The Agni Blog is moving...

Dear Subscribers,

Thank you so much for subscribing to my blog! I'm writing to let you know I'm moving the Agni Blog from this Blogger site, to our Mudita Institute website so that all of our materials are more centralised, safer and easier to access for everyone.

If you want to keep receiving my blogs, you simply need to SIGN UP to our Mudita Institute LIFEFOOD  magazine (if you haven't already) and you'll be sent them via email once a month along with an article and our latest videos.

If you sign up, you'll also get a free e-book copy of our Ayurvedic cookbook, WARMTH!

Lots of love 
Nadia xx

P.S. If you're already on the Mudita list this move means you'll just receive the blogs once. 

Bad Food Combinations

Food combining is something that is very rarely mentioned or considered in Western nutrition but it is super, super important in Ayurveda. 

Every food has its own unique qualities and personality... and some foods just don't get along with each other very well. When forced to hang out together in your belly, they can behave very differently than they might if eaten alone, and not in a good way! This make sense to me intellectually but also intuitively. You can just feel it when you've eaten a bad combo... 

I want to share with you Ayurveda's Top 3 Food Combination Rules. When you break these rules occasionally, you'll suffer a little indigestion. If you break them regularly (like every day), you will probably gain weight. 

Why? Because these combinations are not digested properly by your body so they create a lot of Ama (undigested food waste or toxins). When Ama is created, Agni (or digestion) is also eventually affected - it is dulled by the accumulation of Ama, like putting a wet blanket over a fire. Ama also accumulates in your tissues and channels, affects your tissue metabolism and your cellular nutrition and waste disposal. It contributes to that subtle 1-3kg weight-creep that most Westerners experience each year... 

Bad food combinations explain a lot! Particularly, they shed light on why people who appear to be eating very healthily from a Western perspective keep gaining weight or at least can't seem to lose it. I know I used to have this problem when I followed an average  Western diet! 

So here they are. The Top 3 Ayurvedic Food Combination Rules: 


1) EAT FRESH FRUIT ON ITS OWN 

Fresh fruit is light and very easy to digest and it also ferments (goes rotten) very easily. If you eat it with food or after food that is heavier and more difficult to digest, it will stay in your belly too long and will over-digest. In short, it will turn the whole contents of your stomach into slightly fermented goo (aka Ama). 

You should particularly avoid eating fruit with (or just after) heavier foods like milk, cheese, yoghurt, meat, nuts and eggs. So that means avoiding: fruit on your morning cereal, drinking fruit juice with meals, fruit smoothies, fruit in yoghurt, fruit and cheese platters and fruit salad with icecream for dessert! Even combining fruit with veggies in a juice is a no no in Ayurveda. 

Ayurveda recommends eating (or drinking) fresh fruit on its own, between meals. It makes the perfect snack! Easy.
 


2) DRINK MILK ON ITS OWN 

Milk is cold, heavy and difficult to digest. Because of these qualities, and its tendency to curdle, it does not combine well with most other foods. The exceptions are - grains, dried fruit and nuts. So it is fine to have in porridges, puddings, cakes, pancakes and on cereal. 

As you may have gathered from the rant above, it definitely doesn’t combine well with fruit! So again, that means no fruit smoothies and no fruit on your porridges or cereals. 

Ayurveda recommends drinking your milk warm and spiced as a chai between meals or as a bedtime drink. 


3) DON’T COMBINE DAIRY WITH FISH OR SEAFOOD 

Two types of food that should never be combined, according to Ayurveda, are dairy foods (including cream, cheeses, milk and yoghurt) with fish or seafood. This is because they have deeply antagonistic qualities. 

This combo isn’t too common so is relatively easy to avoid. It simply means avoiding tuna mornay or tuna and cheese salads or sandwiches, smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels, seafood pizzas (but they’re just wrong anyway!) and yoghurt or cream sauces with fish or seafood pastas. 


So there you have it! If you follow these three very simple food combining rules, your waist line will thank you for it but so will your digestion. Once you’ve followed them for a little while you’ll really begin to notice the difference and will eventually wonder how you ever ate what you used to eat. 

Of course rules were meant to be broken, from time to time (especially Christmas time) but if you follow them most of the time, these simple changes can help to transform your health... and the health of your family! 

Let me know how you go... 

Love Nadia xx

If you want to receive my Agni Blogs and Videos direct to your inbox once a month, Sign Up to the Mudita Institute's monthly online LIFEFOOD magazine  and you'll also receive a free e-book copy of our Ayurvedic cookbook, WARMTH. 

Losing Weight The Ayurvedic Way

At our most recent Mudita Health Retreat, we had a lot of women come along who were concerned about their weight. They didn’t necessarily want to lose weight but they obviously didn’t want to gain any. They were power-walking every morning, didn’t miss a Yoga class and…. they didn’t actually eat much. We had more leftovers than ever before! Good for us, not so good them…

The boys were rather confused by this. Especially Doko. He thought that most people (like him) would set aside such concerns when faced with the sheer beauty and deliciousness of Stephen Galpin’s food! He just couldn’t fathom that a fear of gaining weight could have more sway over someone’s mind than the joy of eating.

But I totally understood. Despite maintaining a similar weight for almost 10 years now without thinking about it or ever having to diet, I can still remember feeling like this. For me, my fear of gaining weight was intimately connected to a fear of losing control…  a fear of not really knowing what to do… a fear of the inevitable deprivation that would ensue if I had to go on a diet… and a fear of the inevitable weightgain that would come again once I was off of the diet!

But Ayurveda saved me from all that. My fear of gaining weight has completely relaxed now because…

If I do ever gain a little weight, I know exactly what to do about it (and I can lose it again as quickly or as gradually as I like – I usually choose gradually)...

So I don’t ever feel like I’m losing control (so the ‘Control’ seed in my mind has also relaxed)…

And the Ayurvedic way of losing weight doesn’t have to involve any hardship or deprivation (especially if you choose the gradual way).

If you buy my AGNI Course and get familiar with the information and the practices described in it, you will know exactly what to do too. But for those of you who don’t have it yet, here is a brief explanation…


WHY WE GAIN WEIGHT

The main law in Ayurveda to remember is ‘LIKE increases LIKE’. So, if your body is getting heavier, if you are gaining unwelcome weight, then it is likely that you have simply been introducing too many HEAVY qualities through your food and lifestyle.
The really HEAVY and difficult to digest foods from an Ayurvedic perspective (in order) are:

• 
Processed foods - especially those laden with trans fats, white sugar, white flour or high fructose corn syrup 
• Meat - especially beef, lamb and pork
• Eggs – especially cage eggs
• Cheese - especially hard, yellow cheeses like cheddar
• Nuts 
• Wheat - especially in the form of highly processed yeasty bread and pasta
• Yoghurt – especially highly processed and laden with weird ingredients
• Milk – especially highly processed milk (homogenised) consumed cold.

NOTE: I’d like to add alcohol to this list too. It may feel good at the time of drinking, but it is difficult for the body to digest (evidenced by the fact it doesn't feel so good in the morning) - arguable more difficult than white sugar.

If an excess of these HEAVY foods sneak into your diet, then you will gain weight as a result.

These foods are all difficult for the body to digest so if eaten in excess, they not only increase the HEAVY quality in the body, they can also increase our level of undigested food wastes or Ama. As Ama builds up in the digestive tract, it hampers digestion further causing Variable Agni and eventually Dull Agni in our central digestive fire which, in turn, causes Dull Agni in our tissue fires or dull tissue metabolism. As a result, our fat tissue is not created properly and we produce an excess of immature fat tissue - of the stodgy, lumpy kind. At the same time, more Ama gets produced because we’re not digesting anything properly. This can easily become a viscous circle that is difficult to break if we don't know how to build a stronger digestive fire. Luckily, thanks to Ayurveda, we do....



OPTION 1: GRADUAL WEIGHT LOSS

If you feel like you’ve gotten a little HEAVY, your pants are starting to feel slightly tight around the hips and you know it's time to tip the balance back in the right direction, you simply need to avoid the HEAVY foods listed above as much as possible for a while and consciously choose lighter foods.

LIKE increases LIKE so lighter foods will make you lighter. It isn't rocket science. But you need lighter foods that will also be good to your Agni. Salads and low fat foods are light, but they aren't good for your Agni.

LIGHT foods that are easy to digest, good for Agni and will help you to lose weight include: 

• 
Herbs and Spices - they're not only light, they actually promote balanced digestion, especially ginger, turmeric, coriander, cumin and fennel 
• Split Moong Daal and Moong Daal Flour - the lightest, easiest to digest daal
• Red Lentils – slightly heavier than split moong, but still super light
• Veggies - especially green veggies (root veggies are obviously a little heavier)
• Fruit - especially stewed apples and pears cooked with cloves and cinnamon and papaya (only eat between meals as a snack, not with meals)
• Basmati Rice – the lightest, most balancing of grains
• Millet, Raggi (Finger Millet) and Buckwheat – light and also slightly astringent so help dry out any excess fluid.

NOTE: Yoghurt can be eaten prepared as Buttermilk or as a Buttermilk Curry. And, if you want a wheat substitute that is much lighter and easier to digest, try wholemeal Spelt flour. You can still have a little milk in porridges and in tea if you like (just choose organic/biodynamic and unhomogenised milk). You can also still eat nuts but just in small amounts - almonds that have been soaked and blanched are best.

If you want to lose a small amount of weight in a gradual, undramatic way, start eating more home-cooked vegetarian meals from our cookbooks that use these ingredients… and avoid the ones that have little notes about being slightly heavier. Eating more soups for dinner and heavier meals at lunchtime is also advisable, if at all possible. If you do want to eat a little salad, eat it at lunchtime as part of your meal.

To help your Agni along the way and eliminate any excess Ama, make sure you have a ginger tea in the morning before breaky and sip boiled water or herbal teas throughout the day too. This is a very, very important part of the process. 

And that's it.

The great thing about this gradual approach is you can make simple shifts without a fuss. There is no need for despair or dramatics. There is no need for outrageous diets or gruelling exercise regimes. And, the best part is, there is no need to give up fat or sugar (you can still have ghee and jaggery, in moderation). You just need to make small adjustments to get back into balance. And because it is so easy, you can do it as soon as your clothes feel a bit tight, rather than putting it off until you’re two dress sizes up!

This is what I do. Anytime I feel slightly heavy (for my constitution), I try not to panic. Instead, I assess my behaviour...realise I've eaten too much HEAVY food lately... and then quietly cut back on chocolate, processed cookies (and make my own instead), cheese, pasta, bread, pizza, meat and beer for a while. I rarely eat these heavy foods but even I overdo them from time to time...

The other good thing about this way of eating is that once you're back in balance, you don’t have to avoid these HEAVY foods entirely. You don't need to eliminate them forever. You just need to become aware of their qualities and make them a smaller part of your diet, rather than a larger part. A special treat rather than the norm. You can also learn how to prepare them in a way that makes them a little lighter and easier to digest.


OPTION 2: FAST WEIGHTLOSS

I'm not a lover of losing weight quickly because I associate any strict regimes with dieting and that isn't so good for my psyche. But not everyone has the same issues as me. And of course, some folks need to lose more weight... and a kick start can help them to stay motivated.

If you want/need to lose weight quickly, the fast method is pretty much the same as the gradual one… but is slightly more dramatic. It involves eating VERY LIGHT food for 1-2 weeks before moving back to the GRADUAL OPTION. 

When I say VERY LIGHT, I mean predominantly moong daal and vegetables with herbs, spices and oils and avoiding all meat, dairy and most grains apart from buckwheat (which technically isn’t a grain anyway) and all fruit apart from papaya. So what I'm really talking about is living on:

• split moong daal soup with veggies
• vegetable soups
• daals made from split moong daal
• vegetable subjis
• vegetable stirfrys
• moong daal flour pancakes 
• buckwheat flour pancakes
• and papaya as a snack.

Look for recipes in our cookbooks - there are lots of them! 

Again, to help your Agni along the way and eliminate excess Ama, make sure you have a ginger tea in the morning before breaky and sip boiled water or herbal teas throughout the day. 

This FAST OPTION to kick starting weightloss, fire up your Agni and reduce Ama can be fantastic but only keep it going for a short period of time (and if you are getting light headed or hungry along the way, it is best to introduce some rice to the equation). It is not advisable or sustainable as a longer-term diet.

If you need to lose a larger amount of weight (e.g. 15kgs or more) the best option is to mix up the two approaches. In your first month, follow the FAST OPTION for 2 weeks then the GRADUAL OPTION for 2 weeks. In subsequent months, follow the FAST OPTION for the first week of every month and the GRADUAL OPTION for the next 3 weeks - and keep this up until you reach your goal weight.  

This can have a lovely, cumulative cleansing effect on the body without putting undue strain on your digestive system (or your mind!!). In fact, Ayurvedic Practitioners often prescribe this form of dietary therapy for people with pathological conditions where large amounts of Ama are present or weightloss is necessary.

 
LIFESTYLE CONSIDERATIONS 

From a lifestyle perspective, we also get too HEAVY when we don’t move enough. So as part of any weight-loss or weight-maintenance approach it is very, very important to exercise. But it shouldn't be too excessive, especially when following the FAST OPTION. Just 20-30mins of any relatively gentle exercise each day (e.g. brisk walking, yoga, tai chi, qi jong, swimming, gardening) can be enough to help lighten your load, fire up your Agni and burn up any excess Ama. If you're following the GRADUAL OPTION, you can do a little more. To stay motivated and make it a habit, only choose exercise that you really enjoy. If all else fails, think about getting yourself a dog. Preferably a sheepdog. They don't actually let you stay still! Trust me....

Sleeping during the day, especially after eating can also increase the HEAVY quality in our bodies so getting to bed by about 10/10.30pm and getting up no later than 7.30am is advised. If you have a late night, rather than sleeping in, get up at your usual time and have a short nap in the afternoon instead. 

There are also a bunch of Ayurvedic treatments that can assist weightloss including Pindaswed Massage and Medicated Steam Treatments, both of which we offer at the Mudita Health Clinic. So, if you live locally and want to lose weight, come and see us!  


CONCLUSION

So there you have it... the Ayurvedic secret to weightloss and weight maintenance. Makes intuitive sense doesn't it? And the best thing is, these approaches look after your Agni first and foremost. Most other 'Diets' don't. In my experience, they kill your Agni... so you lose weight initially but then very easily put it back on again when you're done. Hence the weight-loss-weight-gain roller coaster most of us have found ourselves on at one point or another. Or worse, we might end up with nasty symptoms of indigestion or develop food sensitivities from these diets.

Also, the Ayurvedic approach isn't just a weight-loss approach, it is actually a preventative health approach - it will help look after the Agni in your gut, your liver and your tissues, prevent the production and accumulation of Ama and help to balance your doshas (Vata/Pitta/Kapha); helping to directly prevent the onset of chronic diseases.

I'm a big fan. Clearly.

Let me know if you are too.... and let me know how you go with your weight-loss/weight-maintenance endeavours xxx

Love
Nadia xx

Disclaimer: If you follow these approaches and find you're not losing any weight, I recommend you go and see an Ayurvedic Practitioner for more specific dietary and lifestyle advice, herbal remedies and treatments that can help along the way. And of course there is always the possibility that you don't actually need to lose weight - that you are the perfect weight for your constitution already xx

 If you want to receive my Agni Blogs and Videos direct to your inbox once a month, Sign Up to the Mudita Institute's monthly online LIFEFOOD magazine  and you'll also receive a free e-book copy of our Ayurvedic cookbook, WARMTH.

Ayurvedic Superfoods

There's a lot of talk about 'superfoods' these days. But what is a superfood anyway? It is actually an unscientific marketing term used to sell foods that are nutrient dense and calorie sparse. Not very inspiring....

I've decided to redefine the word 'superfood' from an Ayurvedic and Buddhist medicine perspective. For a food to be 'super' on my list, it needs to do two things:

1) Promote Sattva in the mind - that is, not cause agitation (Rajas) or dullness (Tamas) in the mind but rather promote clarity, contentment, peacefulness and help to awaken our natural intelligence and self-compassion.... our capacity to be warm and kind towards ourselves and others.

2) Directly nourish Ojas - it must help nourish the subtle substance (Ojas) that is the foundation of our immune system, supports our lifeforce and gives us the capacity to be patient with ourselves and others. 

So, these superfoods help to promote a stable, balanced, peaceful mind and body... and strong immune system - which in turn, also helps to promote Balanced Agni. 

These foods are seriously super!! And there are only eight of them.  Here they are....

Ghee
Ghee is clarified butter, with all of the milk solids and buttermilk removed (so it is actually lactose free and can be consumed by lactose intolerant folk). Unlike most of the other superfoods on this list, ghee is actually light and easy to digest and it in addition to being Sattvic and nourishing Ojas, it also promotes balanced Agni. If you want to know more, click here.

Cow milk
Cows are considered sacred animals in India and cow milk is highly revered in Ayurveda. Buy unhomogenised, organic or biodynamic milk and only consume it warm, preferably with spices like cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, black pepper, ginger etc. If you can't digest milk don't worry... there are 7 other superfoods on the list!!

 

Basmati Rice
Basmati rice is Sattvic, nourishes Ojas and is also light and easy to digest so even if your Agni is weak, you should be able to digest it with ease. It is a long grain rice with a distinctive fragrance and delicate flavour... easy to cook and delicious! If you want to know more about it click here.

Dates
Dates are quite rich and are also relatively heavy. So, just because they are 'super' doesn't mean you should start stuffing your face with them! You should only have 2-3 each day. That's enough. A lovely way to eat them so they're slightly less rich is as date and coconut balls (coconut is another sattvic food).

 

Almonds
Almonds are also quite rich, heavy and difficult to digest so don't start eating them by the handful either! 2-4 almonds a day is enough. To make them lighter and easier to digest, eat them blanched (skins removed) and soaked or.... dry roasted. A great way to have them is as dry roasted slivered almonds on top of porridge. Yummo!

Honey
The main thing to remember with honey is that you should always buy the non-heat treated kind. When honey is heated, it changes its chemical composition and it becomes Ama in a jar... it will clog your channels and mucous membranes. So, avoid the stuff in squeezy bottles in supermarkets and get good quality honey that has undergone minimal processing. And... don't cook with honey.

Ginger
Ginger is an amazing spice!! It is Sattvic and although it doesn't nourish Ojas directly, it promotes strong, balanced Agni. If our Agni is balanced, our Ojas will be nourished as the end result of tissue metabolism. Eating ginger with all of the other foods on this list will make them easier to digest!

Saffron
Saffron is one of the most revered of all the exotic spices. It has a strong medicinal action on the blood, heart and reproductive system, is Sattvic and also potentiates the action of any substance it is taken with, including the actions of other foods. 1-5 strands per day is enough to impart its benefits and it is best taken after soaking in warm milk.

Note - be careful not to boil Saffron as it contains precious volatile oils that will be lost and do not use if you are pregnant as it stimulates the flow of blood in the uterus.

So there you have it! My Ayurvedic Super Eight!! 

The good news is that all of these foods are also also super delicious! But.... you may have noticed that some of them are quite rich, heavy and difficult to digest which is another reason why it is soooo important to concentrate on building a strong digestive fire - so you can digest and assimilate these important foods properly. 
 
Love
Nadia xx

If you want to receive my Agni Blogs and Videos direct to your inbox once a month, Sign Up to the Mudita Institute's monthly online LIFEFOOD magazine  and you'll also receive a free e-book copy of our Ayurvedic cookbook, WARMTH.

Noone Likes a Fanatic

When we're starting out on any new path, practice or way of eating, it's easy to become a bit fanatical about what we're doing, especially if we feel like it's changing our lives!

If we haven't experienced this ourselves, we've probably seen it in our friends or family... or on YouTube at the very least. You see all sorts - Vegan fanatics, Raw Food fanatics, Paelo fanatics, Alkaline fanatics, Yoga fanatics... and yes, Ayurvedic fanatics!! If you live in Byron, you see them quite a bit...

The seeds of openness and enthusiasm in our minds that are watered when we begin something new can sometimes 'cluster' with the seeds of over-enthusiasm... closely followed by intensity, prechy-ness and a little judgement thrown in for good measure. And so what begins as a well-intentioned desire to look after ourselves can quietly morph into a slightly weird puritanical vibe. 

Who me? Too intense? Never... (Me at about 30)

Such was my experience with Ayurveda. This was partly because a lot of the books I read and the teachings I received were very strict in terms of their viewpoints, guidelines and rules. So I felt to be true to the science and experience it in all its depth I had to be very strict too.  But the seeds of perfectionism, precision and judgement were good friends of mine already so it didn't take long for them to join me in my Ayurvedic journey. After a few years of following an Ayurvedic way of life... as much as I hadn't wanted to.... I became a bit of a fanatic. 

And let's face it.... noone likes a fanatic. Not really. They might be interesting to invite to a dinner party because they have some unusually passionate views.... but they're generally a bit of a drag to be around. Especially if they don't drink wine.... or coffee... or even cold water! Ha! And I'm not alone... I've seen (and still see) some Ayurveda students and friends go down this same road.

Doko carrying out an Ayurvedic experiment on Kester
in the week we met in NZ, 2006

Luckily my fanaticism left me when we met our best mate and teacher, Doko. He was the coolest Ayurvedan I'd ever met. He followed the principles (more or less) but never let them get in the way of being a fun, compassionate, non-judgemental dude... or getting along with people... or loving everything. Okay so being a Buddhist Priest probably helped but he really knew how to approach this stuff well. Damn. Where did I go wrong? 

With his help, I discovered the main problem with my approach was my level of intensity. I had to turn it down a few notches and relax a little. A little? A lot!!  I also had to warm things up a bit. I was doing things in a cold, precise way rather than with any sense of kindness and care for myself. This was a big shift... and this warmth I continue to try and cultivate towards myself has spilled over to the seeds in my mind, warming up my perfectionism and judgement - of myself and others.

So... when you're starting out on this path, don't forget the essential ingredient of WARMTH... towards the practices, towards yourself and towards others. Be mindful of your own fanatical-ish seeds -  thank them for their views and then ask them to take a seat and chill out.

And don't forget to splash out every now and then. If you want to, eat pizza and icecream when you go out with friends...  just be aware of how they feel and apply the right 'antidotes' to help your Agni recover (like lots of pepper on the pizza and peppermint tea after the icecream). It will help make this path more sustainable and easy to integrate with the lifestyles of your friends and family. The 80:20 rule is a good one... or 90:10 if your Agni is more sensitive, like mine!

I'm sharing my experience with you so that you don't make the same mistakes I did. This is our job at Mudita... to teach these amazing things to you and help you implement them into your life without becoming a fanatic. Because afterall, there isn't really anything very healthy about that...

Love
Nadia xx

*Disclaimer - If you are on a specific dietary regime prescribed by an Ayurvedic Practitioner to help treat a pathology... you will of course have to follow your guidelines strictly... But you can still do it with warmth xx*

If you want to receive my Agni Blogs and Videos direct to your inbox once a month, Sign Up to the Mudita Institute's monthly online LIFEFOOD magazine  and you'll also receive a free e-book copy of our Ayurvedic cookbook, WARMTH.