NEW YEAR | CHAPTER 1
BE FIT
Happy Healthy New Year!
Rather than saying let’s get fit this year, we will focus on being fit. Just like yoga, Ayurveda's popularity has grown in the mainstream and medical communities over the last few years and especially among celebrities. If you have no idea what Ayurveda (pronounced ai-yer-vay-duh) even is, don't worry. Here’s some information that I’ve read up on and learned growing up in an Ayurvedic lifestyle, which was common for me.
Since I am always being asked and requests from my fans and followers share their interest in my lifestyle habits, I thought to sharing some insight on how easy it is to prepare your kitchen for Ayurvedic cooking. And just as I teach in my online cooking classes and share in my cookbook there is nothing complicated or difficult to creating healthy lifestyle habits.
There's a lot of history about Ayurveda but the key facts are Ayurveda is the traditional holistic medicine practice of India and has been evolving for about 5,000 years, but still has many modern practices. It is an ancient healing technique that offers a surprisingly approachable way to address overall health, and the focus on how seasonal foods makes a great resource for home cooking. It helps us understand our body, and maintain balance and health by offering personalized guidelines on what is favorable or unfavorable for one's life in terms of diet, daily routine, and living environment. An Ayurvedic diet provides guidelines that encourage mindful eating and consuming foods that are appropriate for your energy (Dosha) patterns. It’s believed that when aligned, some processes like digestion, metabolism, and immune regulation functions at their peak performance and helps in reducing the risk of chronic health problems. If you want to learn about your body energy, and what to eat to balance it out, it’s best to work with a licensed practitioner who is experienced in Ayurvedic practices. I hope you find this helpful and inspiring to kick off your new year by being fit.
Ayurveda In The Kitchen
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A Few Simple Tips to Start Incorporating Ayurveda Into Your Cooking:
1. Make the kitchen a space you enjoy being in: Clean it up, reorganize it, and stock it so that you can flow and be efficient in it.
2. Gradually transition from eating ultra-processed, packaged, canned frozen meals to cooking from scratch using fresh and pure ingredients for the highest vibrancy.
3. Choose seasonal and local ingredients as much as possible. Shop at local farmers' market, learn what the seasonal produce in your area are. Using local foods optimizes the natural taste of the food.
4. Add more spices - Ayurveda's use of spices is unique in the way of flavoring food and enhancing the healing potency and digestibility of the ingredients.
SPICES 101 - DEMYSTIFYING SPICES
Spices can add so much to a dish, but as anyone who has ever over-salted something knows, seasoning can also hinder it when used incorrectly. And with so many different types of spices available, it can be hard to know which ones to use, when, and how best to incorporate them, how much to add, and where to find them, and how to store them. All things considered; spices can be intimidated.
Spice Doesn't Mean Spicy: Spices add flavor—not heat. Adding spices to a dish doesn't mean it has to be spicy. While some spices or blends have chile, pepper, or other hot ingredients, not every selection brings the burn (spicy). Chiles didn't arrive in India until the 1600s and the people were cooking with just spices. They had black pepper and used that for the “heat” for thousands of years.
Spices Provide Healthful Flavor: Often, people lean on ingredients like butter or cream to bring flavor to a meal. Spices can add dynamic flavor—without unwanted fat. The best use spices can help with is when you don't want to add a lot of fat or dairy to dishes. You can replace them with spices and that's where they are most valuable.
HOW TO START ADDING MORE SPICES TO YOUR MEALS:
Start Small: If you don't frequently venture beyond salt and pepper, start small. Choose three or four spices to start with. Taste as you go and figure out which ones you like. Even just one spice can be enough on its own. When I set up my coffee machine at night, I add 2-3 whole cardamom pods, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon to the ground coffee in the basket filter. Next morning when the coffee brews it extracts the flavor and health benefits of the spices.
Add Spice at Various Points: You might not realize that you can add spices at the beginning, middle, or end of the cooking process to create layers of flavor. You can start from the beginning, or you can finish a dish with spices. For example, you can infuse rice or pasta water with a cinnamon stick or cardamom pod. At the end of a stew, you can sprinkle some ground cumin. There is no shortage of delicious recipes to help you stay balanced and in great health and you can find many in my cookbook “JUST EAT, Pure and Simple Cooking” Available here: https://www.ladyrens.com/justeatpureandsimplecooking
