Over the past several decades, a new phenomenon has arisen: we are becoming food averse, to the point that we are now avoiding all various classifications of food, and ultimately pushing ourselves into a corner where there is hardly any food left to eat.
Let me explain what I see happening to many of the patients I speak with on a daily basis:
First, people began avoiding gluten and dairy as they became sensitive or allergic to their proteins. The proteins in gluten and dairy are the two most difficult to digest and unless your digestion is working 100% you will develop a sensitivity to them as they remain undigested in your gastrointestinal tract.
Next, lots of people found out that that histamine was bothering them, so they eliminated those foods which contain high histamine, such as citrus fruits, pineapple and bananas, fermented dairy products such as kefir, cheese and yogurt, fermented soy, such as miso, tempeh and soy sauce, certain species of fish such as tuna, mackerel, sardines, anchovies, and shellfish such as crab, lobster and shrimp.
And now there are lots of books and blogs reminding us of the dangers of oxalates and are recommending we avoid them as well. Oxalates are found in green leafy vegetables, such as kale, spinach, chard and collard greens, rhubarb, okra, beets, sweet potatoes, berries, kiwi, figs, oranges, soybeans, black beans, navy beans and lentils, grains such as wheat bran, quinoa and buckwheat, and dark chocolate, tea and cocoa. Oxalates in the food may cause certain susceptible people to form kidney stones. This is because oxalates can bind to minerals like calcium which can form crystals, leading to the formation of kidney stones.
And Dr. Steven Gundry wrote his ground-breaking books alerting us to the dangers of foods which contain phytates and lectins, leading a large swath of the world’s population to avoid them. Phytates are found in whole grains, bran, oats and wheat, soybeans, lentils, chickpeas and kidney beans, almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. And lectins are contained in wheat, barley and rye, soybeans, lentils, chickpeas and kidney beans, tomatoes, eggplant, white potatoes and bell peppers, milk and cheese, apples, bananas and cherries.
In addition to this never-ending list of foods to avoid, people are now also getting in-depth blood work to identify the foods they are sensitive and allergic to, sometimes adding dozens of otherwise healthy foods to the growing list of foods they must also avoid.
Some patients who suffer with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and other digestive disorders are told to avoid high FODMAP foods, such as wheat, rye, onions, garlic, beans, lentils, chickpeas and other legumes, certain fruits like apple, pears, watermelon, mangoes, apricots, cherries, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums, vegetables such as cauliflower, honey and many dairy products including milk, ice cream, soft cheeses and others.
Others who have an overgrowth of candida albicans yeast (which is basically 95% of the population) are told to avoid foods that feed yeast, which is almost every food known to mankind.
And others on their own have decided to go on special diets such as a keto diet, which recommends avoiding grains, sugars, fruits, and starchy vegetables such as potatoes and corn.
And many others now follow a Paleo diet which excludes grains, legumes, beans, lentils, and dairy products.
There are other exclusive diets which are too numerous to mention here, but I think you get the idea.
So this pretty much leaves us with with a measly list of a few scant foods left that are safe to eat, leaving us malnourished and depleted. And hungry. But afraid to eat anything.
So what’s the answer to all this? Is it safe or even beneficial to avoid all these foods? What does Ayurveda have to say about all this?
The answer to these questions is multifaceted. Let’s turn over one stone at a time and figure out our way through this maze we have found ourselves trapped in.
Before we begin avoiding foods just because we learn about its negative qualities, Ayurveda recommends first fixing your digestion. If you have balanced digestive fires you should be able to eat many of these foods. For example, the first thing I do with each and every patient is to fix their digestion, at the level of the gut, liver, pancreas and gall bladder and by doing so, even if it takes a year or two, foods that used to bother them no longer do so. This is especially true of all the food allergies we see in our patients. In fact, when they go back and get their foods retested, many of the old food sensitivities and allergies have gone away.
What I find clinically in my practice every day is that just about most people walking the planet have had their gut micro biome destroyed from the overuse of antibiotics, birth control pills, vaccines, acid reflux medicines and steroids. All medicines in general have an adverse effect on the liver, which is considered the seat of digestion, and birth control pills create problems with the gall bladder, creating a thickening of the bile known as bile sludge, which makes it hard to digest fats.
When you start adding up the devastation to the digestive tract you can see why many people are now sensitive to just about any food they eat. They are left with such weak digestion that whatever foods they eat won’t be digested correctly, forming what we call ama visha in Ayurveda. Ama visha means poison. So no wonder they don’t feel well after they eat if everything, even healthy foods, turn into poison after they eat it. And this weak digestion is also paving the way for sensitivities to histamine, oxalates, and whatever other negatives may be lurking in the food. So then it becomes easy for us to blame the phytates, lectins, histamines and oxalates when the real truth is that we might not be as sensitive to these foods if we had normal digestion.
Next, the ancient doctors did state that many foods had negative qualities, but they recommended how to avoid these irritating traits. For example, they knew that the skin of the almonds was bad for you: now we know it is loaded with phytates and lectins which may cause leaky gut. So it was always recommended to soak the almonds overnight and peel the skin before eating them.
In the same way it was recommended to soak beans, lentils and grains overnight, drain the water in the morning and cook them in fresh water. Doing so will remove many of the phytates and lectins found in these foods.
Soaking, sprouting, cooking and fermenting foods was always recommended in Ayurveda. Of course, they didn’t have the terminology that we use nowadays but we can see that by doing so it will reduce the levels of histamines, oxalates, phytates and lectins contained within the food.
The ancient doctors said many vegetables contained compounds which were potentially bad for us, but much of these compounds would come out during the cooking process. For example, it is always important to cook the green leafy vegetables such as kale and spinach which will remove about 60% of their oxalates. I cringe when my patients tell me they juice spinach and kale every day and then worry why their nails seem so weak to the point where they begin peeling. The nails are giving you a good indication of the health of the bones, which means that the high levels of oxalates found in the raw kale and spinach are leeching the minerals out of their bones.
The cruciferous vegetables such as kale, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and bok choy contain goitrogens which depress the thyroid gland. But cooking them releases about 60% of them, making them safe to eat. I always wonder how many people are unwittingly depressing their thyroid gland every day by drinking raw kale smoothies?
So here is my quick answer to many of our patients who find themselves in a corner with no foods left to eat:
Yes, if a food bothers you, avoid it for now. This means you are making ama visha, or a poison from that food because you are not able to digest it.
But if you spend the time and effort to fix your digestion and then learn the Ayurvedic way to prepare food correctly by either soaking, sprouting,and properly fermenting the food, it will prevent the side effects of each and every food mentioned here. In addition, learning both how to cook the food and the proper use of spices will also help tamp down the side effects of foods. Don’t forget, all the spices not only support your digestion, but they work even better than the current fad of taking digestive enzymes: certain spices help in the digestion of fats, protein and carbohydrates in the food, so learning how to use them will also help mitigate the nasty side effects found in the otherwise healthy foods.
So yes, continue to read the books and blogs, and listen to the podcasts about foods, but always remember that when we learn about these nasty compounds held within the fibers of the foods, we don’t want to think that right off the bat they need to be eliminated from our diet to the point where there is nothing left to eat.
And at the same time, remember that most of us have had our digestion weakened from all the pharmaceuticals we took, even if it was 20 or more years ago. Unless you fix your digestion, it will make you extremely sensitive to most if not all foods. Even if your digestion was damaged decades ago. Unless you figured out how to fix your liver, thin out your bile, bring up your digestive enzymes naturally and repopulate your gut micro biome, then many of these foods will make you sick. Especially if you don’t know how to mitigate their side effects.
But if you fix your digestion, learn all the proper ways to prepare food and cook it with spices to enhance your digestive functions, you can open up your world to eating a great variety of food once again.
Having said all that, Ayurveda also warns against improper combinations of foods. For example, it is not recommended to eat yogurt and spinach together. And heating honey destroys the delicate enzymes in it, turning it into a food that can clog your body’s physical channels. So it must always be taken raw at room temperature and not cooked or baked into foods.
Plus, they have guidelines about the proper intake of food, such as dairy products, yogurt and many other foods. Instructions are given so as how to buy the best quality foods and and then how to prepare them in the proper way before eating to maximize both their digestion and absorption into the bloodstream. For example, many of our patients who told me they were lactose intolerant were pleasantly surprised when they incorporated the good quality milk, such as raw A2 non-homogenized milk from grass-fed cows and were taught how to boil it first to make it more digestible, how to take it in the correct way and also learned which foods it properly combines with.
And here is one last bit of advice: if you do find a food that you like and it agrees with you, don’t overdo it. Because if you eat that food over and over several times a week or on a daily basis, eventually the negatives in that food will start to make themselves known and you might develop a sensitivity to that food. So my best advice is to also keep a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and proteins in your diet to avoid this tendency. But at the same time work with an experienced Ayurvedic practitioner who knows how to both fix your digestion while at the same teaches you how to prepare and combine the foods correctly to prevent the side effects you may be hearing about.
I hope this information was helpful to you as you try to figure out what to eat in this world with all the dietary advice being hurled at you from all sides. I think you’ll like the level headed approach Ayurveda has to offer.
Thank you,