Ayurveda on Eating Fruit

With spring here, the market is filling up with fresh fruit.  It's easy to go a little crazy in both overbuying and overeating.

According to Ayurveda, when ripe fruits are eaten in the proper season and climate, they are excellent for the body.  Specifically, they require almost no digestion and turn into nutritional fluid for the body.  The fruit nourishes rasa, the first of the seven body tissues.  Fruit also offers a gentle detox for the body.

However, Ayurveda recommends everything in balance.  Therefore, fruit is best eaten first thing in the morning.  It is also good as a snack, but eaten by itself.  Try to buy your fruit from a local, natural source as some retailers artificially ripen their fruit.

Fresh fruit can spoil quickly, so buy in small quantities more often.  Fruit can also be cooked with spices like fennel, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves to use up the leftovers and kick it up a flavor notch.  Spices are also known to have medicinal qualities. Therefore, preparing fruit this way can help your health in other ways.  For example, ginger is anti-inflammatory and cinnamon helps balance blood sugar.

All fruits are healthy but certain fruits are more suited to certain body types.  Ayurveda classifies a food as healthy if it is compatible with your body type.  Every food has a predominant taste (either salty, sweet, sour, bitter, pungent or astringent) and this taste is better for some body types more than others. However, to be balanced a person needs all tastes but just in the proper amounts.  Being mindful of the tastes that are best suited for you allows you to enjoy food in a healthy way without feeling deprived.  Additionally, spicing the fruit can help shift the taste for your type. Pears are good for all three body types, and they help soothe emotions and balance hormones.  Mangoes and apples are somewhat universal too.

Finally, try to eat organic fruits to limit toxins from the pesticides.

Stay healthy & well,
Lisa