If you have been lately told to balance down your Kapha dosha then, a Kapha pacifying diet is a must for you. The imbalance in Kapha dosha gives excessive heaviness, dullness, and lethargy.
You can balance your Kapha dosha by having freshly cooked food, dry food, warming food, well-spiced food, and easy to digest food. Such kinds of food come under the category of Kapha pacifying food.
This Kapha diet would balance your mucous production, regulate the moisture level, aid in digestion, and maintain the body heat.
The Kapha dosha is substantive in nature, so balancing it with a Kapha Pacifying diet is the most effective way. So, let’s move forward and read the principles of a Kapha pacifying diet.
Table of Contents
What Will A Kapha Pacifying Diet Do?
A Kapha pacifying diet is the easiest and most effective Kapha dosha remedy to balance your dosha which is aggravated state.
The purpose of the diet is to balance the dosha by opening the channels of the body.
The food that falls under sharp, hot, and light category increases your blood circulation and brings about the expulsion of the Kapha and at the same time, it also aids in digestion.
A Kapha pacifying diet does wonder when done regularly in respect to the principles of the diet. So, let’s understand the principles of the diet.
Principles Of A Kapha Pacifying Diet
Down below is a guide to help you segregate foods that fall under a Kapha Pacifying Diet. These principles should be present in any of the food you eat when you are balancing your Kapha.
Don’t worry there is a lot of variety in the Kapha dosha treatment diet. You don’t have to starve or refrain yourself from anything.
By nature, Kapha dosha is sharp, hot, and light. So, eating foods that neutralize these qualities would be effective. So, for a Kapha treatment go for dry, warm, stabilizing, grounding, and easy to digest food.
Additionally, nobody is asking you to start a hardcore Kapha pacifying diet in one day. Take smaller fewer steps and over time you and your body will accept it the way it is.
None of the Ayurvedic practice is stringent and asks you to be extremely strict. Take time but follow it with heart and soul. So, let’s move forward and read the guide.
1. Go for Light And Airy Food Over Dense And Heavy
The Kapha diet goes well with the light food as they balance the heaviness of Kapha Dosha. You can judge the lightness of the food by its weight and by its density.
Almost all the fruits and vegetables fall under the light category. But for a Kapha pacifying diet its best to have them cooked. However, you can always go for the small number of raw fruits.
You can also balance your Kapha by vegetable salads filled with seasonal spices. If you are someone who indulges in caffeine beverages chuck it up and go for black tea or coffee.
In general, the foods like cakes, nuts, pastries, wheat, flours, red meat, deep fried food, and red meat are heavy for Kapha as they are too oily. Moreover, overeating in one shot is against the Kapha pacifying diet.
For this diet, you should fill one-third of your stomach with food, one third by liquid, and leave one third for digestion.
Thus, heavy meals and processed food is a strict not and are best to be eliminated from your diet as far as possible.
2. Go For Dry Over Moist Or Oily Food
You can balance out the oily nature of Kapha by eating dry foods. You can make your food dryer by adding less oil to it or substituting oil with water for softness.
Go for dry foods like beans, rice cakes, popcorns, dried fruits, and dry or red wine occasionally. Minimize or avoid foods like olives, cheese, buttermilk, fried food, cow’ milk, wheat, nuts, and seeds.
However, make sure you don’t over-hydrate yourself as Kapha has the ability to retain water easily. So, you should go for the moderate amount of fluid as per the climate and your activity level.
3. Go For Rough Over Smooth
Most of the fruits and vegetable have rough texture because of their fibrous nature. A Kapha pacifying diet should encompass a lot of fruits and vegetables.
These foods when cooked are easily digestible and also tend to increase the metabolic rate of the body. However, never overdo your body with them, the quantity should be moderate and the variety should be as per the season.
Vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, dark leafy greens, and beans are rough and thus corresponds well to the oily nature of Kapha.
On the other hand, things like milk, cake, hot cereal, etc. can aggravate your Kapha in minutes so be careful while choosing your food.
4. Tastes You Should Favor
The Kapha dosha acts well tp pungent, bitter, and astringent tastes and they are incremented by sweet, sour, and salty tastes. If you understand these tastes then, you can easily include them in your Kapha Pacifying diet.
1. Pungent
You can find the pungent flavor in foods that fall under a spicy category like chilies, radishes, raw onions, turnips, and most of the spices. This tastes have rough, dry, light, and hot nature.
It can be a blessing if you are someone who loves spicy food. However, if you don’t like spicy food go for spices like cardamom, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, paprika, turmeric, fennel, and cumin.
This taste will cleanse your body and the sense and thereby aid in digestion, clear the channel, expel out secretions, and encourage sweating.
2. Bitter
The easiest way to found this taste is green vegetables like kale, collard green, dandelion, bitter melon, burdock root, artichokes etc. Additionally, you will find it in spice like saffron, cumin, turmeric, and neem.
This taste has a rough, dry, light and reducing flavor. This taste is also cooling for your body. The taste works on your body by cleansing your pallet and improving your taste.
Moreover, this taste also tones up the body increase appetite, and aid in the digestion and absorption of nutrients in the body.
3. Astringent
This taste is similar to a dry taste because of its chalky taste as it dries up your mouth and causes it to shrink.
A few legumes that have an astringent taste are chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils, pinto beans, soybeans, black-eyed beans. Same way there are few fruits, vegetables, spices, and baked good also have an astringent taste.
For example, cranberries, basil, baked foods, pomegranate, cranberries, broccoli, cauliflower, coriander, fennel, parsley, turmeric, crackers, lettuce, rice cakes have an astringent taste.
The taste is dry rough, and light so is best to reduce your Kapha Dosha. It is also cold so try adding warm spices to it to balance the imbalance.
You will benefit your Kapha with this taste as it compresses, absorbs your body’s nature.
Additionally, it can also stop the Kapha tendency to deviate from the body tissues, prevent bleeding disorders, and absorb the excessive sweat and fluids from your body.
5. Taste You Should Minimize
The tastes that will imbalance your Kapha dosha are sweet, sour, and salty. They have a tendency to disturb the Kapha balance in your body. The tastes are discussed below:
1. Sweet
This taste has cold, oily, moist, and heavy nature and is considered Kapha Provoking taste when taken in excess. A balanced nutritious diet requires sweet taste also but only in small amounts. So, go for lesser amounts.
Additionally, it is favorable to take the taste from the naturally occurring sources like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, etc.
The artificial sweeteners and an overdose of natural sweeteners both tend to aggravate Kapha cause heaviness, lethargy, obesity, and make you sleep more.
They can also lead to build up of excess mucous in your body and decrement the healthy functioning of the body.
2. Sour
The sour foods like vinegar, sour, cream, green apples, oranges, pineapple, and grapefruit.
This taste also has moistening and oily property. It can increase thirst, retain water, swell your body, and cause heaviness.
If you really wish to enjoy this taste have a glass of lemon juice, apart from this other sour flavors are not recommended.
3. Salty
You can get salty taste only from salt. Salty taste has light, hot, and oily properties that will increase your Kapha.
It can also disturb the blood flow, increase body heat, cause a burning sensation, inflames the tissues, damage the tissues, can retain water, increase the blood pressure, promote grey hair, and wrinkles.
It can also increase your cravings towards strong taste so, try to keep the amount of salt minimum in your diet.
6. Manner Of Eating
A Kapha pacifying diet is strongly impacted in the way which we eat. You should especially focus on this to feel the diet change in your body.
People with high Kapha dosha are prone to emotional eating and overindulgence. A Kapha can easily stick to three meals a day. Eating regularly three meals at the same time can aid the digestive system and regulate your appetite too.
If your craving is difficult to control consider chewing a piece of ginger with a pinch of sea salt and a drop of lemon juice before 30 minutes of your food. It will prepare your digestive system to receive food and digest it properly.
Additionally, during your meals prepare a peaceful environment so that the body can nourish and enjoy the food. Minimize your cravings for sweet food and bread as they are considered as kapha-provoking.
Therefore, prefer warm food in small quantities with generous herbs and a serene peaceful environment for balancing Kapha.
Last but not the least, Kapha is heavy so periodic fasts or cleansing can be helpful if possible for you.
Kapha Dosha Diet Plan
Down below, is a list of Kapha meal plan. We are jotting it down to help you give options for the Kapha food. This diet plan is an important aspect of your Kapha pacifying daily routine. We will give you multiple options for breakfast, dinner, and lunch, you can choose any of them.
1. Kapha Breakfast
The Kapha Breakfast can be somewhat optional when Kapha is elevated. The overnight fast can force you to indulge in something heavy but should be controlled.
But, you can always go for a small light breakfast if you feel its important to you.
A few kapha breakfast options are:
- A fresh fruit bowl with fruits like apple, apricots, berries, mangoes, strawberries, and peaches.
- A fresh fruit or vegetable smoothies
- A baked or stewed apple with some nuts.
- Hot cereals like rice porridge or seasoned barley pudding.
- Muslei with warm milk
- Add a herbal tea with any of these options but be careful not to go beyond the limit of anything.
2. Kapha Lunch
It is the main meal of the day. It should be the biggest and most nourishing. You can add a good quality of beans, grains, and vegetables are a good option. If you are a non-vegetarian you can opt for lean meats.
A few good options of lunch for a Kapha pacifying diet are as follows:
- Vegetable soup with a multigrain toast
- Lentil soup with spices like olive oil, pepper, and lemon
- Kitchari prepared with dandelion green, lemon, onion, garlic, and mint
- A salad made out of different varieties of beans and sauteed with onion, lettuce, cilantro, and lemon juice
- A bowl of dal with Indian roti, tortillas, or rice
3. Kapha Dinner
Dinner should be smaller and lighter than lunch. Soups and stews are often a good option as they are nourishing and light. You can even take a smaller serving of lunch too if you don’t wish to prepare again for dinner.
For people who want to reduce weight skipping dinner can be a good deal. But, in this case, your lunch and breakfast should be as heavy as possible.
A few dinner options can be:
- Any deal with quinoa or rice
- Vegetable soup
- Red lentil soup
- Chicken soup
- Vegetable salad with lemon, coriander, and olive oil dressing.
Final Talk
A Kapha pacifying diet forms an excellent option to balance out your Kapha Dosha. Ayurveda experts believe it to be the best option to cure the imbalance in your doshas.
You cannot start off with the Kapha pacifying diet in a day. But, you will be able to do it with constant efforts and regularity. It’s acceptable and common to adapt or become habitual of Kapha dosha diet plan in a few weeks.
Therefore, whenever you start with the diet plan thorough yourself with the principles of it. Eating as per the principles is very important.
You can any type of food that falls in the guidelines mentioned above. We have also given you multiple choices you can mix match them to make your own Kapha pacifying diet plan.
Nevertheless, never stick to one variety throughout your Kapha pacifying treatment diet. Go for alterations so as to enjoy the nutrients present in a variety of food items.
Additionally, look for an option that is organic and fresh. Eating highly processed packed foods is never good for your body. So, avoid it as much as you can.
