The main concept in Ayurveda for diet and nutrition is
Agni; literally, ‘fire’. Agni is usually translated as ‘enzymes’
and indicates our capacity of digestion. In other words the Agni of a
person tells us what the person is able to digest. The definition of
‘digest’ means, “assimilation of nutrients and evacuation of
waste”. Collectively the concept of Agni means what nutrients a
person is able to assimilate vs their elimination of waste; e.g.,
material ingested that is non-nutritive. Therefore, Agni is also the
intelligent function of the digestion that is able to distinguish
what portion of the food is nutritive and what portion is waste, or
non-nutritive.
Babies are born with the potential of Agni, but their Agni is not yet
functioning at birth. Thus, all dietary rules for babies are based on
how we can activate the Agni of the baby successfully. A failure to
start the correct function of Agni leads to a number of health
problems and eventual food sensitivities and food
allergies. A classic example of these kinds of problems are colic
pain, diarrhea and skin rashes such as eczema.
Ayurveda advises that a baby be breast fed for at least six months
and up to two years. During the period of breast feeding the
treatments are given to the mother. Once the baby is given
food then then the mother and baby are treated. When the baby
only eats food then the baby alone is treated. Generally speaking
until the child is five years old we treat the parents, not the
child. This logic is based on the fact that the child is dependent on
the parents (or should be) for their diet. If the parent is allowing
the child to choose their food then this is generally catastrophic
and leads to a number of childhood diseases such as diabetes, obesity
or other metabolic disorders.
During
the period of breastfeeding the mother needs to be aware that most
solid foods with take roughly 36 hours to be transformed into milk.
In some cases, liquids for example, the food can become milk in as
little as 12 hours; this is exception rather the rule. Additionally,
an animal based diet, such as meat and dairy, will take 48 to 60
hours before it becomes milk. Awareness on the mothers part is needed
to discover which foods she is eating that the baby cannot digest.
Typically this manifests as colic pain (intestinal gas) and liquid
stools for a baby. The difficulty for the mother is that she will
have problems to trace the food back to the correct meal if she is
not aware of the above time delay her body needs to manufacture milk.
The common tendancy is to just look back to the last meal which an
error because that food is still in the digestive system of the
mother.
The second primary concept of dietary rules in Ayurveda is that of
non-digested, non-assimilated, non-evacuated food, or Ama. Ama is the
result of an Agni which is not working at an optimal level.
Ayurveda considers three states of less than optimal Agni functions;
low, high and variable. If Agni is operating at any of these three
levels the result is Ama. As the definition clearly states the food
stays in the body (non-assimilated, non-evacuated food) and
putrefies. Any food that is left in a warm, humid, dark place will
rot. The human digestive tract is a perfect environment for rotting
food as it is warm, humid and fairly dark. Ayurveda considered Ama to
be one of the main causal factors in pathology.
Typically the mother will have some level of Ama in her body before
and during pregnancy. This Ama (rotten food) is more or less
filtered by the body before the production of milk. However, the
level of Ama is important, or the Ama has been present in the
mother’s body for a long period of time (e.g., years) then some Ama
will pass into the baby. This means that the baby’s Agni will not
only have to learn how to digest food, mother’s milk, but also the
Ama in the milk. Often the failure to digest this Ama manifests as
Eczema or other hard to treat skin disorders. This is why the baby
can be only weeks old and start to show signs of Eczema. In spite of
this tendency mother’s milk is still the best food for the baby.
Eventually the baby will learn how to digest the Ama and the
childhood Eczema usually disappears between the age of 6 to 8 years
old.
Around
six months the baby begins to grow teeth. Once the teeth begin to
come in the baby is giving a sign that it is ready to eat food other
than milk. Giving solid food (mashed, cooked, mixed or otherwise
prepared) is a major mistake in today’s pediatrics. The result of
giving food to babies before their digestion is ready results in Ama.
If the baby gets Ama then increases colic, distention, gas and liquid
stools or constipation, or both. This is the main cause of the
epidemic of skin disorders with babies today – coupled with the
mother passing on her own Ama 80% of infant skin disorders can be
accounted for by this modern practice.
Virtually all traditional cultures for the last several thousand
years (with the exception of Laplanders and Eskimo’s) have given
their children a mono diet of cereals and grains for the first years
of their development. The classic texts of Ayurveda indicate that
children should be started with cereals and grains as the first food
because it builds tissue strength or Bala. It is also easy to
digest for the budding Agni of a baby. Cereals should be the
main food until the age of 8 to 10 years old.
Depending
on your culture either root vegetables or leguminous (beans) can be
added into the grains around 12 months of age. Some cultures, such as
India and Brazil, eat leguminous two to three times per day. Others,
such as Europe and the USA, do not eat many leguminous. Mung Dal and
Adzuki beans are the two most nutritious and easy to digest of all
leguminous. Otherwise start with root vegetables such as carrots,
beets, celery, etc. Avoid potatoes and other Solanacea Family
(eggplant, tomatoes, etc.).
The
basic concept is that Agni needs time to understand and adapt to each
food in order to digest it. Therefore, the rule is that we should
introduce one food at a time. Keep this food for some time until you
are sure the child can digest it – e.g., no colic, etc. – and
then introduce the next food. Avoid at all costs the store bought
“baby foods” that have five to seven different kinds of foods in
them to be “balanced”. From an Ayurvedic point of view the worst
thing you can do is give your child a bunch of different foods at the
same meal – even if they are mixed and made into a puree. This is
because the Agni (or enzymes if you like) needs to sort out the
different foods in order to transform them, or digest them.
A word
on fruit. Fruit is basically cleansing and cooling in nature although
a few exceptions exist. According to Ayurveda fruit does not build
Bala, or strength. It can be useful if the child tends towards hard
stools and constipation. However, the parents should be aware that
fruit will not build tissues and strength needed to go with them.
Hence, they should not be used as a main food, but rather as a
supplement after 12 months old. Bananas are a common food given to
children. In Ayurveda bananas are considered to be sweet and
nourishing in the first stages of digestion and acidic in the second
stage (liver metabolism); they are also constipative.
Following
this basic logic for the first years will reduce the number of
childhood digestive problems and metabolic disorders such as obesity
and diabetes when the child is 8 to 12 years old. The logic of this
is easy to see in the USA and India where this traditional approach
is not followed – hence these countries now have the highest rates
of childhood diabetes in the world.
Even
though much of this information is opposite to what governments,
doctors and nutritionists are telling new parents it does not reduce
the time proven truth of this approach. The advantage of using
traditional forms of medicine is that they have already tried out
everything and found out what works.
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