Ayurvedic Gastronomy for the Jet Setting Soul

CHENNAI: Make your everyday food Ayurvedic — that’s the message behind Pankhuri Agarwal’s new book Karma Kitchen. The author, a hynotherapist and tarot card reader by profession tells us that she intended to write a book about healing originally, which after a bout of writer’s block ended up becoming a book on well... ‘disgestive healing’ courtesy her love for food.

“I’ve been a foodie all my life, and whenever I would hear someone say things like: ‘don’t eat ghee, it’s bad for you’ I would think to myself — then what do we do with it. wasn’t it made to be eaten?” she recalls. And the questions only grew more frequent, with Pankhuri’s family steeped in a strong ayurvedic background, regularly attending lectures of prominent vaidiyars (ayurvedic experts) and stringently following their practices. But the real spark came when she heard a well respected vaidiyar say at a lecture: ‘Pizza is bad for health’ and in the same session, ‘jalebis are good’. Beyond the obvious cultural distinction, Pankhuri remembers, “How can a dish that has refined flour, dipped in sugar and deep fried be healthy?”

 And she pursued her questions head on, until she found an answer. “I found in this case that jelabis eaten at 4 am with cow’s milk, if had for a month can actually help cure a sinus problem!” Pankhuri tells us. After exhaustive discussions with her family vaidiyar combined with her favourite pastime of experiments in the kitchen, it seemed a natural progression for the 28-year-old to catalogue it all on paper. “People immediately associate ayurveda with millets and bajra and no salt,” Pankhuri relates, “but believe me I found everything from rice to cannabis to alcohol during my research - the important part is more how to prepare it, when and why.”

So in Karma Kitchen, there are 20 recipes for each of the six seasons in the Ayurveda practice, and this includes everything from Puliyodharai to Pizza the first time author assures us. “I’ve also made it a point to list what the benefits are of changing around a few ingredients or methods of cooking,” she elaborates. To give us an idea, Pankhuri drops this bomb. “Did you know that the tamarind you use should ideally be more than two years old, otherwise it is bad for your bones?” The same is the case with rice, she reveals, which if it’s over two years old is much healthier and easier to digest.

As for those who have made losing weight their New Year’s resolution this year, Pankhuri some novel insight to share. “The next time you have a craving for potato chips, find what you’re really craving. Is it the potato or the salt?” the author says. “Nine times out of 10, it is the salt.” In other words, she finishes, “It’s your body telling you that you have a deficiency!”

Karma Kitchen is priced at `1,250 and is available on Amazon, Flipkart, Notion Press and at Chamiers
http://www.medindia.net/slideshow/foods-that-improve-anemia.asp