Essential Ayurveda: Eating + Cooking for Health with Brandy Berlin

Wade into the world of Ayurveda with this workshop designed to introduce you to a simple, different approach to eating and cooking. Learn how making small, manageable changes in your current culinary habits can lead to significant improvements in your health and well-being, and how these adjustments fit seamlessly into your daily routine, creating lasting benefits. 

Ayurveda teaches that we are not what we eat, but what we can digest. It asks us to look beyond food, to the fact we are also digesting life itself—including all our personal and global experiences. In our modern consumer culture with more to process than ever before, this can leave our mond-body systems in a state of overwhelm. Ayurveda offers tools to navigate and balance these inputs.

In this workshop, we will cover:

• The Ayurvedic Approach to Food (and Life): Gain insights into the holistic Ayurveda view of food as medicine. Learn how to use simple ingredients to create healing meals that boost vitality, balance energy, and support long-term health.
• Igniting Your Agni: Learn about the concept of agni, the digestive fire, which is essential for overall health. Discover how to nurture and balance your agni to improve digestion, metabolism, and energy levels.
• Balancing Doshas: Understand the principles of balancing meals that are supportive of all  constitutions/doshas - vata, pitta, and kapha. Explore how to create dishes that harmonize with your body's needs, promoting physical and mental wellness.
• A Basic Stovetop Cooking Method: In the cooking lesson, learn to prepare and then enjoy an easy to recreate Ayurvedic meal. 
• Mindful Eating Practices: Learn the art of Ayurvedic eating to enhance your digestion and connection with food. 

What is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda, often referred to as Ayurvedic Medicine, has gained prominence as one of the fastest-growing healthcare systems globally. It stands as the world's most ancient holistic, preventative approach to healing. Living in harmony with nature's wisdom is foundational in Ayurveda, and it invites us to use common sense approaches to realign with nature’s rhythms to support true health, vitality and longevity.

Ayurveda encourages individuals to take charge of their health to cultivate balance and vitality, and it's way of defining health is different from most western perspectives. Health is not merely the absence of a diagnosis. Health is the absence of symptoms that keep us from enjoying life. 

Ayurvedically, the signs of health include: 

• Radiant, clear, supple skin
• Bright, clear eyes
• Smooth and regular elimination of waste, including feces, urine, sweat, and tears
• Consistent energy levels throughout the day, free from highs and lows
• Inner tranquility that contributes to a calm and harmonious demeanor and mental clarity
• Sound and restful, uninterrupted sleep where you awaken feeling refreshed
• A smooth and clear voice, free from crackling or roughness
• A well-balanced appetite without cravings
• A strong sense of self-assuredness

If you experience any of the following Ayurvedic imbalances, you can feel better:

• Morning grogginess upon waking
• Persistent fatigue
• Digestive issues such as constipation or diarrhea
• Experiencing symptoms of PMS
• Feelings of fear or anxiety
• Frequent susceptibility to colds and illnesses
• Insomnia or sleep disturbances
• Nocturnal urination
• Occasional dizziness
• Frequent burping and excessive gas
• Post-meal bloating
• A general sense of discomfort
• Occasional heartburn and acid reflux
• Recurrent headaches
• Persistent bodily stiffness

What is Ayurvedic Cooking and Eating?

Ayurvedic cooking and eating is not a rigid diet, but an evolving, personalized way of preparing and consuming meals that aims to maintain balance and address health issues. 

Eating Ayurvedic food isn't exotic or intimidating; it simply involves choosing and preparing foods that will enhance your health at any given time. Consider the nourishment a new mother needs compared to other times in her life, or the types of foods prepared for someone recovering from an illness. We need different things for different reasons, seasons and stages of our life.

It emphasizes the importance of strengthening your agni, or digestive fire, and is tailored to an individual's unique constitution, known as a dosha. This approach to eating and cooking invites us to live with the rhythms and wisdom of nature – because we are nature. In our modern world with its constant demands, it’s so easy to forget that – and our wellness pays the price.

Generally, Ayurvedic Cooking:

• Uses fresh, pure, seasonal, local ingredients without chemicals, pesticides, or artificial flavors. It's predominantly plant-based, but meat is allowed, and the diet includes fruits, vegetables, beans and legumes, nuts and seeds, and whole grains.
• Focuses on proper digestion, so meals are timed and eaten when hungry, and only to the full capacity of the stomach. Ayurveda also believes that freshly cooked food nourishes the body, so it's best to consume food within three hours of making it.
• Aims to include all six tastes, or rasas, in each meal to prevent cravings. These tastes are sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent.
• Uses herbs and spices to carefully combine foods and re-center the body. 
• Ghee is considered the most beneficial oil in Ayurveda, and traditional texts say it's good for overall well-being and longevity. Modern research confirms its immense value.
• Eating sattvic and ojas-building foods - considered the essence of vitality and immunity in Ayurveda. 
• Emphasizes balance and moderation in all things, including food intake. Overeating and undereating are discouraged, with an emphasis on moderation and listening to the body's hunger signals. 

How can you take the world's oldest healing science and apply it to your own cooking and eating? It’s simpler than you might think. If you shop for fresh produce at the market, you're already taking a step toward an Ayurvedic lifestyle. 

Bring: journal and pen, water bottle

Bio: Brandy Berlin, MA, eRYT500, is a lifelong educator and mind-body specialist who teaches slow, accessible, evidence-informed yoga and Ayurvedic lifestyle courses to help people build resilience and robust health, self and co-regulate, and actualize their values. 

https://www.brandyberlin.com/

Host or Publisher The Peoples Apothecary