Ayurveda
: Ancient Heritage in the Age of Globalisation
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be broadly explained as that which support a healthy
a life. Then the concept of physical urges or mental urges
which we’ll see in detail. We will see in detail regarding
the food first and then the good conduct or the preventive
medicine for mind and spirit.
In thepreventivemedicine food is themost detailed
subject and it talks about a lot of principles related to food.
These are the most essential concepts of food. These 8
factors are used to decide what a good food is. First one
is the nature of the food. According to Ayurveda it is not
carbohydrate or fat or calories or anything like that which
decides the nature. It is basically what is the inherent
property of that particular food item, which makes it
unique. It will be either hot or cold. It may be heavy or
light. It will dry or wet. So these properties decide the
quality or the nature of the food items. The second is the
processing. How you process the food? Rice is a staple
food this part of the world also. This rice is as such is
heavy and when you clean it and boil it with water it
becomes lighter. Processing can modify the food item and
make it more suitable for the body. It is very important
that we in Ayurveda give great significance to cooking.
Cooking in Sanskrit is “paka". Paka has two meanings: one
is cooking and second is ripening in English. A food item
should be subjected either to a artificial paka or cooking
