Ginger Water for Digestion
Author Archives: Lorien
Recipe: Golden Ayurvedic Besan Flour Breakfast Pancakes
Besan (chickpea flour) pancakes are a beautiful Ayurvedic meal that can be enjoyed any time of the day.
Particularly grounding and yummy for a light breakfast.
Simple to make and a great source of protein to support and nourish your tissues, while being light and easy to digest. Perfect!
Simple Besan Flour Pancake Recipe:
Organic Ingredients:
- 1 cup of Besan Flour (Hint: …It looks yellow.)
- 2.5 cups of filtered water
- 1/2 a small Red Onion chopped finely
- 1/2 tsp of Cumin seeds
- 1/4 tsp of Himalayan good quality salt.
- Some black pepper to taste
- Ghee
- A mixing bowl & wooden spoon.
- A good quality stainless steel, cast iron or ‘healthy’ non-stick pan. (Important not to use teflon or poor quality as you will end up eating the toxic plastic or Aluminium which is not worth having for breakfast!)
- Love!
Method:
- Take your mixing bowl and add the Besan flour. With your wooden spoon, smooth out any lumps and bumps in the flour as much as possible.
- Add your water and stir into a smooth batter.
- Add your Onion, Cumin, Salt & Pepper.
- Start heating your pan and add approx 1/2 tsp of Ghee.
- When the Ghee is warm, pour some of the mixture into the pan to create your first pancake. Yay! Let it cook until it bubbles around the edges and in the middle slightly, then flip it over.
- Cook until golden brown on both sides…
- Serve with some fresh greens, some Chutney or a side of steamed vegies for something more substantial.
Voila!
Delicious, nutritious, QUICK, simple, yummy, healthy Besan Flour Ayurvedic Pancakes that the whole family will enjoy!
(Note: Add more water if needed to make your desired consistency. Coconut oil can be used as an alternative to Ghee, however has a different effect on the body and different taste. This recipe really lends itself to Ghee!)
Enjoy with love & gratitude!
x Lorien
“Let thy food be thy medicine.”
~Hippocrates
Change of Season: Welcoming Autumn
The first sunrise of Autumn.
Summer has delighted us with it’s warmth and now it’s time for a change…
Autumn has arrived, a season in Ayurveda that is governed by the air and ether elements, (Vata).
When we have a change of season there is naturally extra movement in the environment. Leaves start to fall, the wind might become stronger and the temperature becomes a little hotter or cooler.
These changes happen thanks to our friend, ‘Vata’ who looks after movement both in our bodies and outside in nature.
Wherever there is change, there is Vata.
Autumn season is naturally a ‘Vata’ predominant season. The qualities of Vata are cold, dry, rough, fast, mobile and changeable.
Autumn shares these same characteristics. It is easier for our skin to become drier, to be busy, to have irregular digestion and feel colder inside during this time. Since it is a change of season (Vata), that is moving into a ‘Vata’ season, we have a double up!
This means it could be a very creative time of year where it is easy to get a lot done, however it is extra important at this time to balance all the extra activity and change in the air with some balancing and grounding food and lifestye practices.
A good way to think about looking after the air and ether elements in your body is to treat this part of you with the same care, nurturing, kindness and love that you would give to a beautiful old lady! This sounds strange, however can be a very helpful way to approach your sensitive and magical ‘Vata’ intelligence.
Vata is fragile and loves softness, warmth, nourishment, love and kindness. Having cups of tea (herbal is preferable), warm home-made food, foot massages, listening to sweet music and having a routine throughout the day will all nourishing and support your body to be balanced and happy.
When there is a change in our physical environment, living situation, work, stage of life or season, we not only experience a transformation on the outside, but also on the inside.
Taking extra special care of your body during these periods of transition and looking after your inner sensitive nature can help to keep you grounded, stable and keep your channels flowing.
Some Simple Vata Balancing Lifestyle tips:
- Drink warm water throughout the day. This will ground the air element in your body and keep your body feeling soft, supple and your channels flowing.
- Find some routine, with regular meal times, a regular Yoga class or Chi Gong practice can be great for guiding your body through the change.
- Give yourself a massage at home (Abyhanga) 3-5 days a week with warm Cold Pressed Black Sesame Oil to ground your mind, strengthen and nourish your tissues and support your body during this time of change.
- Aim to wake up by 6am, during the time of the morning when the air element (Vata) is dominant. The qualities in the environmenet at this time of day make it easy to have proper elimination of the wastes in your body, allowing you to feel calm and have clear channels.
- Favour eating warm, light Vegie soups, Dhal’s, Kitchari and warmed Vegies. Vegetable’s like Pumpkin are great during this time of year and have a nice grounding effect on the body.
- Spend time connecting to yourself. Journaling in a book, letting go of stagnant thoughts so that there is a clear space for new ideas and inspirations for the coming season.
Autumn is a beautiful time of year, the seasons have so much to teach us about ourselves. Nature is a reflection on the macrocosmic level of what is inside of us on the microcosmic level.
Happy Autumn and sweet transitioning!
x Lorien
Let’s talk about Juice! (…and Fasting!)
Juicing has been popular for years in the natural health and alternative medicine community. Juice fasting has been promoted as a way of cleansing toxins from the body, losing weight and improving health and wellbeing. Some people live purely on juice and nothing else.
Juices are becoming more and more popular with fresh juices being available in every major city and town, not just from alternative hippy loving health food cafe’s. You can get a juice almost anywhere. The world loves juice!
There is a great reason why juice is so popular and can make us feel so good.
When we drink juice it has a particularly nourishing effect on the plasma (rasa) tissue of the body. This means that it has a cleansing effect on our blood, lymphatic system and skin, giving us greater energy and vitality almost instantly as a result.
This is a wonderful thing. We all want to feel better, look better and live better. If we over do our juicing however, the body can start to become depleted and the natural juice ‘high’ starts become an over juiced energy ‘low’. The motivation behind ‘juice fasting’ is often to ‘detox’ and improve the functioning of the digestive system.
In Ayurvedic medicine, poor digestion and a build of toxins in the body is often due to the air element in the body (Vata) being out of balance, leading to undigested food mass, gas, bloating and feeling out of it.
To detox and improve digestion with this in mind, we must balance the air (Vata) element by having the opposite to cold, fresh, raw juices (which will only increase Vata) and instead choose to have warm, light, brothy vegetable soups for example. It’s a different way of viewing things and comes from a perspective of balancing elements and qualities to improve digestion, looking at the reason why things have gone pear shaped and treating the cause.
Balance is the key.
For some people, at certain times of their life, under certain circumstances and conditions juice fasting might prove to be the best medicine. For other’s juice fasting might be too depleting and a in the case of wanting to ‘detox’ to improve digestion, a few days on warm Vegie soups might be the best medicine!
To incorporate a Vegie juice or a fruit juice into your daily eating in a balanced way can be a wonderful way to build your blood (great for women particualry or those with Anaemia), get a boost of minerals and cleanse your body in a balanced and grounded way.
Ayurvedic wisdom reminds us that we are all unique. We must live, eat and drink in ways that are harmonious for ourselves as individuals. To find inner and outer balance we must respond to our own body and see what works for ourselves, rather than following what works for someone else.
So enjoy your juices with awareness and being in tune with your body and what it needs. Remembering that one man’s medicine is another man’s poison. We must learn to listen to our own bodies and trust that guidance with our food and life choices.
Ayurvedic Principles for Balanced Juicing:
- Mix vegie with vegie & fruit with fruit.
- Add ginger to balance the heavy, sweet qualities of juice.
- Have a moderate amount, a small or medium sized cup will be plenty as it is so concentrated.
- Allow 20 mins until eating or drinking something else, to give the digestive enzymes time to do their thing.
- Go for Vegie juice as much as possible, the minerals in vegie juice are great for the blood and full of goodies your body will love. (My favourite!)
- When having fruit juices, keep combinations simple. eg: Apple & Pear or Apple & Pineapple. This makes it easier for the body to digest.
- Drink your juice mid-morning, when the sun is getting high in the sky. In Ayurveda the digestive fire is strongest in the middle of the day, so having something like a juice which is quite dense will be most effectively digested in the morning or close to lunch time.
- Finally, love your juice and treat it like medicine. For women, having a Vegie juice with Beetroot around the time of menstruation can be a wonderful remedy for building the blood.
Enjoy & listen to your body! It’s all about balance and being in tune…
x Lorien
Gentle Ayurvedic Morning Cleanse
When we sleep at night our body eliminates toxins and brings them to the surface to be removed.
Often we wake up and automatically swallow the ‘gunk’ that is in the mouth rather than spit it out, as we want to sleep in or just don’t feel like getting up.
When we do this, we are swallowing toxic build up that our body thoughtfully brought to the surface over night to be released! Oh my, not so pleasant.
There are many ways to gently cleanse this build up out of the body. There are herbal preparations that can be taken as well as treatments.
The most effective and lasting way to prevent poor digestion and toxic build up from occuring is to adopt a ‘daily lifestyle practice’, known in Ayurvedic medicine as ‘Din-Acharya’, or daily routine.
3 Simple Tips for Cleansing Toxins and Mainting Balance Daily:
- As soon as you wake up in the morning, go to the bathroom and spit out the ‘gunk’ in your mouth that has accumulated during sleeping. Brush your teeth and scrape your tongue with a tongue scraper. (Copper tongue scrapers are found in most health food shops and are said to be the best as the copper conducts the toxins away from the tongue most effectively.) You will fall in love with tongue scraping!
- Drink a cup of warm water with a squeeze of fresh Lemon juice, some Ginger grated or finely chopped and half a teaspoon of Raw Organic Honey. (Make sure the water is warm, not hot, as honey changes its structure when heated to high temperatures and can be poisonouse to the system. So make sure your water has cooled down and is warm when you add the honey.)
- Give yourself time to move your body, go for a walk, do some Yoga, stretches or whatever your favorite activity may be. It is great to get outside and into nature first thing when the birds are still chirping and the sun is still rising. Exercising in the morning will flush your body and boost your digestive fire which will assist in the process of burning up any toxins that are built up in the channels. Follow your exercise with a swim or a shower to cleanse and refresh your body before you move onto having your breakfast.
Incorporating these practices into your daily morning routine might take some initial organisation to fit the exercise into your schedule and get used to the idea of ‘scraping’ your tongue, however the benefits will be worth it. Trust me. Within a short amount of time you can expect to notice your breathe smelling sweeter, your appetite coming back to life and that your bowels are working much much better.
Making sure the elimination systems of the body are functioning properly is a vital ingredient to long-term health and wellbeing.
Cleaning the body regularly, on a daily basis in simple (yummy) ways is like making sure your space is clear (your body) so that it can do exactly what it knows to do and function in a state of balance and wellness.
To healthy, happy elimination!
x Lorien
Quinoa & Moong Bean Vegetarian Stew Recipe
Chewing for Peace
Daily living in a modern society can be busy. Within the course of one morning, it is easy to over commit and find oneself rushing to get from A to B, to get the school lunches ready for the day, to prepare your own lunch, to have the time to sit, meditate, exercise, drink your warm water, have a shower, make your breakfast, eat your breakfast, decide what you will wear, brush your teeth and finally get out the door.
Deep breath, that is an active morning!
So your morning might not look quite like that and may have it’s own unique features.
It is common that our lives have become busier than the ‘olden days’. Technology has streamlined many activities and tasks as well as enabled us to be more productive and in general, ‘do more’.
This can be a great blessing. This can also be a good time to remember the value of having time to sit, be still and savour the moments that make up your day.
When we get ‘busy’ simple activities like eating can become restricted to a certain amount of time. Look at the clock, five minutes to eat breakfast. Gulp, gulp, gulp, out the door!
We start to inhale our breakfast, rather than sit and CHEW what it is we are taking in.
It is admirable to make sure that breakfast is eaten, however the stress involved with rushing can create your digestive system to tense, your mind to become anxious and your nervous system to be in flight or fight mode, rather than rest and digest.
With this response in your body, digestion can become heavy and imbalances can start to occur.
It is at times like this that stopping and taking five conscious breaths into your belly can help the nervous system to calm down, relax and rebalance.
This could be where saying ‘grace’ before a meal once came from. The act of sitting still for a moment to centre your mind and body, gives gratitude to the energy and life that has gone into your meal as well as calms the body, so that when you take your first bite, you are present, centered and able to digest your meal properly.
Chewing is one of the first stages of digestion. Through this process, signals are sent to the organs of digestion to release enzymes, acids and juices that are needed for proper assimilation and elimination of the meal you are eating. This leads to peaceful digestion and nourishment of the cells and tissues in your body.
Like our physical digestion, we have mental digestion, which requires the same amount of mindfulness to keep the system clear and peaceful. When we are busy and miss out on time to eat our meals in a peaceful way, we also miss out on being able to digest our thoughts, feelings and emotions properly, which can lead to clogging of the channels and mental ‘indigestion’.
Here is a simple mantra to keep in mind for creating peace with-in and peace with-out…
Rather than trying to DO more, CHEW more.
When we take the time to really chew our meal, or chew our thoughts… a profound sense of inner peace and relaxation comes about, as we have given our mind’s and bodies the space they need to assimilate, transform and eliminate what we have put in.
Next time you sit down for your meal try the follwing:
- Take a moment to give thanks for the food and the energy from others and yourself that has gone into bringing it to your table. This will calm and centre your mind and body, bringing you into the present moment.
- Take one mouthful at a time and enjoy the process of chewing, allowing the mouthful to become smooth and broken down into a paste. This will streamline the job of your stomach and intestines, allowing the enzymes and acids to mix easily with the food and digestion to be peaceful.
- As you enjoy each mouthful, be aware of the various tastes and textures of what you are eating. It takes the brain 20 minutes to realize that you are full when you are eating. By chewing your food properly, the brain has more time to tell you when you are full, before you get full. This can help prevent over-eating, which can burden your digestive system and leave you feeling heavy.
- Chewing can be a meditation. Chew your thoughts in the same way, through taking some deep breaths, giving gratitude and sitting still with yourself, allowing any undigested thoughts, feeling or emotions to come to the surface and then dissolve with your awareness.
Through chewing our food, thoughts, feelings and emotions with a greater sense of mindfulness, we relax the nervous system, digestive system and mind. This removes blockages on the physical or emotional level that could prevent proper nourishment from coming into our bodies and allows for true nourishment from the inside out.
Chew chew chew, for peace within and without. x
Ayurvedic Digestion Tip: Shower before eating…
According to Ayurvedic medicine it is best to shower before eating, rather than after.
When we eat, our blood goes to the stomach and centre of our body for digestion to take place. When we shower, through the pressure of the water and the temperature, blood is directed back out to the extremities, distracting the body from it’s task of digestion.
For smooth, easy, sound digestion try showering before breakfast or dinner and see if you can notice a difference.
It becomes a nice ritual, to cleanse and purify the body, then enjoy nourishing it with your wholesome food! A simple alteration that can make a big difference to the effectiveness of your digestion over time.
It feels so good to be fresh and sparkly before eating and you will smell lovely for your own company or those who you will be sharing your meal with.
To happy eating & healthy digestion! x
“Only eat what you can digest”. ~Jayadharma
Ayurvedic Turmeric Chai Recipe
A New Cycle – 2013
Today, the 12.1.13 is the first New Moon of this new year. The New Moon represents the beginning of a new cycle. A time to reset and start from scratch, to lay the foundations for what will unfold as we move towards the full moon and the fullness of this year.
Ayurvedic medicine has a deep connection and respect for the moon. The moon governs the water element within our body, and our bodies are made up of up to 60% water. When the moon goes through it’s cycles (changing daily), on a subtle level we too are going through cycles and changes internally and externally.
Some may notice that their emotions vary quite dramatically throughout the course of a month. Females having a larger proportion of the water element in their make-up can notice a big difference in their body, mind and emotions as the moon goes from new moon to full moon. Being aware of this can be a wonderful way to gain a deeper appreciation, acceptance and understanding of why we may feel more emotional on some days and very clear and calm on others.
We are connected to nature. The Sun and the Moon play a big role in our lives. When the sun rises, it signals our body to wake up and start a fresh day. When the sun-sets and the moon rises, it signals going within and time for rest and rejuvenation.
Seeing the sunrise and spending time bathing in moon-light feels good!
Since there is a balance of both elements within our body, seeing these beautiful wonders of nature reminds us on a deeper level of who we are and what we are made of.
With this in mind, today is the first new moon. Make the most of this fresh energy with a simple activity of writing down on a piece of paper what you intend for your year ahead. Take ten minutes to do this with yourself. Draw, make dot points, however you feel to express. While today is a ‘good’ day for doing this, you can do this any day of the year… Setting intentions can be a 24/7 activity if you wish!
I wish for you all a year of health, peace, joy, creativity, beauty & love!
Welcome to the first post of 2013. It is a honour and joy to share with you this new space on such a appropriate day, the beginning of a ‘new cycle’.
With love & wholesome loving wishes for an amazing year ahead!
x Lorien
