Ahara Chikitsa - Food as medicine

Welcome to this 8 lesson course on Ayurveda Ahara Chikitsa – Food as Medicine.
 
Designed as an Introduction to the Ayurveda Teachings on how we can eat more wisely for our health by eating in harmony with nature and what our individual body needs.
 
This course explores the principles of Ayurveda Ahara Chikitsa, Food as Medicine and shows how to easily put this knowledge into practice for your own wellbeing. 

This course comes out of our desire to create something that is practical, designed for a predominantly European audience, to show you how you can incorporate the principles of Ayurveda Ahara Chikitsa into your life.
In today’s world advice on food and nutrition is often confusing and ever changing. The wisdom of Ayurveda is as relevant today as it was 3000 years ago, and gives us logical well-proven guidelines as to how to eat for our health and well-being.

This is also useful information for chefs, cooks and care workers – Most of us cook for ourselves and for others whether it is at home or professionally. This course offers a brilliant insight into looking at food and recipes from a fresh perspective. It teaches us about the relationship between food ingredients, taste and digestion, to help you create both culinary and gastronomic masterpieces enabling loved ones or guests to leave the table feeling nourished, balanced and with increased vitality and energy. 
Each lesson is about 1 hour in length and the course includes over 120 pages of supplementary notes. 

Lesson 1 -   Food as Medicine

Lesson 2 -   Principles of Ayurveda food & Diet

This lesson introduces us to some of the key principles of Ayurveda
and gives us a framework for understanding that food is our medicine or our poison depending on how we eat.

• The Pancha Maha Bhutas (5 elements) – ether, air, fire, water and earth.
• The Doshas - Vata, Pitta and Kapha in health Prakriti and when unbalanced Vikriti.
• The Gunas – 10 pairs of qualities to evaluate all matter including the Doshas and food.

Supplementary notes:

• Introduction to Ayurveda
• Dosha Questionnaire 

This lesson addresses guidance on how to eat well, including general principles and the importance of eating mindfully.

• Introduction to Dietary advice for Prakriti and Vikriti.
• Dosha metabolism – Vata, Pitta and Kapha.
• Structuring a diet for Vata, Pitta and Kapha.

Lesson 3 -   How Dosha relates to time & taste

 Lesson 4   Ama

• How Doshas relate to time, the seasons and times of the day. 
• The six tastes – sweet, sour, salt, pungent, bitter and astringent and how they relate to each Dosha.

Supplementary notes:

• Seasonal foods 
• Rasa or Taste of Food
• How to incorporate taste into your meal 

This lesson addresses the subject of Ama, toxic substances in the gut that we are unable to assimilate or evacuate.

• Causes and signs of Ama
• Ways to remove Ama
• Ginger tea recipe

Supplementary notes:

• Ama (including anti  Ama diet)
• Intestinal permeability or leaky gut
• Kitchari recipe

Lesson 5   Agni

Lesson 6  A more detailed look at food

This lesson looks at Agni, our digestive fire and our ability to digest food and how we can improve this.

• The digestive process from an Ayurvedic perspective
• Digestion by taste
• Different types of Agni
• Balanced and imbalanced Agni
• Ways to improve Agni

Supplementary notes:

• Agni
• Bone broth recipe
• Ghee recipe
• Malas – the waste material of the body
• Microbiome

This lesson goes into more detail about different types of food from an Ayurvedic perspective:

• The quality and sourcing of  food

• The order of eating
• Ayurveda food combining
• Fruit, vegetables, grains and dairy
• Mushrooms
• Low carbohydrate diet

Supplementary notes:

• The Gunas and food 

Lesson 7   Sattva, Rajas & Tamas

This lesson looks at Sattva Rajas and Tamas in relation to our psychology and the food we eat, including:

• Sattva  - the quality of purity
• Rajas – the quality of action and disturbance in the mind
• Tamas – the quality of inertia and darkness in the mind
• Foods that promote Sattva, Rajas and Tamas 

Guidelines on Fasting    

See our other courses

Lesson 8  Putting it all together

This lesson is a synthesis of all the lessons and shows us ways to use this classical Ayurveda knowledge in a practical way to cook and eat, including: 

• The meal experience
• Comparing the Mediterranean diet with an Ayurveda diet
• Dosha Prakriti diet and taste
• How to adapt recipes for healthy eating
• Menu and recipe ideas
• Classic Ayurveda recipes
• Vikriti diet
• Sattvic cooking

Supplementary notes:

• Putting it all together additional information