Have you ever taken a dosha quiz online to determine your constitution and then tried to read a seemingly never-ending food list with do's and dont's for your particular dosha only to give up thinking this is too complicated? Then you are definitely not alone. I remember trying to read and memorise a list of Vata-pacifying foods multiple times but it didn't make me any wiser and ultimately I just gave up.
The obsession with determining one's constitution by birth or your Prakriti is a very western concept. Trying to achieve it with an online questionnaire with a handful of questions can be even more misleading. I remember how surprised and downright annoyed I was to find out that my sister's Prakriti is Vata although every single online questionnaire we had filled out, screamed "Pitta!" Turns out, she was just having a pitta imbalance right since her teens. And if you've ever been to an ayurvedic doctor in India, you will have noticed that they never really dwell on one's Prakriti, honestly they not so much as mention it. As mine once said "Knowing your Prakriti is like knowing your skin colour", meaning it only states the obvious - telling you what your tendencies are which most of us are aware of anyway. What truly matters is your Vikriti or current state of imbalance since that is what needs to be rectified. As for the doshic food lists, it's better to not really look at one because the essence of ayurvedic healing is in maintaining a balance of all three doshas and sticking to foods that are good for only one will definitely push the others out of whack. In other words - following a tri-doshic approach is the only way out. But isn't that great news? :D Can you imagine what cooking for a family where one is Vata, the other Pitta, yet another Kapha or worse Pitta-Kapha would look like? It's really no wonder that so many people give up on Ayurveda even before starting because of how complicated things are made out to be. When in reality, the brilliance of Ayurveda is in it's simplicity. And it is very much possible to live and cook tridoshic-ally. Intrigued? Then have a look at the ayurvedic balanced bowl on my blog
Note: If you currently have an imbalance, it would be best to have a practitioner look at your current diet and lifestyle to determine what food items and activities are contributing to it so that you might reduce/eliminate them. For more information book a free clarity call or book a consultation today.
Namaste.
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