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  • From: "Kathleen Evans" <evansdk@earthlink.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] food combining/ayurveda
  • Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 08:08:26 -0500

Regarding food combining: Ayurveda, the ancient system of healing from
India and itself a branch of yoga, covers this nicely by advising that each
of the six tastes is present in each meal: sweet, sour, bitter, salty,
astringent, savory, and I forget the other one. They do advise certain
foods be taken alone. In general one's diet varies according one's
mind/body constitution, of which there are three basic types, pitta, kapha,
vata. Ayurveda would say that a yogi well along his/her way can manage a
raw foods diet, but it will not be sufficient for many of the rest of us,
and could make some of us sick.
Basic idea of Ayurveda is one man's meat is another man's poison, and
if
you know a person well anything can be medicine, by bringing that person
back into balance. I have a fiery constitution, so hot sun and spicy foods
are bad for me, rainy days are lovely. If you know your constitution, you
can learn how to bring it back into balance nutritionally, environmentally,
emotionally, activity-wise, etc. What's perfect for you may be bad for me.
Ever since I've learned about permaculture I've thought, wow, this is
Ayurveda for the land...when I first got on this list, someone, Toby maybe,
told me to walk my land and get to know it first before I try to do
anything. I gradually realized that in the same way that Ayurveda goes far
beyond regular Western holistic medicine, permaculture goes way beyond
regular organic gardening. What's good for your land may do nothing for
mine, and the blanket approach of pesticide/fertilizer for land and
antibiotics/vitamins for humans is at best ineffective, at worst quite
damaging.
Back to raw foods: a person with a Vata constitution (usually slender,
mental, learns fast and forgets fast, can be scattered, dry skin, gets cold
easily, quick thinking, quick moving) would do very poorly on raw foods,
especially during the Vata season, the cold and dry time of winter. They
need warming, grounding, hearty foods, esp at that time. It's intuitive
once you learn it, and I suspect permaculture is too, ultimately. Kathy

Kathy Evans
evansdk@earthlink.net








  • Re: [permaculture] food combining/ayurveda, Kathleen Evans, 08/22/2006

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