Ayurvedic Cooking for Self- Healing [MLBD]

Ayurvedic Cooking for Self- Healing

During and after my internship, I worked as a house physician in the departments of medicine, surgery gynecology and pediatrics at the Ayurvedic Hospital in Pune. At that time I observed over and over again. how the correct diet, combined with proper herbal medicine and lifestyle, can play a vital role in healing. I became increasingly aware that illness pro vides an “invitation” to change one’s habitual patterns related to thinking, feeling and feeding ourselves properly.

My outlook began to move from the commonly used labels for an ill ness, such as “this is influenza or that is a virus,” to the inner sense of how that illness manifested according to basic Ayurvedic theories. I incorpo rated a deeper and subtler understanding of the interplay of the doshas in health and disease and of how nature’s gentle source of healing with herbs and food can bring healing and balance. As my awareness grew about the role of food as medicine, I observed that many health problems seemed intertwined with the stresses of daily life. These include worries about one’s job or money tension and even the stress created by eating the wrong kinds of food and improper food combining.

In the last twenty years I have seen many problems, sometimes culmi nating in serious illness, that were the result of poor food choices and igno rance of the art of proper cooking for oneself and for the family. While working in the panchakarma department at the hospital, I saw the impres sive effects of this cleansing program administered in conjunction with proper diet, which is usually a mono-fast on a single food. This also taught me that food is medicine when rightly used.