You and Your Diet

“Outer surroundings have deeper and inner effects on the body” this is a general statement, everybody knows about. These impacts are not only on the physical level but also on the psychological levels too. Subtle cells and even grossest muscles- all work under the impact of the outer surrounding world.

We are connected to the outer world in many ways. Diet is one of the main factors among these and leaves deeper impacts on us. There are several reasons, which make diet a deeply impacting factor for the body, these are –

• We welcome what we eat: About rest of things, we think many times, but diet is a factor which we will accept freely and easily. We welcome foods because we know that these foods are the source for our life.
• We assimilate the food: For other things, our body can be careless, but whatever we eat will be assimilated to the deeper levels so that body can get the all important factors out of the food, up to the level…what is possible for the body.
• Food goes deeper: What eat touches everything inside the body all cells are exposed to the food even deeper to the cells, our DNA, which is the most private part of the body is being exposed to the food- proteins can only replicate with help of the DNA only.
• We cannot avoid Diet: We can adjust without other things, but food is the fuel for life, we cannot avoid the foods.

As we cannot avoid the diet, similarly we cannot avoid the effect of the Diet.

Ayurveda has studied this aspect of the relation of the body and diet, deeply. There are two prime theories of Ayurveda, which are the base of the Ayurvedic thought process. These are Panchamahbhootas (Five basic elements) and Trigunas (Three principle energies).

Everything is made up of these Panchamahabhootas and carry properties of the Trigunas- Sattava, Rajas and Tamas. In this all, our body as well as all the foods we take or eat are included. So whaever food we eat will surely affect the levels of the Panchamahabhootas and Trigunas in the body.

Panchamahabhootas will decide the physical and physiological activities of the body and Trigunas decide the activities of the psychological level of the body. So foods taken by us affect both physical and psychological levels. So we should select the foods cautiously because your diet and you are connected deeply.

All the concepts of Ayurveda are the summing up results of Panchamahabhootas, Trigunas and Tridoshas. When we talk about the relation of the body and food, this relation is according to the Rasas (Tastes) of the food. Taste seems to be very gross perception about the food, but this is the first relation in between the food and body, so it matters a lot.

Name of the Rasa	Mahabhoota	Tridosha
Madhura	Prithvi and jala	Decrease Pitta and Vata Increase Kapha
Amla	Prithvi and Agni	Increase Pittaand Kapha Decrease Vata
Lavana	Agni and Jala	Increase Pitta and Kapha Decrease Vata
Katu	Agni and Vayu	Aggravtes Vata -Pitta & Pacifies Kapha
Tikta	Akash and vayu	Decreases Pitta and Kapha While increase Vata
Kashay	Prithvi and vayu	Pacifies Pitta and Kapha & aggravates Vata