In Ayurveda, the 5,000-year-old science from India, there are 3 mind-body types known as Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Ayurveda provides distinctly different guidelines for diet for each one. Pitta is a person of medium build, moderate muscle and sometimes a ruddy complexion. Confident, competitive, ambitious and driven to achieve goals, Pittas generally have a strong appetite and excellent physical stamina. With their strong metabolism, Pittas rarely skip meals. Ayurveda balances the 5 tastes of bitter, sour, pungent, astringent, sweet and salty in each meal.
Instructions
1. List on a piece of paper the types of foods you currently eat. Be specific: do you like carrots, but not peas and do you like apples, but not oranges? Make a similar list of foods you are repulsed by or may have a food allergy to. Maintain a food diary for a week and record all the foods and liquids you consume, at what time you consumed them and how you felt later. What foods were easily digested and others not?
2. Eat a diet that is 50 percent from whole grains, 20 percent from protein and 20 to 30 percent from vegetables. Last is 10 percent optional for fresh fruit. Generally muscular and athletic, Pittas are not served by going on fad diets that severely restrict calories or eliminate entire categories of foods, such as carbohydrates.
3. Favor foods that have a bitter, sweet, or astringent tastes. Eat bitter vegetables such as arugula, lacinto kale, green curly kale, collard greens balanced with sweet fennel or ginger root. Consider sweet vegetables such as carrots, red peppers, corn or peas and astringent foods such as baby green lettuces of all types and fruits.
4. Avoid or reduce very spicy foods. Being of the fire element and averse to sun and heat, Pittas may crave spicy peppers in their salsa, but it does not really support their health. Pittas tend to get “hot under the collar” and consuming very heating, spicy foods is counter to that.
5. Eat freshly prepared meals. A vegetarian Pitta might select dahl from red lentil cooked with ghee (butter with the milk fats removed), brown basmati rice and steamed seasonal vegetables such as squash, carrots and kale. Soybean is fine if tolerated.
6. Choose snacks that are not too salty. Like spicy foods, high sodium intake is not recommended. Pop your own hot-air popcorn and toss it in a paper bag with olive oil and nutritional yeast and salt-free spices. Toast smeared with fresh hummus or sweet fruits of any kind are good snack choices.
7. Select from these whole grains and sweet fruits as they are easily digested by the strong digestion common for Pittas: amaranth, barley, couscous, oats (cooked), rice (white, basmati, wild), rice cakes, spelt, sprouted grains, wheat and wheat bran. Choose from these fresh fruits: sweet apples, apricots, avocado, sweet berries, sweet cherries, coconut, dates, figs, red and purple grapes, ripe mangos, pears, sweet pineapple, sweet plums, pomegranates, prunes, raisins and watermelon.
8. Consume any of the following bitter, sweet and astringent vegetables as they are pitta-pacifying: artichoke, asparagus, cooked beets, bitter melon, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cooked carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, dandelion greens, fennel, green beans, kale, leafy greens, mushrooms, okra, black olives, parsley, cooked onions, peas, sweet peppers, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, sprouts (not spicy), spaghetti squash, taro root, watercress, wheatgrass, zucchini.
9. Pittas are famous for their large appetites. Select legumes and dairy as they are easily digested and provide the protein for generally athletic Pittas. Include: adzuki beans, black beans, black-eyed beans, chickpeas, kidney beans, brown and red lentils, lima, mung, mung dahl, navy, dried peas, pinto, soybeans, soy, tempeh, tofu, white beans. Eat dairy such as unsalted butter, soft cheeses, cottage cheese, cow’s milk, ghee, goat’s milk, goat’s cheese, ice cream, fresh and diluted yogurt.
10. Eat proteins including buffalo, white chicken meat, eggs whites, freshwater fish, rabbit, shrimp, white meat turkey and venison. Include black pepper, sweet chutneys, coriander, dulse, hijiki, kombu, lime and low-salt tamari. Add flax, halva, popcorn psyllium, pumpkin, sunflower seeds. Oils such as ghee, canola, olive, soy, flaxseed, primrose, walnut are fine. Externally, avocado and coconut oils can be used.
Tags: easily digested, percent from, spicy foods, vegetables such, athletic Pittas, bitter sweet, bitter sweet astringent