Here are the guidelines for staying within and Increasing the Power of Digestion, waking up Agni (digestive fire) and increasing stomach acids. 90% of people exceed their digestive fire, create Ama (toxins), and that creates degenerative diseases. Even if you think you have acid reflux, you probably instead have weak digestion, not too much acid.
It’s not so much what we eat but what we absorb and what we eliminate. If we can’t absorb what we eat, the best diet in the world on’t help us. If we can’t eliminate the remains, we turn our bodies into sewers.
Only eat as much food as you can hold in both hands in a single meal. This is very important. Eating too much during a single meal complicates things tremendously and will turn good food into bad. It is the leading cause of acid indigestion/reflux.
Never drink iced drinks or very cold water with meals; stop drinking fluids 30 minutes before meals and up to 1 hour after. If you must drink with the meal, drink herbal tea or warm lemon water. Spicy tea with lemon or peppermint tea is best for weak digestion.
The stomach digests best with 1/3 air, 1/3 food, 1/3 gastric juices. Watering down your stomach dilutes the enzymes and acids that digest food. If food gets into the colon partially digested, bacteria goes to work to break it down. This causes gas, microbial imbalances, and over time, mucoid placque or systemic candidiasis.
Try to have at least 3 hours in between meals. Avoid snacking as much as possible so the stomach has a chance to be completely empty and burn toxins. Eat regular meals at regular times, pay attention to the meal and the atmosphere should be calm and relaxing. Chew slowly and thoroughly. Saliva is an essential part of the process.
If possible, have your main meal at lunch rather than dinner. Don’t eat a meal after 8:00 pm, digestion is weakest at night and gets weaker the later it gets. DO NOT eat if upset, stressed or grieving, digestion stops completely then. Best to fast then, drink a cleansing drink or tea instead. All those well-meaning people who say “but you have to eat SOMEthing” after a major shock or loss are not really helping you.
It’s a good idea to take a short walk 15-30 minutes after meals. This really helps digestion and increases circulation, which helps the liver and absorption.
To wake up the digestion in the morning or after naps, lie on flat surface, bring knees to chest and hug them for 5 minutes. Then roll back and forth on back until little pops from the spine stop. Then sit up and do leg/hurdler stretches. Then you can begin your usual morning routine.
Avoid greasy foods. Deep-fried foods especially are real killers. Avoid very dead foods (refined) with none of their own live enzymes. Take digestive enzymes when you eat refined or cooked foods.
Digestive enzymes and fermented foods are an excellent option for increasing the power of digestion, including pancreatic enzymes for breaking down fats, carbs and protein, and the plant/fruit enzymes, papain and bromelain.
Some digestive supplements include HCL betaine, although it can be difficult to get the dose of HCL correct so make sure it’s a separate supplement and not mixed in with the enzymes. I simply use lemon juice. If you have issues with not enough stomach acids (low appetite, burpies, reflux, candida), then take 2 oz lemon juice in a glass of warm water with a dash of salt and drink 20 minutes before the meal. Or if at a restaurant, ask for water with lemon and eat the slice of lemon, or enjoy part of a glass of lemonade. 500 mg of Malic Acid or unbuffered Vitamin C will also increase stomach acidity. Peppermint tea.
peppermint tea
Try eating just a little bit of something pickled and/or spicy before your main meal, such as Kim Chee (pickled cabbage), or pickled ginger (like what they give with sushi), sunamomo (cucumber salad with vinegar) or umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums. Very healthful and healing to liver/gallbladder).
Fermented foods aid digestion, increase stomach acidity and proper bowel flora. Most commercial versions of foods that started out as fermented foods are not so healthy, but when homemade, things like sauerkraut, kefir and pickled beets are immensely helpful to our health and friendly flora, and a lot cheaper than store-bought probiotics.
Eat a radish with a bit of salt half an hour or so before dinner to raise Agni (digestive fire).
If you’re not eating fermented foods and juicing veggies, supplement with acidophilus to repopulate gut flora. Microbes are essential to good, complete digestion and get killed off thanks to refined sugar, dead foods, tap water, and not enough greens or other veggies.
Try to use proper food combining techniques at least in terms of fruit, the rest of those guidelines are probably not so crucial.
For instance, eat fruit alone as a fruit meal, never with dairy except the occasional cottage cheese or yoghurt or kefir smoothie.
Some fruits are okay to mix with other things, like apples, pears, berries, raisins, dates, but melons and most tropical fruit should be eaten alone or only with other fruit. They digest very quickly and tend to drag other things along with them whether they’re digested or not; or, conversely, the other foods delay the fruit digestion and so the sugars ferment instead.
Don’t ever follow a meat meal with a fruit dessert unless you want to be socially inappropriate (fart). Fermentation is only healthy outside the body. Inside the body it turns your intestines into something resembling an old refrigerator full of science project leftovers.
The exception to this rule is small amounts of cooked fruit with very little sugar added after cooking. Fruit sugars are easily broken down with heat. Jams and jellies have tons of sugar added into them after they are boiled down. So if you want sweet-n-sour sauce with baked pineapple rings for your teriyaki chicken, or apple sauce with your pork chops, go for it. Consider eating lots of veggie stews and soups with onion, lentils, barley or other grains, garbanzo beans and spices rather than the usual protein surrounded by starch and bread meals. That way the water is reserved with all the goodness of the veggies, and you can add cumin, ginger and paprika and cayenne pepper to make them tastier and better digested.
An easy way to prepare veggies and preserve some of the enzymes is to cut up the veggie into a medium saucepan with a tight lid, 1/4 cup water and 1 tblspn olive oil. Put on high heat for 4 minutes then check for crisp-tender. Spice, add more oil, and eat.
healthy foods
Try to eat only 3-4 types of veggies in a single meal, or less. Consider putting them through a blender. Most of your veggies should be cooked, as you need a strong digestive system to move to a raw diet, but the occasional veggie juice is okay. (raw foods = weak spleen = persistent colds = chapped/peeling lips.)
Broccoli, cabbage and brussel sprouts are often gas-producing. Fix them with carminative spices like cumin, turmeric, ginger or coriander. If you tend to have issues with gas, try to use these spices with every meal. The cuisine of India really makes the best use of these spices in their curries and garam masala, and Moroccan cuisine also likes to use carminative, pungent spices to good effect.
Try to only eat beans and lentils and whole grains only if they have been soaked overnight before cooking, or at least slow cooked, and are eaten with carminative spices and not with sugar (baked beans have sugar, that’s why they’re the magical fruit!).
Try to eat more spinach, kale, beets, carrots. They have healing action on the entire digestive system.
If your food just sits in the stomach and you feel full long after the meal is over, you need more bitter and/or pungent, herbs and veggies to increase digestive fire. Drink more spicy herbal tea, such as Yogi tea’s India Spice, ginger, peppermint, Chai, or Fennel, in between and with meals. Wait to eat until you are very hungry. Drink lemon water as an appetizer to increase true physical hunger. Consider fasting, especially if your tongue is coated.
To really heal chronic digestive upsets, consider eating a mono-diet of nothing but Kichadi (basmati rice and mung bean stew) for one week.
If your tongue is very coated, consider a warm water and ginger tea fast for one day, or long enough for tongue to become clean (several days great for Pitta or Kapha, only 1 day for Vata types).
Triphala, an Ayurvedic remedy, is good for all body types and aids constipation, is rejuvenating to the entire digestive system. It acts like a very mild laxative but causes no dependency. It strengthens the colon and helps to clear away mucous. It has anti-fungal properties.
Trikatu, another Ayurvedic remedy: Containing ginger, black pepper and pippali, this pungent formula enkindles the digestive fire, promoting healthy absorption and assimilation. Trikatu supports metabolism of fat and reduces toxins and mucous.
digestive system