Fruit is so tasty and so healthy and many of us have come to see it as a healthy snack or desert. More recently people have been cramming fruit into smoothies or juices in order to easily consume the 5 a day in one go. Fruit is also often paired with savoury food, adding sweetness, beauty and colour to a plate. It is true that these gorgeous, beautiful and voluptuous gifts from Mother Nature are packed with health giving goodies, but according to Ayurveda, we need to be really mindful of how and when we eat fruit if we want to truly harvest the health giving benefits. Ayurveda has definite ideas and guidelines about how to eat our fruit.
The fact that you are here on the Vegan Ayurveda website probably means that you are not really interested in consuming animal products. But just in case, Ayurveda says that you should not mix milk with fruits, especially sour fruits and berries. This is because the acid in the fruit will cause curdling and this makes it harder to absorb and digest. Plant milk is better with fruit but it’s still not really recommended by many Ayurvedic practitioners because plant milk and fruit digest at different rates. This also goes for vegetables, grains and nuts because fruit gets digested much, much faster than everything else and then causes fermentation in the gut while waiting for the other food to digest. Melon digests the fastest of all fruits and so it is suggested that melon should always only be enjoyed on its own, about an hour before anything else. This insures a speedy exit and no digestive conflicts.
Try to avoid cartons of juice, they are very low in prana (life giving energy) and dwanda (the benefits of eating the whole fresh fruit). They are high in sugar and not really very good for you at all.
The ideal time to have fruit is for breakfast on its own. It’s a good thing to have fruit two or three times a week for breakfast, especially if you have some increased kapha going on. You can have cooked apples with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Or warm fruit salad is delicious.
I’m also introducing the habit of just having fruit that is in season and grown as locally as possible for breakfast three times a week. The other time of day that I eat fruit is when I have a long stretch between lunch and dinner and I might have an apple or something like that about an hour or so before eating if I’m really hungry. Ayurveda says that it is good to have fruit on an empty stomach.
I confess that I still occasionally have blueberries with my oatmeal, and I really enjoy it when I do! I also don’t think that this is causing too much of an issue and I don’t do it very often. Purists may frown, but I say make Ayurveda fit your life, don’t get so rule bound and strict that you eventually just give up. Some Ayurvedic practitioners do suggest having smoothies and juices and others absolutely don’t recommend them. Again others say it is OK to have dates or raisins with oats.
Find what’s right for you.
As ever, enjoy your fruit, start becoming aware of how and when you eat it and see what is right for you! Everyone is different and I’d be really happy to help you explore and come up with a plan that works for your body.