Indigestion due to eating mutually contradictory food items

I would be very grateful if you dedicate a newsletter to the SVA perspective of proper food combining and mutually contradictory foods. What are the basic principles? Why is it important to follow them?

Bhagavat Life: www.bvtlife.com”

VAIDYA RESPONDS

“Dear Divya,
thank you for your question. Let me respond point by point.
Cucumber with Lemon
First your question about consuming lemon and cucumber (as in a salad). Yes, you are right, it is not a good idea to consume these two food items together. The Charak Samhita Sutrasthan Chapter 26, verse 81, talks about “deha dhatu pratyanik” or “antagonistic (food items) for deha or the body, dhatu or tissue.” Meaning: some foods can be inimical, or hostile, to the stomach environment and overall bodily tissues. What does this mean?
As you know, in Ayurveda, edible items are categorized not only according to their nutritional content (carbohydrate, fat, protein, mineral, etc), but each edible item carries at least the following discernible properties, the bad combination of which can result in indigestion:
rasa or taste: 6 different kinds of taste – sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, astringent
guna: 20 different properties on the digestive level
virya: 3 distinct effects and properties on the liver level
vipak: 3 distinct effects and properties on the colon
prabhava: more than a 100  subtle vibrational effects on targeted organs or systems

All these properties, in addition to the nutritional content, come into play in the ayurvedic perspective. When food items carrying properties that are hostile to each other  are consumed at the same time, they create imbalance in the stomach, as well as liver or colon areas. For example, in the question about cucumber and lemon, cucumber is somagenic and cooling and acts primarily in the rasa dhatu; while lemon is agneya and heating and also acts in the rasa dhatu. When consumed together, they create a fight in the rasa dhatu, as one is trying to cool things off, while the other wants to heat things up. So it is best not to consume them together. However, if you enjoy the flavor of cucumber with some lemon, you can try to use lime instead. In general, I always recommend replacing lime with lemon, as lime has an alkalizing effect on the body, while lemon is acidic, and will reduce your body’s pH. Lime has enough agni to help with digesting the cucumber, without creating a fight. Add a pinch of Soma Salt. Salt, in general, is agneya and helps with digestion, but Soma Salt, as you know, is cooling, hence its name soma salt. So it is very balanced and balancing when added to your meals.

Milk products and Nightshades
Your second question concerning consuming nightshades with milk products. Yes, unfortunately, it is not recommended that these be consumed together at all, regardless of the fact that one should steer clear of all nightshade vegetables or minimize their intake (tomato, potato, eggplant, bell peppers of any color) as I always teach, and as you mention. In the Charak Samhita, dairy products are no. 1 on the list of mutually contradictory foods to be careful about, particularly milk and yoghurt. The primary reason of course, is that milk is considered a very rich and therefore heavy food in Ayurveda. Milk carries a very sensitive chemical make-up that can get imbalanced readily if combined with improper food items. Because milk is so rich, Ayurveda always recommends it be consumed alone, and then, along with spices to help support its breakdown and absorption. Cheese, made from cow’s milk, carries the same heavy and rich properties. Cheese, like milk, is considered “abhishyandi” or “channel-clogging.” You know, in my SVA lineage, we put a lot of focus on the macro and micro circulatory channels that carry food as well as subtle vibrational energies. The “prabhava” of milk, and therefore of cheese, is “abhishyandi,” clogging, and if you combine this with any vegetable from the nightshade family, you are adding to the heavy property. So, for example, Eggplant Parmigiana, or Pasta Alfredo,  carry the prabhava of “maha-abhishyandi.”
The ultimate purpose of nutrition or food intake is to provide our bodies with the energy needed to survive and grow, For this, the food we intake needs to support our metabolic system to function, so that our body can use the nutrients to build and repair tissues, regulate our daily bodily processes, and convert the food into energy so we can be active.
When a food item is “abhishyandi” it means it needs some help to be digested optimally. In the case of milk, for example, Ayurveda always recommends we consume it with some green cardamom pods, some fresh ginger, or cinnamon stick. These spices help break down the sugar and protein molecules that make milk the rich clogging food item that it is.
When an “abhishandhi” food item is consumed without the support of spices, it slows down or may totally shut down the digestive process, based on an individual case, and we all know, that partial or badly digested food results in the build-up of ama, toxins.
When consuming nightshades with milk products, though, it is not only ama or toxins, but amavisha that can result, because they are “virudh virya” – they carry contradictory potencies, which result in “amavisha” – virulent highly acidic toxins. Consuming spices in this case may help some, but not in the long run.

Daikon radish (mulli) and raisins
With regards to daikon and raisins, in the ayurvedic shastras daikon carries a lot of caution, and is not to be combined with many food items. It is not advisable to consume daikon and raisins in the same meal, even if you have prepared them separately, as you mention, because daikon and raisin carry “rasa virudh” – their properties are opposite on the taste or rasa level: one is sweet, while the other is pungent, plus one is hot while the other is cold. They are, in addition, “virya virudh” – their potency in terms of cold, hot, and neutral, (not temperature-wise as with chilies for example) confuses the digestive system.

However, when you are consuming “rasa virudh” and “virya virudh” food items, you should consider the following categories:
1) pratyanik
2) virudh ahar
“Pratyanik” food items are those that should not be consumed together as they carry opposing properties; however, consuming them will not result in immediate side-effects! Your example of daikon radishes and raisins falls under this category. When you consume them together, you may not feel like it bothers you at all, but if you keep eating them together, in the long run, you may develop auto-immune digestive problems. On the other hand, if you have a milk product along with lemon, you may experience nausea, fatigue, a head-ache, right away – as in milk pudding and a refreshing glass of lemonade!

Food items that we understand to be mutually contradictory but that have been culturally consumed for a long time cause confusion. You raise the question of italian cuisine. One way to understand this would be through the ayurvedic concept of “homeostasis” or “prakriti sthapan” – I’ve written a detailed article about this. What this means basically is that our bodies are coded to do their best not only to survive but to evolve and thrive. They carry an intelligence that allows them to adjust and adapt in the face of a situation to keep things running optimally.

There are many traditional recipes in different cultures of the world that call for mutually contradictory food items. In this case, you want to add spices, so they can act as a bridge between ingredients. For example if you are cooking pasta with tomato sauce (!), you can add fresh ginger, chilies, Mum’s masala or any other balanced masala, to combat the guru or heavy properties of the pasta and the tomato and to enhance your digestive fire. Still, it is recommended not to consume such items on a regular basis.

When you consume “pratyanik” foods that are imbalancing to the stomach environment but not in an immediate way, the body finds ways for itself to accept that diet. However, it does come at a price. You may not observe or experience anything right away, but down the line, depending on your body’s tendencies to imbalance, it will result as a deep tissue imbalance.

When people adopt Ayurveda in their lives, they are usually open and prone to making a lot of changes in their routine and diet to help improve their lives. Herbs and spices consumed ayurvedically go a long way in re-awakening th intelligence of the tissues and organs. Even small doses bring about great awakening on many levels. The more the body awakens, the less it will tolerate diets or routines that go counter to the body’s intuitive intelligence and the natural cycles and rhythms of the sun.  Old habits may die hard, but they do die with perserverance…

To wrap things up, here are some additional general pointers.

1) Slow poisoning of and in the tissues: this is called “deha dhatu prathinik bhutani” – this results from mutually contradictory foods items that will slowly create toxins in all 7 tissues, – your example of cucumber and lemon, or growing up on processed food items or processed cheese, or mixing fruits with yoghurt. If you were introduced to such food items early in childhood and you grew up eating them, you may have developed a situation called “oak saatmiya” – slowly developing resistance to an otherwise undesirable food item.
2) Acute and immediate poisoning of the tissues as when you mix milk products with citrus fruits. This is identified as “deha dhatu virodh.” Such combinations should be avoided by all means.
3) Gun virudh: eating hot and cold together – like drinking coffee and having ice cream. This confuses the stomach and puts out the agni, increasing pitta. High pitta low agni is a very undesirable condition where an individual will keep craving food items, have a large appetite, but not be able to satisfy it, unless they correct the imbalance of high agni and low pitta.
4) Samyog virudh: imbalance by combination, for example,  – fish and milk
5) Samskar virudh: imbalance through cooking items that should not be cooked together: for example, milk and salt – as it is traditionally used in the famous french white sauce also called béchamel sauce.
6) Desh virudh: or imbalances relating to geographical location, or having to do with high or low altitude, too hot or too cold/freezing climate. The Charak Samhita describes 3 kinds of “desh virudh” explaining that certain recipes are good to eat in some parts of the world. The  Samhita explains that “desh virudh” – is when imbalancing foods are regularly consumed by the population of a country without any apparent signs of discomfort, due to their climate and other environmental factors. This is how imbalancing cuisines of the world gain prominence. But it does not mean that peoples from other cultures who have never been exposed to those foods will be able to handle them.

Hope this helps.”