Ayurvedic Nutrition for Summer with Manjiri Nadkarni

May 29, 2023

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Today on Making It Real, we have the absolute pleasure of speaking with Ayurvedic MD, Manjiri Nadkarni - a registered holistic nutritionist and one of the few Ayurvedic MDs in the world.

We’ll chat with her about Ayurveda as it relates to summer foods and give all our nutritionist friends some tips and guidance as to an Ayurvedic approach to summer!

Show Notes:

2:06 - Just what is Ayurveda?

The name Ayurveda is made up of two words, ayus and veda, right? So veda means wisdom and ayus means life.

It's essentially the science of life or it's the wisdom of life.

What that means is, you're tuning in with yourself. You're trying to maintain the integrity, maintain the harmony within the body and outside the body as well.

So, a simple difference in how holistic nutrition sees a person versus how Ayurveda sees as a person - because I'm trained on both - in the holistic model, we talk about body, mind, spirit, right? We talk all the time that, okay, don't just look at the body, look at the mind, look at the spirit. In Ayurveda, we go a step beyond, and we talk about body, mind, the senses and the spirit, because it is your senses that are connecting your internal and external world.

3:04 - How does Ayurveda translate into today’s life?

And in today's life, watching too much TV or watching too much Netflix, seeing a lot of violence on screen or seeing too many not so great things for you or comparison-itis. Seeing somebody's feed on social media, which you absolutely love could also incite a lot of jealousy or self hatred, right? So, these are also things that are really real and happening. So, we also look at those aspects and what Ayurveda believes is, rather than three things - just the body, mind, spirit - you try and figure out the root cause, right?

So, every time when we look at an Ayurvedic consultation and we categorize people into different body types, based on the dominant of doshas or the bio energies that they have and accordingly, the treatment module is the therapeutic outcomes or change for each person because there's not one specific thing that's catered to every person.

But even the diet, the nutrition, the supplements, the herbs, everything has to be highly individualized, according to the person. And the lifestyle has to be highly individualized as well.

5:23 - Understanding the sun, water, and moon energies

So there's the wind energies. These are people who are like really thin and lanky and who cannot put on any weight. They're always dry as well.

Then we look at a second type of person that's dominant in the sun energy or the Pitta types…

The first one is called the water type. The second is called the Pitta type. They are like blondes with colored hair. They are like the sun. They radiate and the love to be the leaders and forefront.

And then there's the third kind of people who are dominant and what we call Kafka or the moon energy, who are really nurturing. So, even in the nature, when they see these characteristics in people, there's also the nature that has sun, which is dominant in the summer season.

6:06 - The Ayurvedic approach to summer foods

So, the nature of the sun is extremely hot, right? And too much of the sun can dry you out as well. It’s important to eat hydrating foods: watermelons, cantaloupes, berries, and also it has to be sweet and not too sour because according to Ayurveda, we talk about sour taste, which is made up of fire element.

That's again, going to increase your body heat. So, if you are working with clients, try to decrease the quantity of fermented foods, which have a sour taste. So, you don't need a lot of sour foods, which could aggravate your fire energy in the body at this time. So, try to incorporate a lot more sweet foods like sweet potatoes are really good or cherries are extremely good this time. Apples are slightly astringent and they're also sweet, so they can work extremely well.

7:17 - The 6 tastes in Ayurveda

And if you are looking at detoxifying bodies and also for preparing your body for the summer seasons, a bitter taste would be bitter. Right? And we talk about six tastes in Ayurveda. We talk about sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent.

Bitter is the taste that gets rid of excess heat from the body. Right? So, anything like cayenne pepper, which is pungent, which is hot, is going to heat up your body, black pepper, most spices, heat up your body.

In the summer season, if you're using bitter greens, like arugula, some amount of bitter melon, you can use astringent greens like spinach, or even kale is slightly bitter astringent. So, those would also keep your body cool. Lots of cilantro, lots of parsley. They're also going to help flush and detoxify the body.

9:37 - What kind of sour foods should you avoid?

Anything like sauerkraut, right? So any fermented foods, kefir. Anything that's slightly soured and also like sour cherries, or if you have sour berries. So, anything that's really sour. Lemons.

And another simple transition to make is lemons, we believe are warming to the body, but if you look at green limes, they're cooling to the body, right? So they're both sour, right? But the green limes are slightly astringent and sour and as well as slight sweetish. So, they help cool your body.

So, if you are preparing meals for someone or as a nutritionist, if you're meal planning or helping them in some way, your clients, instead of asking them to add like a lemon slice to their water in the morning, add some lime.

11:21 - Not everyone should be focused on cooling down

The people who have a lot of rain energy and the people who have a lot of moon energy, they're usually cool pretty much most times, right? So for them, rather than trying to cool down the body, try not to get overheated.

Try not to be out in the sun for too long without shade…or if you're a person with a lot of sun energy, chances are, you're not going to stand that much heat. You're not going to be able to go out in the sun and sit for long hours naturally, and you have a tendency to get heated. And that's why the Pitta kind should do like the cooling therapies all the time. But for others, try to not get too warm outside because it's still going to pull up a lot of your energy.

So, if you're going out in the sun, because of the heat, you're still going to evaporate a lot of water, right? And when your body tries to evaporate water or sweat, it's a natural cooling mechanism of the body.

To dissipate that excess heat build up, your body sweats and lets out excess heat and that naturally cools you.

13:35 - Ayurvedic daily routines and making lunch your biggest meal

Ideally you wake up before the sun has risen. But then, you go to bed really early too. And when it's still bright outside at 9:30, it's not always that easy, especially for us in Canada.

So, waking up earlier in the morning and doing your meditation or doing your grounding is extremely important. You are setting yourself up for the day and not just going however life takes you, right? It’s extremely important for you to follow a nice routine.

One of the things that we mention in daily routine all the time is to make lunch your biggest meal. I'm not sure if you've heard this before, but in Ayurveda, you're always stressing that dinner time is when you relax.

After dinner, you're not going to be super active, but lunch is what should be the heaviest meal, right? Because you are active throughout the day and then they can digest that food easily. So, that's something everybody should be doing. So, lighter meals in the evening is especially important in the summertime. And hydration is also extremely important.

15:06 - The wonders of coconut

So, everything coconut. Coconut is cooling, right? So, when we look at other oils, when you look olive oil or you look at sesame oil, sesame oil can heat your body up, but coconut oil is really cooling. So, it works as an amazing moisturizer when you are feeling dry because of that sun. You can moisturize with a lot of coconut oil. You can put some coconut oil to the soles of your feet before bed time. And this is a ritual I do every single night.

Just massaging your feet every single night with coconut oil. If you need a little more warmth, if you are someone who gets really cold at night, then use sesame oil, which will warm you up a little bit. But once you massage your feet every single night, you will fall asleep really well. And you wake up fresh. There's something magical about this routine. So, every single night, just massage your feet with coconut oil, drink lots of coconut water in this time.

16:44 - The superstar herb of summer

The superstar herb for summer season is Amla berry. We are not looking at any harsh detoxes. Summer is not really the time to detox, but if you're looking for that support and the Amla berry has a lot more vitamin C than blueberries. It has lot more vitamin C than anything citrus you'll find. It's one of the anti aging herbs. So Amla berry. You can get the powder. You can put a little bit on, in your water, in your juice and drink it on. Literally, make paste off it and put it …as a face pack.

You can find Manjiri Nadkarni, Ayurvedic MD, on Instagram and Facebook. She goes live on Facebook three times a week to teach people about Ayurveda. She has a personal Facebook group called Ayurveda for Health and Happiness, where she shares her Ayurvedic knowledge. You can also visit her website, manjirinadkarni.com.

And BONUS! We are always hearing from clients or practitioners that they want more information about how to heal your gut. What's a better way than a free live training for healing your gut with Ayurveda? Check out her free webinar!