While we may need calcium to nourish our bones and teeth, to help our blood clot, to nourish our nerves so they can send messages, and to help our muscles contract, we definitely don’t want it to accumulate in our bodily tissues.
And since calcium molecules travel through the bloodstream and are carried by every cell, they could potentially cause calcification in almost any part of the body. And it is this depositing of calcium that is responsible for forming gall stones, kidney stones, arthritic joints and for creating hardening of the arteries.
This is where kulthi lentils come to the rescue. These lentils, also known as Horse Gram, grow on the hard rocky soil in the Himalayan Mountains and not only are they as hard as rocks, they contain the intelligence to break down calcified formations in our bodies.
The Charak Samhita, the definitive text of Ayurveda says that the prabhava or ultimate effect of Kulthi is ashmarinashan. Ashma means ‘stone’ and ari means ‘enemy.’
When calcium macromolecules in the body start accumulating to form a stone these molecules of Kulthi behave like an enemy. Gall stones and kidney stones are called ashmari. The ultimate effect or prabhava of Kulthi is therefore known to be ashmarinashan — destroying the enemy, destroying the stones — or any other type of calcification that acts in a hostile manner.
Let’s take a deeper Ayurvedic look at the process of calcification. My teacher and mentor Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra, whose family lineage was known as Shaka Vansya Ayurveda, or SVA, spent 7 years after graduating from Ayurvedic college studying with his father, also a gifted Ayurvedic doctor. By doing so, his father could impart to him all the clinical experience he had gained in his very busy and successful Ayurvedic practice. One such clinical gem he learned was that the process of calcification occurs due to imbalances in the sandhi or gap occurring in the dhatu agni of the bone tissue, known as the asthi-agni.
Let me explain this a little further — in the body we have 7 tissues, known as dhatus: blood plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone, bone marrow and reproductive fluids. Each of these tissues gets nourished once food leaves the digestive tract. The food spends 3-5 days in each of the 7 tissues before moving onto the next one. But each tissue actually transforms into the next tissue by way of the digestive fire which occurs in the gap in between the two tissues. So it is in this gap where all of the transformation occurs. And this gap contains a digestive fire, known as the dhatu agni, which creates the transformation from the previous tissue into the next one.
The name of the bone tissue is “asthi.” Therefore the asthi-agni is responsible for all the transformation that occurs within the bone tissue. This agni can be either too low, too high or variable (sometimes low, sometimes high) and when any of these 3 states happen the absorption and transformation of calcium gets compromised, and the calcium goes unused, which starts the calcification process.
The agni in the bone tissue get compromised if you eat synthetic fats (think Canola oil), or too much fat which your body can’t process, causing you to make ama, or toxic buildup in your fat tissue. Toxins from the fat get deposited in the fat tissue. Since the fat tissue constitutes the raw materials for the bone tissue, if it is impaired and not functioning well, then the bone tissue, the next on down the line, will also get impaired. The toxic buildup from the fat tissue gets transmitted to the bone tissue and either puts out or imbalances the dhatu agni of the bone tissue.
You must also not ingest unintelligent calcium from a bad source, such as from eggshells and bone meal, for example, which makes the situation even worse. If your asthi agni is already impaired and you are also ingesting bad calcium that is getting deposited into your bone tissue, you are supporting further calcification problems.
To add to all this, garvisha, or xenobiotics from pesticides, industrial pollutants, house-cleaning products, preservatives in the diet, and heavy metals, as well as ama visha (food which only partially digested and fermented into an acidic toxin in the digestive tract) can fuse with the unused calcium in your body and form virulent toxic crystals.
These garvisha or exogenous toxins are a hot and piercing type of toxin and can quickly reach the deepest tissues, including asthi dhatu or the bone tissue.
These toxic crystals which form from the dumb calcium or lack of proper agni or proper transformation in the bone tissue bind together and result in even more dangerous crystals.
They sometimes can get deposited in the physical bone or they can float in the bone tissue creating osteopenia or osteoporosis by hindering the proper formation of bones. This toxic brew of ama visha and gar visha combining with calcium can also wind up in our feet as gout, or in our fingers as hard, painful bumpy arthritis nodules or hardening of our arteries and glands.
Vaidya Mishra taught me to recommend that people age 40 and above consume Kulthi lentils twice a week to disintegrate any possible toxic micro crystals floating in their body.
The Kulthi lentils grow in rocky areas and have the intelligence to break down the calcified crystals of ama visha and gar visha.
This happens for two reasons: first the lentils can disintegrate and help pull out the unused calcium if someone has been taking dumb calcium. Or, is someone is eating good calcium but has an imbalance in asthi agni, Kulthi can help to correct that imbalance. Even if you are eating good calcium-rich foods you must still have good asthi agni to transform that calcium. Kulthi lentils increases the agni of the bone tissue and disintegrates the calcium deposited there. In this way Kulthi nourishes the bones, breaking existing calcifications and hinders new formations from forming.
In my practice we teach our patients how to cook with Kulthi lentils, and since they are so great at breaking up toxins we make sure we teach them how to bind the micro toxins so they can be taken out of the body safely and effectively. If the dose is too heavy or you eat them too often the Kulthi can break the stones too quickly and sometimes the disintegrated stones might have sharp edges, which can damage the physical circulatory channels as they pass through and out of the body. Fortunately we are so careful in instructing the patients how to limit the use of the Kulthi lentils to not more than twice a week and at the same time to use the binders to bind the calcium macromolecules to direct them out into the bowel movement.
By using these amazing stone breakers, or Kulthi lentils, I have successfully shown our patients how to break down their kidney stones, gall stones and to even reverse hardening of the arteries.
It is best to contact your SVA practitioner who has training in the use of these powerful lentils so you can eat them in the correct way. Since they are so powerful it’s best to cook 50% Kulthi with 50% mung or masoor lentils along with spices. Combining Kulthi with other lentils is a samyog or intelligent combination that minimizes the potential to overheat the bone tissue, or the asthi dhatu.
It is recommended to use only 2 Tbs of Kulthi per person and to mix it with vegetables, soups, broths, or on rice and other grains. Consume it only twice a week to be on the safe side.
This is yet another powerful tool taught to me by Vaidya Mishra, to help people prevent the negative side effects which come from taking unintelligent calcium, combined with eating an unhealthy diet. Now you know you have some help if you have been diagnosed with kidney stones, gall stones, hardening of the arteries, gout or arthritis. But again, it’s best if you contact an SVA practitioner to make sure you know the best way to treat these conditions so you can be monitored as you gently and effectively take out these dangerous toxins.