a more careful framing than most contemporary fasting advice.
Diet & Digestion
Ghee and the fat question
Ghee occupies a central place in Ayurvedic dietetics and it is nearly pure saturated fat, which puts traditional recommendation and cardiovascular guidance in tension.
Diet & Digestion
The six tastes: a framework for building a meal
Classical Ayurvedic dietetics organises food by taste and holds that a meal should contain all six. As a practical cooking heuristic it works better than the underlying theory would suggest.
Diet & Digestion
Incompatible foods: what viruddha ahara claims and what nutrition says
Classical Ayurveda lists combinations of foods considered harmful together. Some correspond to recognisable issues, most have no support, and one common example is worth examining closely.
Diet & Digestion
Agni: the classical account of digestion, and what it maps onto
Digestive fire is the organising concept of Ayurvedic dietetics. Some of what it describes corresponds to recognisable physiology and some of it does not, and the distinction is worth being clear about.