Is Salad YOUR Ticket To Health?

Sometimes what we think is good for us isn't. Sometimes we can't recognize what is truly helpful for us until we stop pushing the body to "behave" and start listening to the body's messages with our hearts.

Here is a little story from my own journey:

Before I found Ayurveda, I was eating lots of salad since I understood it to be one of the most “healthy” foods. If you're healthy, you eat salad all the time, right?

What I didn’t know at the time was that the current state of my body and gut made it impossible for me to digest and absorb the nutrients and prana (energy) from raw vegetables, even though it’s considered a key player in a “healthy diet”.

In truth, eating lots of salad, year-round, ended up making me sick. My overtaxed digestive system stopped working and I became dependent on herbal laxatives.

By the time I had my first Ayurveda consultation, my teacher, Vishnu, suggested that I not eat anything raw for a YEAR!! I was shocked, upset, and a bit excited about what might be ahead if my body actually healed.

I learned the sad truth that eating so much raw food when it wasn't in season, and wasn't in alignment with my innate constitution (Prakruti) led to an inability to eliminate naturally. Not understanding my unique constitution led me to make decisions based on the rubber stamp suggestions that our culture determined as healthy for everybody. I had to do some big work: take actions that honored my unique imbalances and rebuild my digestive strength, as well as my ability to eliminate waste (that’s code for being chronically constipated… for decades).

Eating a plant-based diet is optimal for the health of all of us (and the planet), but not all plants and preparations are created equal - salad isn’t always the answer. Ayurveda gives us powerful, personal insights.

We can attune to what we need by learning about ourselves constitutionally, as a unique universe. It is also important to understand the state of Agni (digestive fire), the constitutional tendencies, and how to align what we eat with the season of the year.

If you are struggling with digestive symptoms or elimination issues, it may be time for you to finally understand your body, the way it was intended to be understood. This is especially important when navigating the life stage shift through menopause (where our digestion inherently changes and what used to work, won't continue to work).

Through tending the digestive fire through various techniques along with eating a plant-based diet aligned with the seasons (like eating warm, cooked foods during the cold times of the year), we can receive bountiful nutrients that our body can absorb while not diminishing the digestive strength. This also provides us with sufficient energy to fuel us throughout the day.

Again, this doesn’t mean no animal products at all… it just depends on who you are, the season of the year, and what your health imbalances are.

May we be nourished as we navigate personal, communal, and planetary evolution. May beings everywhere be safe, happy, and well.

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