Chia seeds, hemp seeds, walnuts and flax seeds are rich in the elusive Omega 3. Other nuts and seeds have very good fat content in them.
Finally, traditionally made Greek yogurt is brimming with great fat.
Super Foods
Super foods are foods that are unusually dense in all sorts of nutrients that our bodies love. Other than all the goodies mentioned above, make sure you get portions of these foods on to your plate.
Turmeric, cumin, mustard seeds, fenugreek, Ceylon cinnamon are terrific spices to bring rich aromas and tastes to your food. Don’t forget ginger and garlic. Most Parsi recipes call for a paste made of ginger and garlic—a distinctive taste.
Kale, arugula, baby spinach, lettuce and various salad greens are supreme sources of great health. Don’t spoil their health benefits by adding those high-in-bad-fat dressings.
Coriander or cilantro leaves, and moringa leaves are great as garnish and can be cooked with lentils or made into chutneys.
Tulsi leaves eaten just like that or brewed into a tea with a bit of ginger and jaggery can clear most congestions between the throat and the navel.
Shiitake mushrooms in particular, and all the other types of edible mushrooms in general, give great flavour and texture to food. They are rich in vitamins and minerals, fibre and proteins.
Lemons and limes deserve a special mention. Lemon (or lime) juice will alkalise your system brilliantly. A lemon or lime shot first thing in the morning with warm water would be a superb start to your day.
Organic miso added to soups, salads and veggies will give a boost to good gut bacteria—it is considered to be a fantastic probiotic.
Kombucha is another wonderful probiotic Japanese drink fast gaining popularity for its health benefits. A small shot twice a day and the good guys in your gut will be grateful.
I had not heard of kefir till recently, and found it to be similar in taste to Indian lassi. It is full of good fat, probiotics and protein. Most people who are lactose intolerant can drink kefir even though it is made from dairy milk.
My favourite Italian herb is basil. It’s nutritious, can be eaten raw or cooked, or made into delicious pesto. Basil is perhaps one of the easiest plants to grow. Fresh basil, just plucked from a potted plant, is quite a treat for your tongue.
Nori, the Japanese seaweed, is full of vitamin B12—great news for people who are vegetarian or vegan. It is incredibly tasty when added to a Goan curry. Of course, you could have it as sushi.
The humble Indian gooseberry (aamla) has made it to the super foods list. Extremely rich in Vitamin C and many other vitamins and minerals, it is a brilliant anti-oxidant as well.
The little green moong beans are full of protein, fibre, anti-oxidants and phytonutrients.
Green tea is one of the heathiest beverages on planet earth. Full of anti-oxidants and nutrients, studies show that green tea improves brain function, lowers cholesterol and helps with fat loss.
Cucumbers have an impressive list of health benefits—great for the skin, superb detox for the body, alkalising, boosts digestion and makes stronger bones and teeth. Cucumbers are considered to be conducive to meditation.
Sattu flour is the secret Indian super food. Sattu has always been considered a poor man’s food—bursting with proteins and rich in iron, this flour can be made into a sweet or savoury drink, or used as a stuffing. It is dirt cheap to buy, and brings on a feeling of satiety because of its high-fibre content. Few outside the Indian subcontinent know about it.
Sacha inchi or the Incan peanut is the new kid on the super foods block. It is a rich source of Omega 3 along with containing other brain- and heart-supporting vitamins and minerals.
When?
Two groups of genetically identical rats were given a high-calorie, full-of-fat diet. Both groups were allowed to eat as much food as they wanted to. The only difference was that while one group ate whenever they wished, the other group was allowed to eat for just eight hours each day. The first group developed the expected health issues: high sugar, cholesterol, lethargy, heart problems, etc. The second group, amazingly, remained fit and healthy. This experiment and many others like it concluded that timing is critical when it comes to eating. When you eat may actually matter more than what you are eating!
There is a lot of science that now supports what is called intermittent fasting. The benefits are almost magical and following this ‘diet’ is quite simple. Restrict your eating time to between 8 to 12 hours daily. If you eat your first meal at 9.00 a.m., your last meal should ideally be by 5.00 p.m. Outside this eating window, you may only drink water.
Start with a 12 hour fast and build that up over a few months to 16 hours a day. If you keep your fast for 12 hours, you will typically not put on any weight. Every hour more up to a maximum of 16 hours a day will double the benefits—your body will start to burn fat and replace it with muscle.
Add a sensible diet and some vigorous physical activity to the mix, and you will become healthier and fitter than you have ever been before.
Some people don’t like the word fasting, so they call this system Time Restricted Eating or TRE. Watch out for more about this on our blog and in our next book.
A Liquid Enigma
Combine two atoms of one gas with one atom of another. Make sure both gases are highly inflammable. The result is not a gas. It is a liquid, which can be used to douse fire. It turns gaseous on heating; when frozen it turns solid. Other liquids contract when cooled; this one expands as its temperature drops from 4oC to 0oC, becoming less dense as it grows colder. It manages to float in itself because the liquid is actually denser than the frozen solid it becomes.
This mysterious liquid is the result of a chemical romance between oxygen and hydrogen. Water (H2O) is one atom of oxygen in love with two atoms of hydrogen. The Sanskrit word for water is Apah. Apah also means love. Drinking water is loving yourself.
All of us are approximately 70% water. Even our planet is 70% water—quite a coincidence, huh?! Water is the base for most of the chemistry that happens in our bodies. Water is Life.
Thirst is your body crying for water. Actually, by the time you feel thirsty, parts of your body are already dehydrated and not functioning optimally. Water is critical to great health and the smooth functioning of our bodies.
Your mood is better when you have enough water. You have less aches and pains and your skin glows. Proper hydration can help prevent cancer and stave off migraine headaches. Water is crucial for flushing out wastes and toxins from our systems. Our brain works much better when we have enough water.
If you are thinking about building muscle, you definitely need to have a lot of water because muscle tissue is a whopping 74% water. Any muscle cramp is usually due to insufficient water.
In general, drink a lot of water. Three litres a day for sure. If you work in an air-conditioned environment, you may need to drink a little less. Drink water at room temperature and drink slowly. Sipping water like it is some fine wine is much better than gulping it down. Sipping water regularly instead of gulping a lot of it a few times allows the body to absorb much more of it. The body stays hydrated and urination is up to six times lower. Make sure you are sitting when you are drinking water.
Please don’t waste water—there are a billion people on earth who don’t enjoy the privilege that you and I do. That you and I can take so much for granted: clean drinking water readily available.
Every time you drink water, remember to feel immense gratitude as it flows down your body quenching your thirst and nourishing the life in your system.
How to Tame Your Stomach
The unit pH (potential of hydrogen—don’t ask, I have no idea what it means) tells you how acidic a substance is on a scale of 0 to 14. 0 being super acidic to 14 being super alkaline. 7 is considered neutral.
Our blood is slightly alkaline with a tightly controlled pH hovering between 7.35 and 7.45. A pH of 6 in your blood means you are in coma. Maintaining a pH of 7.35 to 7.45 creates a benign environme
nt for the good bacteria in our gut. It helps cellular enzyme activity and maintains cell membrane integrity.
pH is a logarithmic scale. This means that pH 6 is 10x more acidic than pH 7, pH 5 would be 100x more acidic than pH 7 and so on.
For digestion, our stomach uses acid. It produces gastric acid in the range of pH 1.5 to 3.5! The stomach acid is strong. It is 10,000x to 100,000x more acidic than blood and can dissolve a stainless steel blade. The stomach can easily digest itself. It doesn’t, because the cells of the inner lining of the stomach are continuously regenerating themselves. Food that lands in the stomach is thoroughly churned—think of a blender with thousands of blades. This churning along with the acids digests (breaks down) the food into tiny pieces and passes it along to the duodenum for further processing.
The stomach will play a one-upmanship with whatever food that comes in. It always wants to be more acidic than the food that lands in it. Eating acidic food will make it secrete higher concentrations of acid to aid in digestion and keep its ego intact. Higher acidic environment in the stomach will mean higher levels of acid in the digested food as it travels through the digestive tract.
Eventually, the digested food is absorbed into the blood stream. . . but blood needs to be alkaline (pH 7.365) and this extra acid that is coming in is not helping at all. We have alkaline buffers in our body and the body will draw on them to bring the system back to a pH of 7.365. These buffers, though, can get depleted pretty fast. The body will do anything to remain alkaline, even sacrificing long-term and/or short-term health. Various body functions could get compromised. The body could, for example, begin to draw upon calcium in the bones or magnesium from the vital organs to maintain its alkaline levels. Mainly the kidneys work overtime to get rid of that extra acid.
Many times, if too much acidic food is consumed, the kidneys may not be able to keep up with the acidic wastes and the body will then store the extra acid in our tissues. Studies have shown that over time, this accumulation can have severe health consequences: kidney stones, muscle degradation, reduced bone density, even arthritis.
This is why it is so much better to eat more portions of alkaline food so the stomach’s ego stays intact and it doesn’t go into overdrive to prove that it can be more acidic than whatever has landed in it. Digestion is smoother, absorption is better and all the systems of the body heave a combined sigh of relief.
Acid-Alkali Chart
Have set times for meals. The stomach likes to get ready for receiving food. It will start secreting acid a little before what it thinks is your meal time. If you eat breakfast at 8.00 a.m. one day, 10.00 a.m. the next day, 9.30 a.m. on another morning and skip it sometime, you have confused the stomach and made it insecure. It gives up on you and says, to hell with it, let me just keep the acid going; God knows when he is going to eat. The result: acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome and a host of other unpleasant conditions.
Eating at the same time every day makes your stomach very happy because it is always prepared to thoroughly digest whatever you throw at it. Happy stomach = Happy, healthy you. It takes about a month of regular meal times to train your stomach. After this, your hunger will come like clockwork, your digestion will improve and you will feel fantastic.
The Eating Ritual
Mom would always insist that the entire family eats at least one meal together. My sister and I would roll our eyes: what difference does it make? Turns out that as usual, Mom was right. It does make a huge difference. My sister and I turned out great. Though we both had fairly wild friends, we both knew where to draw the line and say a firm no. We were both respected for the choices we made, quite a few of them very bold. A deep sense of right and wrong was ingrained into us.
Studies now show that children who eat at least one meal a day with their families are able to make better choices in life. They are more stable and can say no to drugs and other vices that may come their way. Families and meal times can be fantastic support systems.
I recently saw the brilliant animated movie Coco. It’s all about family and the choices we make, and how sometimes families can be wrong, but in the end how love triumphs, and everything is better than before. . . Our family has been like that. And one of the places we used to discuss things together was at the dining table.
Dinesh and I now live in a lovely home at our beautiful Art of Living ashram in Bangalore with our extended family—and Mom’s rule still holds. We eat as many meals as possible together, celebrating our love for each other, and feeling gratitude that we have been blessed with such a wonderful life.
Meal times are opportunities for rejuvenation. We work and expend energy the entire day. Quality time spent for meals helps us replenish ourselves, so we can perform even better. Meals cannot and should not be hurried. A leisurely, relaxed hour spent at the dining table savouring food cooked with love pays dividends beyond what you might think possible.
Set aside at least half an hour for each major meal. You may choose to eat by yourself and ruminate about the day, or enjoy your food in the company of your loved ones. Whatever you choose, make sure you feel pleasant while eating.
Sit while you eat, down on the ground or on a chair, though the former is better. Don’t stand and eat. Sitting nudges your stomach to place so it can better accept the food that comes in. As much as possible, eat with your hands. The tactile sensation of the food in your fingers and the involvement of the other senses signal the stomach to produce the right amount of acid to digest that particular food.
Chew to Poo
Mom used to tell us to chew our food well. She would say 32 times, once for each tooth in the mouth. This was one thing I never did. I would invariably gulp my food down, chewing hardly ten times—until I read about the benefits of chewing as I was researching material for this chapter. It blew my mind to know that more than 70% of the digestion of carbs, our primary source of energy, happens in the mouth. If you don’t chew enough, the carbs don’t get digested as well as they should, and you fail to get enough energy from your meal, even though you may be eating all the right types of food.
Besides this, saliva is normally slightly alkaline with a pH of just above 7. When you chew well, whatever goes into the stomach will be more alkaline and the stomach doesn’t have to produce as much acid. Just by chewing you are alkalising your system. Chewing can be a deeply satisfying activity once you get the hang of it.
Chewing also helped me deal with pooping issues. I would alternate between constipation and badly formed lumps, rarely experiencing a complete cleanse. If you are like how I used to be, you need to chew. Chew each morsel 50 times. Do this for all your meals this week. Your poo will come out long and smooth, and you will feel that amazing feeling of being totally clean from inside.
For 47 years I didn’t listen to Mom. I didn’t chew. Now I do. I put a bite in my mouth. I put my hands on my laps and chew. 50 times. Mom passed away more than a year ago, but wherever she is, I can almost hear her say, I told you so!
Wisdom of the Grandmothers
Buy your fruits and veggies fresh, organic and preferably local. Eating seasonal varieties aligns your system better with natural rhythms.
Grow your own produce as much as possible. Even if you live in a tiny city apartment, you can definitely grow hardy, low-maintenance plants like green chillies, curry leaves, basil, spring onions, coriander, lemon grass and so on. Home-grown veggies bring a new dimension of health and flavour to your food.
Cook with convection heat. Steer clear of appliances that use radiation like microwave ovens as they can alter the delicate structure of food and convert it into ‘tasty cardboard’. Use microwave ovens to test gravity, not cook food. Stove tops are the best.
Don’t use aluminum vessels. This metal reacts with food when hot and has been implicated in various brain degenerative diseases and respiratory problems when used regularly. Throw away all aluminum cookware you may have. Do it now.
Use cast iron, ceramic or stainless steel cookware. Avoid other
materials.
Eat whole grain. Eat lots of whole grain. I have seen fads of ‘super’ foods come and go. Whole grain is uber food!
Prefer lightly cooked veggies. The person sitting next to you should hear a crunch as you eat. Overcooking robs them of their goodness. Steam or sauté for fantastic taste and optimal health.
Eat ghee. About a tablespoon of ghee should accompany each of your major meals.
Eat fermented food—a small portion of any vegetable fermented in brine is adored by the good bacteria in your gut. Kimchi is one of my favourite fermented foods.
Eat freshly cooked meals as much as possible. Avoid reheating. Nothing tastes as delicious as pan to plate fare.
A well-balanced meal will have many colours in it and all the tastes. Through the day, eat food so that all tastes make an appearance.
Sit and eat food or drink water. Don’t stand. Sitting nudges your tummy into place to better receive food.
Never skip breakfast. Eat a big breakfast, have a good lunch and then a light dinner. Soups are great for lunch and dinner. Have salads for lunch, not dinner.
Don’t eat after 8.00 p.m. The body needs at least three hours to process the dinner before bed. Your last meal should preferably be before 7 p.m.
Don’t drink water with meals. A glass of water, half an hour to an hour before a meal, and an hour after your meal, will greatly aid the digestive process.
Drink at least one glass of water first thing in the morning before brushing your teeth. Downing a glass of water last thing before going to bed is a great idea too.
Ban cellphones, TV, iPads, books, etc. from the dining table. This is the time for the family to appreciate the bounty on their table, and each other’s company. No scolding, complaining or unpleasantness while eating. Meal times should be the most pleasant times of the day and looked forward to by everyone.
Happiness Express Page 11