In Ayurveda, food combinations and dietary practices are central to health and well-being, especially in proper digestion and metabolism. Right food combinations are healthy and nourish your body. Consuming the right combination of foods keeps you energetic and helps in optimizing your metabolism. It leads to healthy weight gain or weight loss as desired.
Likewise, poor combinations are considered harmful because they either hinder digestion or produce adverse chemical reactions in the body, leading to various health issues. These can disturb the balance of doshas (Vata, Pitta, Kapha) and digestive fire (Agni), leading to the formation of toxins (ama) in the body. This can lead to problems like bloating and water retention leading to unhealthy weight gain,
In Ayurveda, incompatible food combinations or dietary practices are covered under the concept of ‘Viruddha Ahara.’ Eating Viruddha ahara regularly can significantly influence weight management, either contributing to weight gain or causing difficulty in losing weight.
How Food Combination Leads to Weight Gain
Impaired Digestion:
When incompatible foods are consumed together, they disturb the digestive fire (Agni), leading to poor digestion. This causes food to remain undigested, resulting in the buildup of toxins (ama) in the body. These toxins clog metabolic pathways and slow down metabolism, making it harder to burn calories and leading to fat accumulation.
Ama (Toxins) and Metabolism:
The accumulation of toxins or ama in the body due to incompatible food combinations hinders proper digestion and metabolism. When the body’s metabolism slows, fat is stored more easily in the body, contributing to weight gain. Ama also leads to feelings of heaviness, sluggishness, and low energy, which can encourage overeating and reduce physical activity.
Kapha Dosha Imbalance:
Viruddha Ahara can lead to an aggravation of Kapha dosha, which is naturally associated with stability, moisture, and weight. An increase in kapha results in a slower metabolism, water retention, swelling, and fat accumulation, all contributing to weight gain. Foods that aggravate kapha, such as heavy, oily, and incompatible combinations of foods can trigger these effects.
Sluggish Metabolism:
Certain combinations like dairy with fruits, especially sour fruits, or fish with milk, cause the digestive system to work inefficiently. This sluggish metabolism may encourage the body to store excess calories as fat, contributing to gradual weight gain.
Cravings and Emotional Eating:
Poor digestion and ama formation often lead to irregular energy levels, causing cravings for unhealthy, kapha-aggravating foods (e.g., sweets, fatty foods). This leads to overeating and emotional eating, further increasing the risk of weight gain.
Hormonal Disruption:
Disrupted digestion from incompatible foods can affect hormonal balance, particularly insulin and other hormones related to fat storage and hunger. These imbalances can lead to increased appetite and fat retention, resulting in weight gain over time.
Incompatible foods consumed over a period of time lead to inflammation in the body.
Examples of wrong food combinations leading to unhealthy weight gain
Milk with Sour or Citrus Fruits: As we know that sour things can curdle milk it is not a good combination to have. This combination creates ama, causes digestive distress, and encourages kapha buildup, leading to weight gain.
Fish with Milk: Both are heavy foods, and their combination impairs digestion, slowing metabolism and promoting fat accumulation.
Honey and Ghee in Equal Quantities: This combination is considered toxic in Ayurveda and leads to ama formation, contributing to sluggish digestion and weight gain.
Yogurt with Fruit: Especially when mixed with sour fruits like strawberries or citrus, this combination produces toxins and slows down metabolism, making weight management difficult. So do not eat your mangoes and strawberries with milk or yogurt for health benefits.
Cold or Heavy Foods Late at Night: Eating incompatible or heavy foods late in the evening further disrupts digestion and leads to kapha aggravation, contributing to weight gain.
Apart from salt with milk, cold foods with warm foods are unhealthy combinations and must be avoided.
Ayurvedic Solutions to Prevent unrequired Weight Gain due to food combinations.
Avoid Incompatible Combinations: Stay away from combinations like dairy with fruits, fish with milk, and honey with ghee in equal proportions. Milk should be taken warm and not combined with incompatible foods, especially salty, sour, or heavy foods. Milk is best consumed alone or with sweet substances like cardamom or turmeric to enhance its digestibility.
Milk is also never consumed with non-vegetarian foods like eggs, fish, meat, etc. This can help prevent toxin accumulation and maintain a healthy metabolism. Fruits are also best eaten alone and not combined with other foods. This is especially true for melons.
The modern concept of cereals with fruits in milk and fruit yogurts are actually not healthy food combinations as per Ayurveda.
Balance Kapha Dosha: A diet that reduces kapha, such as light, warm, and easily digestible foods, can help prevent weight gain. Avoid heavy, oily, processed, refined, and cold foods that increase kapha. Prefer eating light and warm foods to balance kapha.
Eat Mindfully: Consume meals that are suited to your individual dosha and eat at regular intervals to support good health. Dinacharya is extremely important in Ayurveda. Eat slowly and chew properly without distractions to optimize digestion and prevent overeating. Eating mindfully helps you in portion control too. Eating French fries and burgers with an aerated cold drink may feel good to eat but is actually a wrong food combination and very heavy on the system. Greasy and oily foods must not be consumed with cold beverages as they reduce the efficiency of the digestive system.
Support Digestion: Use herbs like ginger, cumin, fennel, and turmeric in your diet. These boost digestion, prevent ama formation, help in detoxification, and support metabolism. You may drink herbal teas with digestion-promoting herbs and add these to your meals. For example, turmeric with milk is an excellent food combination that supports metabolism. Eating simpler foods also not overeating also helps your digestive system.
By avoiding wrong food combinations i.e., Viruddha ahara, and focusing on easily digestible simple foods and the right combinations we can avoid unwanted weight and keep ourselves best of health.