Prana in Food vs Medicine

Greetings Dr. Malvika, The talk you gave about foods, body, mind and spirit, at the Anniversary Conference, some months ago, was great!!!  Thanks much for sharing your knowledge. So far, I have prepared teas for different dhatus.  Yet, I have the following questions: 

1.  What is it the best time to have the teas?  First time in the morning?  Between meal? After meals? Or before going to bed?

2.  Is it ok to add raw honey to these teas, as soon they have cool down?

3.  According to your teachings foods must be eaten fresh every day.  Although very powerful spiritual purpose, this is very difficult to follow now days.  

4. This subject is quiet difficult to ask, (and in any way I want to be un-respectful) but very relevant for me to understand. You and Dr Mishra sell numerous supplements made of natural herbs and other ingredients.  However the plants and other ingredients have gone through a lot of process.  These products, or other many so called Ayurvedic supplements and medicines in the market have been processed, and travel distances, and sit in inventory until they are bought.  It is not the same that consuming Tamasic foods?  If this is the case, then, what one can do to awake the prana healing in the supplements you sell and advertise? I think you are with me.  Following the traditional way of eating in Ayurveda is very challenging now days.  Many things have changed…one simple example is looking at the capricious weather and earth in many regions in the world.  One doesn’t have fresh foods around the corner, unless one is in a state like CA, or a country with multiple climatic conditions like central and part of South America. I coach people with organic-wholesome nutrition, and the base of my coaching is Ayurveda. Very soon I will take this nutrition to the next level, teaching disadvantage people who are eager to learn the Ayurveda way.  But again, I have to be realistic with their “thirst” and their needs, in a world that doesn’t favor the many peoples that just make the minimum wage, and their access to whole-organic foods or supplements are out of their reach. Any comment, info, knowledge regarding this subject is greatly appreciated.

With honor and respect, Namaste,

Monica R. 

Dear Monica, thank you for your question(s). Here are some answers for you.

When to have the dhatu teas?

With regards to your firest question, when is the best time to drink the “dhatu tea”s – the answer would be as and when needed, for example, if you have a heavy meal that you have a hard time digesting, then it is good to have the rasa dhatu tea. Follow the guidelines I gave in the talk. But otherwise, based on imbalances you tend to carry due to individual make-up or seasonal conditions, you can choose to have a cup of any dhatu tea after breakfast and/or after lunch.

 

Can you mix raw honey in a hot drink?

With regards to raw honey, yes, it is ok to add it to hot drinks. It is never ok to heat up (raw) honey, or to use it in cooking or baking. Ayurveda explains that honey already contains a lot of agni, it is by nature a high agni product. Heating it in our kitchens add more agni to it, making it highly imbalancing to our physiology. This is why Vaidya underlines never cooking or heating honey. And this is why it is best to buy your honey raw – unprocessed, and unheated – to start with. When your cup of tea or chai masala tea is cool enough and ready to be sipped, you may add honey and mix it in.

 

Must we really eat only freshly prepared meals? What about herbal supplements with extended shelf life?

According to the ayurvedic shastras, the cut off time for consuming a meal that was prepared fresh is 4 hours. Yes, this is hard. In this day and age, having to spend time not once a day but perhaps 2-3 times a day planning for and preparing meals that get consumed within minutes is no small task. And then to have to start all over the next day. Specially now that we women have gained our right to be part of the workforce in a full time basis if we chose to, this is an added strain.

 

But here is the thing: the ayurvedic shastras say it as it is! The ancient vedic seers “downloaded” – as Vaidya Mishra says – the knowledge about our universe about all the elements that make up life as we know it, of our bodies, etc. Based on this, and with the objective of keeping the body working optimally and blissfully for the longest time to come, they recommended not consuming food that is older than 4 hours.   

And this is regardless of whether one has a fridge or not. Think of fresh cilantro chutney. When we first blend it and add the lime, it has a beautiful bright grass green color. If we don’t finish it all up and store it in the fridge to consume at dinner time, even though it has lime that acts as a good preservative, and even though it is refrigerated, you will notice after 4 hours its color becomes darker. This is the sure sign that oxidation has occurred.

This is very easily visible in cilantro chutney, but less so in other food ingredients. But the same thing happens. After 4 hours, there is oxidation. And oxidation is the first step towards the formation of toxic residues that can harm or damage our tissues, channels, take away our bliss. Proteinous food items such as lentils are also very sensitive and must not be consumed after 4 hours either. Foods high in protein decompose faster and they harm more because the decomposed molecules of protein cannot get synthesized properly. After repeated use, due to the improper synthesis of protein one can acquire auto-immune toxins.

There are, however, recipes in Ayurveda, for food items that can be prepared and consumed hours or sometimes days later. I have heard Vaidya Mishra speak of “sattu paratha” – a speciality of the area he was born in, in North West India – prepared with toasted and pulverized black chickpeas and spices and lime. He mentions how his mother used to prepare these for him and his father whenever they had to go on a trip for several days.

The majority of the SVA diet followers have put a system into place that helps them get organized. For example, you can use slow cookers and start cooking your next morning lunch the day before. If you have to leave for work, you can spend 2-3 minutes warming some ghee and spices and adding to the slow-cooked meal and taking with you or giving to family members to take with them in thermoses. You can also prep vegetables the night before for next day’s dinner. It becomes a matter of being very structured. Sure, it requires sacrifice and attention, but nothing quite matches the joy and wellbeing of eating fresh meals rather than left-overs, even if they were prepared by you. Once your physiology gets used to eat freshly prepared meals daily, it will not want to eat anything older than 4 hours. You will feel the difference in your body as well – it will feel lighter, your mind will feel brighter, etc. Instead of cooking for 2-3 days ahead of time, you can spend time on the weekends baking some sweet and savory crackers and cookies that can be consumed in between meals to give you and your family time to hold until the next meal is prepared and ready to be consumed. The “traditional way of eating of Ayurveda,” as you phrase it, is what people are themselves re-discovering all over America, because of research findings confirming the benefits of freshly prepared meals. Like I said, it just takes organization and structuring, but it is worth all the effort. One does not have to be rich to buy the basic vegetables and/or meat or lentils. We are indeed fortunate in America, as fresh produce is available throughout the country. Buying organic is definitely preferable, and the price of organic produce has gone down, however, regular vegetables can be consumed when organic is not available. And freshly prepared non-organic vegetables are to be preferred over left-over organic cooked food. I think you get the point.

If fresh meals are eaten daily and a good rest/activity routine is maintained, then supplements are not needed!

 

How come prana in food should not be older than 4 hours, but herbal supplements are ok to consume long term?

As to what concerns the next part of your question, according to Ayurveda, there is a structural and functional difference between food and medicine. The shastras say that the food we consume on a daily basis is rasa predominant. As you know, in ayurvedic dravyaguna (properties of herbs and food items), we read about:

• rasa (taste),
• guna (property)
• virya (potency)
• vipak (post-digestive taste based effect)
• prabhava(ultimate most subtle vibrational post-digestive effect).

Although every edible material, every dravya, carries all of these abovementioned 6 properties, food is primarily taste oriented. When we consume food, we worry less about these 6 properties than about the 6 tastes. We make sure that our meals are balanced in the 6 tastes (madhur amla lavan, kattu tikt khshay ).

Unlike dravyas, the 6 tastes of food are delicate, that is, they are chemically transient. They get decomposed easily. And they are time sensitive. For example, if you cook food for lunch, unless you use toxic chemical preservatives, we scientifically know that the food gets oxidized, taste and color changes, the enzymes decompose within the 4 hour frame that the shastra-s discuss. That’s why we recommend fresh food, it should be consumed within four hours. Perhaps in our busy life it is not possible for everybody to cook fresh food, but we cannot compromise the teaching and say left-overs are ok.

As far as the supplements go, all the shastras are filled with different kinds of preparations. Some preparations such as teas, herbal items to be consumed orally, etc – these things need to be consumed right away. But pills or vatis, mineral preparations or bhasmas, as well as many other preparations given in the shastras are known to be ok to be prepared and used for years. Again, it is because these preparations are not rasa predominant. In addition, there are very specific steps of processing that are used to maintain their guna, virya, vipak, and prabhav intact. This is also where Vaidya’s lineage comes in with its ancestral processing secrets handed down from generation to generation. There are ways of protecting and maintaining the original pranic energy of herbs and preparations of roots, flowers, minerals, etc.

In Vaidya’s lineage, preserving prana is the most important aspect. Not just in the final product, but Vaidya also considers how that pranically encapsulated dravya or herbal material will be active once it enters a body, how it can function without disrupting the overall energy that may be obstructed by a poor digestive system, an overworked liver, the poor environment of the colon, etc. And because every individual is different and is receptive in different measures, he has created alternative advanced  delivery systems:

• delivery through the skin or the transdermal system;
• through oral mucosa (transmucosal) as in the Herbal-Memory Nectars line;
• or through inhalation with sprays etc.

Finally, it is unfortunately not possible to re-infuse prana into old food that has started decomposing. No matter where you may keep your food – in the fridge or elsewhere – the chemical enzymatic changes occur, and oxidation is initiated, the molecules have changed. No mantra or prayer can reverse this process. You may invoke Annapurna, the goddess that epitomizes feeding, by saying her short prayer, “om annapurna mahamaye, anna pradayini namostute”; however, no mantra or prayer can re-instate the original molecular structure. This is a practical truth. Hope it inspires you enough to inspire others as well. Best of luck in your ayurvedic teachings.