Prana and How We Eat

If you need to do the sniff test, it’s too old to eat

Following a strict Ayurvedic lifestyle can be cumbersome to say the least; there are many “recommendations” that can send the novice Ayurvedic enthusiast packing up her ghee and calling it quits. I remember first learning about food pairing guidelines and being shocked to learn that Ayurveda does not recommend leftovers. As a busy mother, wife and human, I love all things automated and convenient. And I have come to love my Sunday afternoon meal prepping hour, which means that leftovers are the only way I can feed my family nutritious home cooked meals. It’s unrealistic for me to make every meal fresh from scratch without spending the majority of my days in the kitchen.

Allow me to provide more context for the logic behind Ayurveda’s stance on leftovers so I can tell you why leftovers are not a dealbreaker in this day and age.

5000 years ago when we first discovered the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda, we had not yet discovered the convenience and food safety enabled by refrigeration. Food would spoil easily and make you sick, hence the rule: no old food. But why else? Why do some practitioners still believe that our food should alway be consumed fresh? The answer is Prana, my friends. Not the yoga clothing brand, but rather Prana, the life force energy that radiates within us and all living things.

Ojas, our vitality and essence, is the glass container.

Tejas, the ability to change and transform, is the light filament illuminating the bulb and Prana, our life force energy, is the electricity that makes it all work. Food that is fresh is full of prana, you can see the vibrancy and robustness in fresh produce at a farmers market. According to Ayurveda, food is meant to be picked from its nutrient source, have a small amount of heat applied to it to transform it into a state that is easier for our internal digestive fire to assimilate and then consumed slowly to allow it to become part of us. What our body does not need is expelled and eventually added back to the earth and becomes more food to start the process over again.

When food is cooked and stored, it loses its freshness, and its prana overtime. Therefore, no vibrant life force energy is passed onto us. I don’t know about you, but I can feel the lack of Prana in my body after eating fast or packaged foods. There is no life in that can of black beans that’s been hiding in the back of the pantry for a year. But seriously, who has time to soak beans and cook them for 75 minutes only to have your toddler throw them on the floor in protest?

So here’s my rule: I feel happy living by and I hope it will also give you some peace of mind. If the Ayurveda police come knocking at your door you can tell them you heard it from me.

I still prepare my food once a week. However, instead of cooking everything and storing it in containers to be eaten throughout the week, I wash, chop and store all the veggies I plan on using. This makes cooking super easy. I make a small tupperware of rice which lasts us 3 days, which we mostly use for lunches. My limit on storing items in the fridge is 3 days. Something happens after day 3 where I'm suddenly convincing myself of what food should actually look or smell like and at that point I already know- it's old and offering very little benefit to my health. We cook enough food for dinner without leftovers most nights and when there is leftovers, we usually have it for lunch the next day. This is the intention however, life ebbs and flows.

In Ayurveda, the focus is on how you are eating before what.

You could be eating the most gorgeous, freshly prepared meal in front of the TV, paying little attention to the act of eating and according to Ayurveda, that would be worse than actually sitting down and having a moment of thanks for eating a Big Mac. The HOW and intention behind the act is always more important than the WHAT which can be harder. We can buy fresh, organic food everyday and call it good, but Ayurveda asks that we make eating the main event. That we stop, put down the phone, and simply eat. That is hard for many of us today, when maximizing every second is the norm.

Food Sadana, the act of creating a ritual around meal time, is what shepherds a meal. Whether it's lighting a candle or pouring a glass of wine or even putting on your favorite playlist, it is important to add our Prana into your food. The act of taking what was once part of the earth and making it become part of us is seen as sacred and worthy of ceremony. This reminds me of the movie, Like Water for Chocolate, where the woman's emotions can be tasted in the food she makes. Ayurveda sees some truth in that, the secret ingredient is love and presence.