is the best pungent spice for vata. It helps to improve the dull appetite from which vatas suffer. Also other sweet spices like cinnamon fennel and cardamom are good to improve appetite.

Warm milk at bed time is very good, particularly with a little sugar, or cardamom.

Salted nuts being heavy and oily are very good. Almonds are the best. A dozen whole almonds must be soaked overnight, then peeled and eaten in the morning.

All sweet fruits are good. Green grapes and mangoes are best. Avoid unripe fruits especially bananas. Use vata-churna, a special spice powder during meals.

Pitta Pacifying Diet
Pitta is a hot dosha. Therefore, pittas appreciate cool foods especially in summer. It is a good idea to be scrupulous about having bitter and astringent tastes in the meals supplied through salad and legumes.

• Cool, refreshing food in summer with a decrease in salt, oil and spices all of which are heating to the body. Salads contain two tastes bitter and astringent that balance pitta and are also cold and light. Milk and ice-cream are also good.

• Excessive pitta makes the body too sour. Therefore, avoid pickles, yogurt, sour cream and cheese. Fresh lemon juice is an exception can be used sparingly instead of vinegar in salad dressing. Fermented foods aggravate pitta because of their sourness and alcoholic beverages because of acids in them. Drink herbal tea.

• Fried foods are oily, hot, salty and heavy all qualities that pittas must avoid. On the other hand starchy foods like vegetables, grains and beans are good. Processed and fast foods lean heavily on salt and sour tastes. Spicy food is too intoxicating to the pittas. These must be avoided.

• A low-salt diet is beneficial. Salty snacks are very bad.

• A standard recommendation for aggravated pitta is a glass of warm milk with two teaspoons of ghee ( clarified butter) added to it. This also acts as a laxative which helps flush excess pitta from the system. Have this milk during breakfast or after dinner. Do not take ghee if you have elevated cholesterol.

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

Kapha Pacifying Diet
Kapha is a dosha which is not readily affected by food, but over time, kapha types become imbalanced as a result of eating too many sweet, rich foods. To restore kapha balance anything that increase lightness should be favored.

• Given a choice eat hot food over cold at every meal. Warming up cold kapha digestion is always good for balance. Dry cooking methods like baking, broiling, grilling, sautéing are better for kapha than moist ones like steaming boiling or poaching.

• Before eating, stimulate your appetite with bitter or pungent tastes instead of salty or sour. In general make sure bitter and astringent tastes are there in every meal. Household spices like cumin, fenugreek, sesame seed and turmeric are both bitter and astringent.

• Spicy food with pungent tastes is good for kaphas, specially during winters. It offsets the cold, damp quality that kapha resents.