Diet Regiment - Part I

Aahar Vidhi(Diet regimen)-Part I

Ayurved has issued certain guidelines while having meals, right from the preparation upto the conduct to be maintained while eating.

Preparation & Serving

The place where food is prepared i.e the kitchen, should be clean and spacious. It should be well equipped with all the required gadgets. So also the cook should be tidy, clean , devoid of any ill habits, skillful and loyal.

The utensils to be used should be preferably made of copper, brass silver or iron since certain metals enhance the qualities of certain food materials. For e.g while serving milk, silverware should be used. For drinking water copper vessels, glass or earthenware should be preferred. They have a cooling effect on the body. Soups should be served in wide mouth glass bowls. Solid food should be laid in a dish.

Fruits, dry items should be served on the right side. Liquids, soups, milk etc should be placed on the left side. Sweet items should be served in the middle.
Food served should be hot as it increases the appetite, enhances the taste, gets digested quickly . Food which is heavy to digest should be eaten first.
Food served should be hot, moist, in proper proportions, balancing each other and most important it should include all the tastes(rasas) i.e sweet, sour, salty, hot, bitter and pungent.

The course to be followed : before starting the meals you should have a bit of ginger and rock salt. It acts as an appetiser and cleanses the tongue and throat. Solids should be eaten first i.e bread/ rotis then rice and last the liquids i.e milk or buttermilk.
the course to be followed in accordance with the six tastes- first the sweet items then sour, salty tastes, lastly bitter, hot and pungent tastes. In between morsels one should sip water. This helps in flushing off the previous taste, cleanses the tongue. Drinking more water during meals can cause lack of appetite.

According to the duration of day and night, meals should be served between 12 to 2 in the afternoon and 7 to 9 p.m at night. Dinner should be had at least two hours before sleep. It is advisable to sit in an upright position just after having the meals.

One important thing to be noted is ayurved has strictly forbidden tasteless, burnt, stale, foul smelling food. In short, food which does not appeal to the senses is to be avoided.
This is with regards to the quality.

In the next month we will know more about the guidelines to followed while having meals.