What Are You Hungry For? (14 page)

My brother, Sanjiv, and I followed in his footsteps, both becoming Boston doctors. It took many changes, social and personal, before Ayurveda struck a chord with me. Once it did, I recognized an ancient way of living, not simply a system of medicine, and this way of living gave human beings a place in nature that was harmonious and holistic. The body wasn’t a machine that you take to the doctor for repairs when a part breaks down. It was a mirror of the cosmos, its rhythms connected to the stars and the tides, its cells filled with profound intelligence, and its purpose to make daily existence joyful and productive.

Tuning in to the body isn’t a casual choice in Ayurveda—it is a link to nature’s deepest intelligence. As a label, “tuning in” seems too general and amorphous when it involves checking to see if anything hurts or has grown stiff. In Ayurveda, tuning in is specific. The six tastes show how precise Ayurvedic knowledge is, and they are only one frequency, so to speak, of the body’s message system. Ayurveda is about the give-and-take between mind and body, preceding our modern understanding of feedback loops by many centuries. After mapping the body’s messaging system in great detail, the sages of Ayurveda devised a way of life that extends everywhere. Let me show you the bigger picture of where the six tastes lead.

Flavors of Emotion

Ayurveda holds that emotions are a crucial part of the mind-body conversation. The six tastes aren’t restricted to food—they are considered qualities of awareness that describe our emotions. At a deep level, we recognize this relationship because every language uses
metaphors of taste to describe feelings. We are all familiar with expressions like
sweet dreams
,
salty language
,
spicy jokes
,
a bitter dispute
, and
dry wit.

Just as it’s important to include all six tastes in your meals, your brain responds to all the flavors of life, and even though bitterness and sourness aren’t perceived as positive emotions, humans have evolved with a desire to experience as much of life as possible—we take the bitter with the sweet. The drama of life is played out through opposites. If someone is sweet all the time, the effect is cloying, just as eating ice cream all day would be. A touch of sourness adds depth, but too much makes us grimace. Don’t overemphasize any emotional flavor, but by the same token don’t completely neglect any either. Every flavor has its place in the metabolizing of experience, and cultivating a balance of all the flavors adds richness to your experience.

Emotions: The Flavors of Life

Food and the Rainbow of Colors

Along with including the six tastes in every meal, filling your plate with the colors of the rainbow provides visual appeal. What pleases the eye pleases the body as a whole. Close your eyes and imagine
that you are on a sunny Caribbean beach. Beside the sparkling blue water a picnic has been laid out, an exotic one. Instead of china you are eating off banana leaves. The meal is a visual feast: grilled fish topped with bright orange mangos, fragrant white rice with shaved coconut, and vivid pink watermelon with lime wedges. As you visualize this meal, you are likely to find that your appetite is stimulated by the images and that your expectation is of a happy experience. These messages are coursing throughout your body.

You can create the same messages in real time with actual food. It takes only a few minutes to add vibrant color to a meal with parsley, mint, and other herbs, a wedge of lemon or lime, and/or a dab of bottled chutney—restaurants devote considerable ingenuity to making their presentations sell the food as much as its flavors. Ayurveda looks upon color as a kind of flavor on its own. In your mind’s eye, see a white china plate filled with steamed fish, cauliflower, and rice. The fact that everything is white all but screams blandness, even though the tastes on the tongue are varied. On its own, however, white is the color of purity; the key is to offer it in combination with other colors.

Here are a few suggestions for adding vibrancy to the color palette of your meals. In Ayurveda, an ideal spectrum would include every color.

Ayurveda also sees a nutritional connection here. Foods with deep, rich colors are leaders in antioxidants and contain many phytonutrients, those derived from plants, that boost immunity and enhance health. The best recent research suggests that the most healing foods are those containing potent concentrations of the plant-based compounds that are responsible for flavor and color. The six tastes are well coordinated with these compounds.

A drawback of breaking nutrition down into its chemical components is that we don’t actually experience phytonutrients. It’s unlikely that you will say to a friend, “I just had the most delicious lycopenes for lunch,” or “That was the best flavonoid I ever tasted!” I’m including this information on phytonutrients because knowledge is power, but I encourage you to focus on making your meals a rich experience. By enjoying the sensory pleasures of eating with awareness, you will nourish yourself more completely than any nutritional chart could ever achieve.

Here are a few of the health-enhancing phytonutrients contained in fresh fruits, vegetables, spices, and herbs.

Phytochemical

Flavonoids

Actions

Antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, protect against heart disease

Sources

Onions, broccoli, red grapes, apples, cherries, citrus fruits, berries, tomatoes

Tastes

Sour, pungent, sweet

Phytochemical

Phenolic compounds

Actions

Antioxidant, inhibit cancerous changes

Sources

Nuts, berries, green tea

Tastes

Astringent, sour, sweet

Phytochemical

Sulfides

Actions

Antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, inhibit blood clotting

Sources

Garlic, onions, chives

Tastes

Pungent

Phytochemical

Lycopenes

Actions

Antioxidant, anticarcinogenic

Sources

Tomatoes, red grapefruit

Tastes

Sour

Phytochemical

Isothiocyanates

Actions

Inhibit cancer growth

Sources

Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower

Tastes

Astringent

Phytochemical

Isoflavones

Actions

Block hormonally stimulated cancers, lower cholesterol levels

Sources

Soybeans, soy-derived foods, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, navy beans

Tastes

Sweet, astringent

Phytochemical

Anthocyanins

Actions

Antioxidant, lower cholesterol, stimulate immunity

Sources

Berries, cherries, grapes, currants

Tastes

Sweet, sour

Phytochemical

Terpenoids

Actions

Antioxidant, antibacterial, prevent stomach ulcers

Sources

Peppers, cinnamon, horseradish, rosemary, thyme, turmeric

Tastes

Pungent, bitter

Phytochemical

Lignans

Actions

Anticarcinogenic, lower cholesterol and blood pressure

Sources

Flaxseed, sesame seed, wheat bran, olives

Tastes

Astringent, sweet

Phytochemical

Coumestans

Actions

Anticarcinogenic

Sources

Clover, alfalfa, and soybean sprouts; split peas, pinto beans, lima beans

Tastes

Bitter, astringent

Phytochemical

Phthalides

Actions

Lower blood pressure and cholesterol, anticarcinogenic

Sources

Celery, carrots, parsley, parsnips, fennel

Tastes

Astringent, bitter, sweet

Spices for Wellness

Before pharmaceuticals arrived on the scene, traditional medicine relied on herbs, spices, and other natural products for their healing properties. Ayurveda is no exception, and research studies, primarily from India, continue to explore these remedies. The medicinal properties of most drugs cannot be identified in advance with rough chemical analysis, so drug companies still comb the medicine chest of natural remedies to find new cures.

This book isn’t concerned with remedies, but since Ayurveda is holistic, many foods are recommended that have healing properties. What follows are a few spices and other strong flavorings with notes about their potential benefits in keeping you well. Spices are intensely flavorful, and therefore they send strong messages to your body (without adding calories). Although researchers have isolated the active ingredients in some herbs and spices and made them available in pill form, they have been stripped from their natural setting and are definitely less enjoyable than savoring whole foods prepared with fresh spices and herbs.

Note: The benefits mentioned under each spice come from the Ayurvedic tradition; no medical claims are being made. At the Chopra Center our emphasis is on creating wellness. In the presence of disease symptoms, which Ayurveda considers an advanced stage of imbalance, Western medicine is often the most effective approach since it specializes in the outbreak of disease. Ayurveda specializes in maintaining long-term balance and wellness, a different approach.

Ginger

Ginger is a pungent, aromatic spice that has long been used in traditional healing systems to improve digestion and alleviate nausea, intestinal gas, and menstrual cramps. Ayurveda recommends using the fresh root over dried powdered ginger. Researchers have found
that ginger contains anti-inflammatory phytonutrients known as
gingerols,
as well as strong antioxidant and antibacterial properties. Here are a few of the recent findings about ginger’s potential benefits:

There are many ways to enjoy ginger, and I’ve included recipes for ginger tea and other dishes. It’s better to use fresh ginger rather than the dried powdered form of the spice—it will have superior flavor and greater levels of gingerol and other anti-inflammatory compounds. If you use dried ginger, try to find an organically grown product that has not been irradiated.

Another Ayurvedic tip: Drink ginger tea or warm water before each meal. This will improve your digestion and decrease the tendency to overeat.

Turmeric

In Ayurveda this beautiful yellow spice is a pharmacy unto itself. To begin with, research has found that turmeric contains potent anti-inflammatory
and antioxidant properties—these are valuable given the suspicious connection between low-level chronic inflammation and many lifestyle disorders. Here are a few other possible uses: