Yogic cooking is really based on a very simple truth: "We are what we eat." We are what we allow into our selves, whether it be food, sounds, the thoughts we dwell on, the purity of the air we breathe, the discipline we let into our lives, the devotion we allow to grow in our hearts, the sacredness we realize of our soul.
In yogic cooking we employ foods, herbs and spices for not just their
"healing" qualities when we are sick, but on a regular basis, to help maintain a healthy colon, strong immune system, good organ function, and overall well-being.
In the spectrum of health, we tend to see it as one end or the other, either sick or healthy. In reality, most of us are somewhere in between. We so much accept "getting by" as being well in today’s world! And, as we get older and our bodies start realizing the consequences of life long diet, thought, and exercise patterns, we get closer and closer to the "disease" end of the spectrum.
You can easily begin to incorporate yogic foods into your diet, begin to change the way you think and feel about what you take into your body/mind, and invoke great change in your quality of life.
The first step is to include some basic yogic "survival" foods in your regular diet: Onions, garlic and ginger root (these "trinity roots" are for purifying the blood, cardiac health, digestion, stomach, potency, reproductive organ health, immune strength…), turmeric (for joints, spine, stomach), beets (for liver), and Yogi Tea (either made from scratch or purchase packaged). We will learn more about the yogic uses of these and many other foods in the column, "There’s a Yogi in the Kitchen".