Nutritious, Creative Plant Based Recipes
by Eyton J. Shalom, M.S., L.AcAyurvedic Dandelion Greens for Spring
Ayurvedic Dandelion Greens for Spring are a great cleansing vegetable, excellent year round, but especially good in Spring. They are a wonderful Sattvic food that helps to cleanse the body of the ama dosha that accumulates naturally over the winter months. Green...
Ayurvedic Kitchari
What is Kitchari? Kitchari is a Sattvic, light, easy-to-digest, cleansing, detoxifying food that is excellent once a week, at the change of seasons, or any time you feel like giving your digestive system a break. It is also just a normal one-pot-dish you can have for...
Cucumber Avocado Summer Soup
Cucumber Avocado Summer Soup is light, cooling, full of fiber, easy to digest, and safe for all three Doshas
Vegan Land and Sea Vegetable Soup for Spring
Vegan Land and Sea Vegetable Soup is a gentle way to cleanse and renew the body in Spring, or whenever you feel weak or are recovering from illness. It relies on the deep flavors of root vegetables, sea vegetables, and shitake mushroom. It is a simple soup with subtle...
Epazote Mexican Herb to Relieve Gas
Epazote Mexican Herb to Relieve Gas is popular as a fresh herb in southern Mexican cuisine. It is most famously used in black beans, and is said to have a "carminative" effect. Carminative herbs and spices are medicines that, in the terms of European herbology prevent...
Smoothies for Pitta Dosha
Smoothies for Pitta Dosha People who are Pitta dosha dominant can certainly have more cooling food, as well as raw food that is cooling such as cucumber lettuce and leafy cruciferous veggies sweet fruits coconut flesh, water, and milk milk, butter, ghee And Pitta...
Vegan Gluten-Free Cookies with Jam
Vegan, Gluten-Free Thumbprint Cookies with Jam Low-Sugar, Vegan Thumbprint Cookies are fun to make! Kids love making them and eating them. A great way to get nutrient dense nuts, seeds, and legumes into the diet. I grind my pumpkin seeds and roasted chickpeas in my...
Roasted Garabanzo Cookies
Roasted Garabanzo Cookies are descended, in my brain, from the dry roasted split chickpea (pottu kadalai..பொட்டுக்கடலை) I used to eat when I was a protein starved vegetarian monk in Tamil Nadu, South India, as a youth. Roasted Garabanzo are a favorite snack in South...
Pomegranate Coconut Water Pitta Pacifying Summer Drink
Pomegranate Coconut Water Pitta Pacifying Summer Drink is a low sugar herbal fruit beverage that is strongly Pitta pacifying and cooling to the body perfect for replacing electrolytes in Summer hot weather and hard exercise. Coconut water is a very traditional hot...
Ayurvedic Hibiscus Summer Tea
Ayurvedic Hibiscus Summer Tea is naturally Pitta pacifying. This means its cooling and refreshing in the hot summer months, especially in the late summer Santa Ana conditions here in San Diego with the dry dusty weather. At the same time, because of its slight sour...
Ayurvedic Okra Masala
Indian Style Tri-doshic Okra Masala Here is one of my favorite Okra recipes: Indian Style Tri-doshic Okra Masala. There are many ways to make Okra. Iraqi's cook it with onion and tomato. My friend Mrs. Mehdi with onion, cumin, and black pepper. My Persian friend adds...
Using Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine to Protect Your Digestive Fire in Summer
In summer we sweat and our yang energy or heat keeps getting dispersed and exhausted. On freezing cold days you feel cold, but on boiling hot days you sweat and become exhausted. In winter in every culture people eat heavy high-calorie foods, but in summer switch to...
Healthy Summer Fruit Tart
A Healthy Summer Fruit Tart is a nutrient dense food full of fiber, vitamins, minerals, flavanoids, antioxidants, and protein, with high amounts of life force from fresh ripe, organic ingredients, and without what's bad for you--white sugar, artificial stuff,...
Springtime Tea from Somalia with Cardamom and Mint
Food and drink like language and music spreads between cultures without rules. But within any given tradition, within any given culture, its as if there are unspoken rules that govern change; creativity is allowed, but to a point. In the world of food or music, for...
Daikon Radish: Detoxify and Digest
Daikon Radish is naturally detoxifying. It is pungent, light, and warm, and is delicious in soups, salads, and as a pickled vegetable. Its detox effect is often increased by pairing it with fresh or pickled ginger. Daikon Radish in Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda The...
Wakame Sea Vegetable with Turnip, Pear, and American Ginseng
Wakame is a delicate, mild tasting, low calorie sea vegetable with a succulent texture. A favorite food in Japanese and Korean cuisine, it is traditionally cooked in miso soup, served on its own as a cold side dish (sunomono), or cooked with foods...
Juiced Watermelon with Lime, Ginger, and Salt
Alternative to Iced Drinks in Hot Weather Protect the Agni/ Yang in Summer: Juiced Watermelon with Lime, Ginger, and Salt The other day was quite hot (for SD!), and I swam at the beach after walking down from the top of Torrey Pines, and got home overheated and...
Summer Raw Beet, Sardine, and Pasta Salad
Summer is a time when even cold dry (Vata) types or cold damp (Kapha) types can have little more raw foods. One of the ways to make raw foods more compatible for cold types with weaker digestive energy (Agni/Spleen Qi) is to have it in small amounts with other foods...
Baked Butternut Squash and Black Bean Stew
Cooking Methods in Chinese Food Medicine: From Warm to Hot to Very Hot One of the aspects of Food Medicine we pay attention to in Chinese Medicine is the cooking method itself. Each method of cooking adds relative values of heat to the dish being prepared. Steaming...
Vegan Turkish Lentil Soup
Vegan Turkish Lentil Soup: The other day I found some very lovely Turkish Yellow lentils at the Middle Eastern food store. Here in San Diego, I get my Middle Eastern groceries at either North Park Produce, in City Heights, or out at Heritage International Market in El...
Korean Summer Rice with Job’s Tears, Shitake, and Hijiki
Rice with Job' Tears in Summer In Korea, Rice with Job's tears "barley" (Coix lacryma-jobi in Latin, YiYiRen in Mandarin Chinese, Hato Mugi in Japanese, Uiin in Korean)-- is cooked in the summer to help relieve the effects of the hot, humid weather. Job's tears...
Winter Seasonal Eating
Winter Seasonal Eating In Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda winter seasonal eating is common sensical. Just as its natural to eat and drink cooling things in summer, winter is the time we maintain body heat with warming foods and herbs....
Raw Beet Salad Morrocan and Provencal Styles
Raw Beet Salad is super high in betacyanin, a phyto-nutrient associated with their deep red color. Unfortunately, according to what I have read, this anti-cancer chemical is destroyed by cooking. How To Include Raw Beets Into Salads Though Ayurveda and Chinese...