by Dr Bhaswati Bhattacharya

The understanding of food from the wisdom of Ayurveda begins with the Sanskṛit term āhāra, meaning to bring near, to bring into oneself. It points toward all that we take into our bodies, consciously or unconsciously, that become part of our tissues, quietly reminding us that all five senses feed us.

Our ability to take nourishment into our body also depends on the environment. Ayurveda whispers of the dependence of the human body on the cycles of the earth due to its relationships with the gravitational forces of the sun and the moon. As we move through days and nights, through full moons and new moons, from hot seasons through cold seasons, we have altered access to beneficial food and nourishing water depending on these cycles.

Ayurveda asks us to deepen our awareness of these cycles and reminds us quietly that we can only successfully incorporate nourishment into the scaffolding of our body when our internal clocks are aligned with the external clocks.

The internal clocks of the body determine when, how, what, where, why, how much, and with whom to eat. Our internal clocks are our clock genes and the biological clock coordinating our physiology with a circadian rhythm of approximately 24 hours. Variations are known as Chronotypes.  When we are aligned, we receive nourishment. When we are not aligned, our body simply attempts to transform the things we swallow and passes them as waste out of our body.

The external clocks outside the body tell us about the cycles of the Sun and the moon. If we are exquisitely attuned to Nature, we can sense how moonlight and sunlight alter the heat and transformational fire in the body, as well as the moisture and available condensation inside the body. External clocks called Zeitgebers are also set up by society to assist us, stimuli that condition in the body to aid physiologic functions such as mealtimes, opening of curtains and sleeptimes.

During the period between January and June, the increasing moments of daylight each day in the northern hemisphere provides more electromagnetic waves of sunrays with its ions. The longest days of the year occur for several days or weeks in June, depending on your local latitude and distance from the equator. During this time, the extended daylight heats the atmosphere and constantly challenges the human body with the effects of this heat. 

 Aligned within a similar timeframe is the movement of the sun, rising and setting more toward the northern sky, then changing course in July on the astronomical occasion of Dakshina-ayana to move toward the southern sky from July to January, when Makara Sankranti signals the change in course toward the northern sky once again, known as Uttara-ayana. In Sanskrit, uttara means northward and dakshina means southward. 

 As the sun moves from its most northern point in our sky toward the south in this annual cycle, the days shorten. The shortest days of the year occur for several days or weeks in December. We receive less electromagnetic waves with its ions and depleting heat. While the plants receive less and less sun and receive signals to bear fruit, donate seed, and begin the journey toward death or hibernation, the animals receive harvest, and gain strength to gather from the earth, as the lesser and lesser minutes of daylight daily allow them to flourish. The earth begins to release its heat from June and by September the land becomes cooler. The autumn equinox in September reminds us that the nights (nox) and days are approximately equal (equi-) during this time. This interwoven cycle between plants and animals is the basis of traditional nourishment.

 When we live close to these cycles of Nature, we allow the cycles of heat and cold, dry and unctuous, heavy and lights, to move through us. These undulations allow our body to move in waves, mathematical spirals through time.  If we ride these waves, we triumph with good health, strong bones, supple muscles, healthy fat that protects and nourishes, and nerves “made of steel” or at least enriched with ions of the human metallome.

 To understand foods suited for each season, one must first assess whether we ride these waves or whether we have settled into the comfort of 65-75 o F / 18-24 o C temperature-conditioned rooms, using air conditioners or heaters to cushion our existence.  When we have narrow windows of comfort, we have small waves in our lives.

Indeed, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and modern research authorities for decades excluded women from clinical trials, stating that biological cycles were disturbances to good standardized research! The idea that cycles actually fortify the body has only been “discovered” by modern medicine in the past few years, as it continues to deny the logic and observable truths of Ayurveda.

If you live a life aligned with these cycles, you will go through months of sweating and months of feeling cold. You will gain fat during the lunar-dominating months, when soumya and cooling darkness meet the dry, rough sinews of your body and allow your body to attract extra unctuous fat to nourish it through preenanam.  You will again lose fat during the solar-dominating months when the greesma (gras, to grab) effects of the drying sun will meet the sweaty, soft fat of your body and take away its strength.

 Ayurveda whispers that this physiologic (kriya-sharira) understanding drives its food recommendations. People must tailor their food to the local gunas of their environment and how these gunas interface with the gunas of each individual body.

If you live in a modern, urban, fast-paced lifestyle, what can you do? Eating according to the seasons simply needs to be converted to eating in tune with the gunas of your body, since your environment is controlled and usually within a small window of humidity and temperature and light.

 Different layers of recommendations address appetite, overweight, people with poor or irregular bowel movements, cravings, emotional eating, irregular or poor digestive fire, fatigue, and various constitutions. The power of individualizing a diet allows Ayurveda to rightfully use food as medicine.

 If your body is dry, eat moist foods. Moist foods are usually recommended in the early months of autumn and winter when the body becomes dry and rough from the windy, cooling weather. During this time, warm soups with rich ghee or oil, root vegetables with their natural oils, nuts and seeds, and meats should be used, especially by emaciated people. Moisture-filled foods are naturally available from the harvest at this time.

If you are hungry, eat nourishing foods that satiate that inner hunger. Heavier foods are usually recommended in the months of winter when the body’s central heat is not dissipated by sweat and copious movement during cold weather. The digestive fires, known as jatharagni and dhatu-agni are high. Begin with a glass of freshly-boiled water to settle the belly if you are overweight.

Ayurveda recommends starting the day with rice-based preparations. Natural and local rice around the world is the most bioassimilable food. Known as anna, it is that food which is eaten and absorbed into the body’s tissues most completely. This pulling into the body is one reason that rice is part of the BRAT (Banana, Rice, Applesauce, and Toast) diet that curbs diarrhoea, by promoting the body to absorb nutrients.

Heavier vegetables local to the environment such as potatoes and sweet root vegetables such as carrots, beets and yams provide fullness. Foods made of godhuma (whole wheat with the bran and germ attached) provide satiation of hunger. Sweets made of milk and grains are eaten.

 If you have cravings, first get clear on the craving. Fruits, which are nature’s complete meals, are especially recommended in the transitional seasons of spring and autumn when the body is transitioning from one temperature extreme to its opposite. During this time, a midday snack of fruit can help curb cravings. Beginning the meal with a fruit can also satiate the specific desire. If the craving continues, scrape your tongue each morning when you wake up, after brushing your teeth, to clean your taste buds. When you eat, begin with a sweet food, even complete your dessert to start. Continue with a bitter food to contrast the sweet and awaken the taste receptors. Then sit to eat in a calm place where you can focus on your meal. Choose fresh, healthy foods that will nourish the body. If the craving persists, work on the mental anguish that is underlying the craving.

If your mind is wandering aimlessly, ground it. Grounding foods are usually recommended in the months of late autumn and during the monsoon when the body faces a windy environment. The windy mind and the wind-touched body have irregular digestion due to blowing irregular fires (vishama agni). Choose heavy soups and gravy-laden grain. Rice and a heavy dahl are a perfect combination with a side of sauteed vegetables. Protect the mind as you eat. Do not eat with loud and conflict-filled people. Do not eat around an environment that overstimulates the five senses, such as loud music, television, strong smells such as incense or bathroom smells or construction, high wind or sunlight.  A calm mind allows a person to focus on what they will be taking in, to digest into building blocks and energies that will become their body.  Foods that are very warm, fresh and moist, heavy and grounding, will lower vata.

 If you feel cold, eat warm foods. Hot and heavy soups are usually recommended in the months of winter when the body’s heat is centered in the trunk of the body, making the gut’s cauldron potent and ready to digest heavy foods. Complex meals of beans, vegetable medleys and heavy grains such as Yava (barley) and millets can be digested by a healthy person in cold weather. Multicourse meals with heavy desserts are also digestible in cold weather in a way they are not in hot weather. Soups of grain and root vegetables are best if you are hungry.

 If you are not hungry, exercise first. Lighter foods are usually recommended in the summer months as the body’s heat dissipates with the sweat and the activity. The nature bounty of the earth at this time produces juicy fruits and light water-laden vegetables that are easy to cook. Go for a walk before eating to increase the circulation and stoke the fire. Do some yoga. Eat freshly-prepared foods and no leftovers. Cook on an open stove. Eat two meals per day, one between 10:30 and 11:30am, and the second just before sunset.  Discluding any chronic disease state, your body will slowly grow hunger when it eats lightly.

 Over 100 food rules are provided by Ayurveda in the collective term, Kālabhojanam (kāla, time, timing; bhojana, meal) to align us with these internal and external clocks that ultimately affect our digestive fires.  These food recommendations focus on the gunas not on the season.

 They recognize that different latitudes and altitudes create great variation in the gunas. The diversity of typical diets in any culture also depends on the local environment. The air that the plants breathe, the water that the plants drink, and the soil that the plants take nutrients from are the same air, water and land with which the local people harmonize. Thus, there can be no one accurate and universal set of foods for each season and for all lands and locales.