Date: 29 Jun 2016
A Pitta-pacifying diet
What's the first thing you reach for on a hot summer day — a cold drink? We instinctively know that cool drinks and cool foods help balance Pitta and replenish fluid levels in the body. But if a drink is ice-cold, it will douse your digestive fire and disrupt digestion, so it's best to avoid iced drinks, especially during meals. Also stay away from carbonated drinks, because they slow down digestion. Freshly-blended fruit juices and nectars drunk at room temperature are nutritious, satisfying and delicious. Grapes, sweet pineapple and watermelon are some refreshing choices.
To keep Pitta in balance, favor the sweet, bitter and astringent tastes and avoid salty, sour and hot spicy foods. Sweet foods include rice and bread. Milk, butter and ghee are all cooling foods. Fully-ripe sweet juicy fruits like melons, cherries, grapes, pears and mangoes, and vegetables such as cucumber, broccoli, zucchini and asparagus are Pitta-pacifying. Minimize yogurt, sour cream, citrus fruits and spicy foods like cayenne. Also avoid vegetables with heating properties such as tomatoes, hot peppers, radishes, onions, garlic and spinach.
Cook with cooling spices such as fennel, mint and coriander, and reduce hot spices such as dried ginger and mustard seed.
Favor foods that are liquid rather than dry, and cool or lukewarm rather than hot. Lentil soups flavored with Organic Pitta Churna make a nutritious Pitta-pacifying meal.
Drink lots of room-temperature or cool water and sip 2-3 cups of Organic Pitta Tea during the day. Organic Pitta Tea contains cooling spices and rose petals, renowned in ayurveda for cooling down the mind, body and emotions. Fresh fruit juices and the water from young coconuts are wonderful pick-me-ups on warm sultry days. At bedtime, stir some Organic Rose Petal Spread into milk that has been boiled and cooled for a soothing beverage. Rose Petal Lassi makes a refreshing lunchtime beverage.
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