As per Ayurveda, there are some foods that just don’t belong together. The ancient science of well-being offers a logical approach to diet based on an individual’s constitution: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.
According to Ayurveda, each food has its own taste (rasa), a heating or cooling energy (virya), and a post-digestive effect (vipaka).
Ayurveda believes that the gastric fire or agni in the stomach and digestive tract is the portal through which nutrients enter the tissues and travel to individual cells, maintaining essential life functions. An individual’s agni determines how well or poorly food is digested.
Consuming foods with different rasa, virya, and vipaka can impact agni in a negative way, producing toxins in our body.
According to Ayurveda, the following are the food combinations to avoid as they can all have a negative impact on agni and are therefore better consumed separately.
5 Food Combinations to Avoid As Per Ayurveda
1. Fruit After Meal
Fruits contain simple sugars that require no digestion. Hence they don’t stay in the stomach for a long time. On the other hand, food rich in protein, fat, and starch takes a longer time for digestion, staying in our stomach for a longer duration.
So if you combine fruit with a meal, the fruit sugar will stay in the stomach too long and ferment, causing agitation.
2. Bananas and Milk
Though there are many fitness gurus who recommended this diet, it’s the most toxin-creating food combination as per Ayurveda.
Simply put, milk and bananas have opposing qualities. When bananas (become sour as they break down) and milk are consumed together, their opposing qualities tend to smother agni (digestive fire) and can cause congestion, cold, coughs, allergies, hives, and rashes. Think twice before you have next banana smoothie!
3. Milk with Any Other Food
Milk is incompatible with any other food. A glass of milk is a meal on its own and our body takes a long time to process it.
The list of bad foods with milk include fruits, seafood, bread, meat, curd, among others.
4. Cold Water with or After Meals
The cold water diminishes agni (digestive fire) and causes digestive problems, allergies, and cold.
The same goes for soft drinks, ice-cream, and yogurt.
5. Honey with Hot Foods
Honey is called Madhu in Ayurvedic scriptures which means ‘perfection of sweet’. Consuming raw honey has several health benefits and can act as a natural sleep aid. But honey when cooked can cause havoc in our digestive system.
When honey is heated or added to hot foods/drinks, its molecules become like glue and therefore, takes a longer time to digest, producing toxins or ama.
According to Charaka, the ancient sage of Ayurveda, “nothing is so troublesome as ama caused by the improper intake of honey.”
In Summary
So these are the food combinations to avoid, according to the science of Ayurveda. We can break rules once in a while, but avoiding these food combinations can keep us away from ailments.
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