My personal interest in Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine) began around 15 years ago. I first picked up the book “Ayurveda: The Science of Self-Healing” by Vasant Lad after having started to meditate just a few years before. The system of invidualising one’s diet according to one’s constitution made sense. It struck a chord. Ayurveda is an extremely detailed medical system, with the Ayurvedic physician training in India equalling the training time in conventional medical school in India. The Ayurvedic system is based on the writings of teachers such as Charaka and Sushruta which date back thousands of years.

Raw and living foods on the other hand, appear to have other specific advantages  which form the basis of my health regime. My introduction to living foods came through Dr Gabriel Cousens, an holistic physician and long-term practitioner of yoga, meditation and Ayurveda. Some of the basic facts about raw and living foods appealed to me such as the levels of phytonutrients (special plant-based nutrients such as resveratrol) contained in foods in their living state. Research from the Max Planck Institute in Germany estimates that around 60-70% of vitamins and minerals are also preserved in raw and living foods, along with 50% of protein.

In the Ayurvedic system it is classically described that those with a vata constitution (ie persons generally with a thin physique and creative mindset who tend to run cold and dry in a physical sense) are advised to avoid raw foods. In fact in many ways, the trend has been to avoid raw and living foods in general. As with many of these statements there is a relative truth behind it, which has been expressed as an absolute.

My experience, which mirrors that of Dr Cousens and other long-term live-food practitioners around the world, is that the vata element can be balanced by use of foods with a soupy and oily consistency emphasizing the tastes of sweet, sour and salty.  We have many other choices these days other than eating a cold salad, which perhaps has been responsible for the stereotypic view of raw and living foods in many traditions. Other practices that are specifically helpful for balancing vata are the practices of abhyanga, or oil self-massage and basti or sesame oil enema therapy.

Those with a pitta constitution usually do well with a relatively bland live food diet with a degree of cooling spices. On the other hand those with a kapha type do well with the addition of pungent, bitter and astringent spices to the usual raw and living food fare.

No matter what your constitution, making a gradual shift to a raw and living food regime is likely to be the easiest on the system, and allows our digestive fire or agni to gradually build up and become accustomed to the increased light energy contained in live foods.

In Ayurveda there is also the consideration of the interplay between one’s constitution, diet and the season. Winter specifically has the energetic properties of kapha, which means it has the elements of water and earth in abundance. Although this is likely to be most imbalancing for those who already have a kapha constitution, all types can benefit from balancing the kapha element, through use of pungent, bitter and astringent foods and spices such as green vegetables, asparagus and cayenne pepper. Foods can also be warmed up to room temperature without losing their “living” quality.

Overall the goal of Ayurveda is to attain balance on all levels, and importantly to provide a platform for spiritual development. Keeping this in mind and revolving our diet around this principle, living foods can be an extremely powerful vehicle for personal and planetary transformation. I wish you the best on your journey.

Dr Sandeep Gupta  MBBS FACNEM     
www.drsandeepgupta.com