• For breakfast anything hot and light is good while anything cold, heavy or sweet is not good. Skipping breakfast for kapha types is considered all right. Butter, ice cream and cheese are very bad since they make the system colder and more congested. Low fat milk is best. Low sugar diet is good. Honey recommended.

• Raw fruits vegetables and salads are extremely good, since their fiber tones the intestinal tract, in addition to the benefits of their astringent tastes. Generally Ayurveda prefers all food cooked but an exception is made for the kaphas.

• Deep-fried foods are bad. There is no need to banish all fats but less oil and butter should be used in cooking. Anything crisp, fresh and stimulating balances kapha.

• Fast foods are too oily, salty and sweet avoid them.

• Use kapha-churna a special spice powder with your meals.

Panchakarma

The miracle of human body is that it has a natural healing intelligence, which is capable of constantly rejuvenating itself. However, due to bodily weaknesses and wrong habits of food, toxic impurities accumulate in the body and this natural capacity of healing of the body gets blocked. To remedy this situation Ayurveda offers the gift of Panchakarma, the science of rejuvenation. Through this process the body gets rid of the degenerating influence of the toxic substances enabling it to once again exercise its natural rejuvenating abilities.

Panchakarma is derived from two Sanskrit words 'Pancha' means five and 'Karma' means actions. These actions are specialized techniques for purification and rejuvenation of the body. According to Ayurveda the body normally uses three routes to eliminate ama, i.e. toxic substances and waste products - the mouth / nose, anus / urethra and pores of the skin. The three doshas act as the vehicle to carry ama either upward, downward or out through the periphery. Panchakarma's curative and rejuvenative power lies in its ability to utilize and stimulate the natural movement of the doshas to eliminate ama. Panchakarma takes advantage of the naturally occurring cycles of the doshas migration and utilizes the active phases of each dosha to draw dosha specific ama out of the dhatus and eliminate it from the body. It is here that Panchakarma differs from every other form of treatment including all other modes of detoxification and purification. The uniqueness of Panchakarma is that it takes into consideration the psychophysiology of the patient. It is an excellent 'shodhana chikitsa' or purification therapy. It is designed to draw ama out of the dhatus, return it to the digestive tract and from there expel it from the body.

Preparatory Processes of Panchakarma
Before a patient is administered the panchakarma treatment his body is prepared by important preliminary practices as mentioned below:

Snehana
The first preparatory step is internal oleation orinternal snehana. The patient is asked to drink a specific quantity of ghee (clarified butter) every day for several days. The ghee creates a thin film in the body's channels that lubricates them allowing the ama lodged in the deep