Ayurveda, and probably
every kitchen wife in before the industrial revolution, knew the
benefits of homemade ferments. Because they were an essential tool to
make food last. The vaidyas of yore noticed that fermented foods
enkindle agni – the power of digestion.
I remember reading Dr. Robert Svoboda’s Aghora series a decade ago. In it he tells a story of his guru, Tantric adept Aghori Vimalananda, teaching him about the 5 elements. His guru tells him to worship the 5 elements… but if he has to choose one, to choose fire. That is the teaching of agni in Ayurveda.
If your is strong and balanced… you have an opportunity to thrive. If you’re not digesting well… you’ll develop ama, or gut inflammation and toxic residue from undigested unabsorbed foods and that will slowly sink your ship. Fermented foods contain living bacteria that digest ama and replenish enzymes – which create functional agni.
Pathologically enough, in Ayurveda school I didn’t learn how to ferment vegetables. I learned intellectually the benefits of adding yogurt to cooked foods meals. But, it was just intellectual and I didn’t get my hands bio-enzymatically engaged and learn how the power of agni is in my own cabbage-squeezing hands. (In the Living Ayurveda Course I fill in this missing education).
After a few years in my Ayurvedic practice I went to India for 3 months to see what I could learn. During that time I completed Dr. Lad’s Gurukula program in Ayurvedic practice, I spent a few weeks at Krishnamacharya’s YogaMandiram chanting, I sat a Goenke Vipassana Retreat, and I studied Pancha Karma in Kerala. A day didn’t go by that I wasn’t served small batch fermented foods.
Indian food is fermented
a-thali-plate
An Indian Thali – or lunch. Usually costs $1-2 US… and is packed with small-batch homemade fermented foods.
For breakfast I’d have idli – a fermented lentil and rice cake. Idli is served with chutney, which is also traditionally a fermented food. For lunch I’d have the local thali – or one plate meal that has 10 different things on it, based on rice, sambar (a loose dhal), and vegetables. Thalis always include a few fermented foods – namely a yogurt sauce and fermented vegetable and fermented fruit relishes. Dinner may be a dosa, stuffed with potatoes and chutneys. Dosas, like idli’s take rice and beans and ferment them for digestibility.
This explains why people in India have better (more diverse) gut bacteria than us wealthier Westerners. We simply outsourced our food creation to the extent that we lost most of the good bacteria in our diet.
“More (gut microbial) diversity is probably better than less, because a diverse ecosystem is generally more resilient — and diversity in the Western gut is significantly lower than in other, less-industrialized populations.” Michael Pollan, New York Times May 15 2013 (Bold added because I know my readers scan).
As Westerners we have outsourced and outsmarted ourselves once again in our exploitation of convenience, mass production, and centralized food production.
I remember reading Dr. Robert Svoboda’s Aghora series a decade ago. In it he tells a story of his guru, Tantric adept Aghori Vimalananda, teaching him about the 5 elements. His guru tells him to worship the 5 elements… but if he has to choose one, to choose fire. That is the teaching of agni in Ayurveda.
If your is strong and balanced… you have an opportunity to thrive. If you’re not digesting well… you’ll develop ama, or gut inflammation and toxic residue from undigested unabsorbed foods and that will slowly sink your ship. Fermented foods contain living bacteria that digest ama and replenish enzymes – which create functional agni.
Pathologically enough, in Ayurveda school I didn’t learn how to ferment vegetables. I learned intellectually the benefits of adding yogurt to cooked foods meals. But, it was just intellectual and I didn’t get my hands bio-enzymatically engaged and learn how the power of agni is in my own cabbage-squeezing hands. (In the Living Ayurveda Course I fill in this missing education).
After a few years in my Ayurvedic practice I went to India for 3 months to see what I could learn. During that time I completed Dr. Lad’s Gurukula program in Ayurvedic practice, I spent a few weeks at Krishnamacharya’s YogaMandiram chanting, I sat a Goenke Vipassana Retreat, and I studied Pancha Karma in Kerala. A day didn’t go by that I wasn’t served small batch fermented foods.
Indian food is fermented
a-thali-plate
An Indian Thali – or lunch. Usually costs $1-2 US… and is packed with small-batch homemade fermented foods.
For breakfast I’d have idli – a fermented lentil and rice cake. Idli is served with chutney, which is also traditionally a fermented food. For lunch I’d have the local thali – or one plate meal that has 10 different things on it, based on rice, sambar (a loose dhal), and vegetables. Thalis always include a few fermented foods – namely a yogurt sauce and fermented vegetable and fermented fruit relishes. Dinner may be a dosa, stuffed with potatoes and chutneys. Dosas, like idli’s take rice and beans and ferment them for digestibility.
This explains why people in India have better (more diverse) gut bacteria than us wealthier Westerners. We simply outsourced our food creation to the extent that we lost most of the good bacteria in our diet.
“More (gut microbial) diversity is probably better than less, because a diverse ecosystem is generally more resilient — and diversity in the Western gut is significantly lower than in other, less-industrialized populations.” Michael Pollan, New York Times May 15 2013 (Bold added because I know my readers scan).
As Westerners we have outsourced and outsmarted ourselves once again in our exploitation of convenience, mass production, and centralized food production.
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