Ayurvedic Kitchari Recipe with Coconut Milk - The Herbeevore (2024)

FAQs

What does Ayurveda say about coconut milk? ›

By nature an ambitious organ, the liver falls victim to intense, hot blooded emotions and pitta internal heat conditions. Coconut milk replenishes a liver deficient in fats, and has special cooling properties to soothe an overheated liver. Coconut milk is heavier to digest than coconut butter and coconut oil.

Kitchari Is a Complete Protein

The combination of rice and mung dal provides all the amino acids needed to form a complete protein. Eaten on their own, each of these foods is missing one or more of the essential amino acids that our bodies are not able to make on their own. However, together they make magic happen!

Sweet, cooling, sattvic, heavy and oily. Coconut is good for vata and pitta and aggravating for kapha in large amounts. Coconuts are considered a holy food in India and are often broken at the beginning of ceremonies and offered to God to signify the breaking of the ego.

A kitchari reset offers many benefits, like improved digestion, increased energy levels, increased mental clarity and a sense of overall balance. It helps to eliminate accumulated toxins, reduces inflammation and promotes a healthy metabolism. In just a weekend, a kitchari cleanse can reset your mind and body.

Coconut milk can cause digestive issues, in people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Some people may have coconut allergies and may experience abdominal pain after consuming coconut milk.

Coconut milk is a naturally lactose-free, low-FODMAP fiber source. It's easier to digest because it doesn't pull water into the bowels like high-FODMAP foods. And fiber literally pushes food through your digestive system to make the process run more smoothly.

It's often suggested that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but in Ayurvedic practice, lunch is actually the most important. Midday is when our digestive fire (called “agni” in Sanskrit) is at its strongest, so it's best to eat the biggest, heartiest, most nourishing meal for lunch.

In general, you can eat enough kitchari to feel satiated but not to the point of exploding (my grandfather always used to say, eat until you can still fit in half a burger into your stomach, you get the point!).

This is a very gentle cleanse, as cleanses go, so you will most likely not find yourself experiencing discomfort. Having said that, you could still experience physical or emotional ups and downs, headaches, body aches, fatigue, irritability. These are all normal, make sure you sleep & hydrate loads.

Cooling properties: Coconut water has natural cooling properties that can help regulate body temperature and reduce heat stress.

How do you calm a Vata immediately? ›

Stay warm, calm, and relaxed. Indulge in hot baths, warm sesame oil massages, steam and heat treatments, and soothing music. Learn how different foods will affect your constitution. Avoid frozen, cooling, and dried foods, but eat warming, rich, oily foods, only in moderation.

Ancient Ayurvedic scholar Bhav Mishra wrote that when a coconut becomes mature, it becomes heavy to digest, and it can also aggravate Pitta or Vata if the digestive agni of the individual is low. Mature coconuts can also build up toxic ama by interfering with digestion.

You may keep eating kitchari for a few days, even after the cleanse is over, but you can begin to add other foods to your eating plan. Doing this will help make sure you don't upset your digestive system or return to old habits too quickly, potentially reversing the effects of the cleanse.

Kitchari is very easy to digest, which makes it a wonderful food for any cleansing regimen. It allows the digestive system to rest, allocating extra energy to the body's natural detoxification processes.

Kedgeree evolved from a well-known Indian dish called kitchari or khichdi, a mixture of rice and lentils flavored with toasted spices. During colonial rule the British adapted kitchari using some of their own familiar ingredients, including smoked fish, eggs, and cream.

Coconut milk is the exception to this rule, as it is cooling enough for pitta while also nourishing and pacifying for vata. Because of its cooling and heavy qualities, it is not the best choice for kapha.

In Ayurveda, generally Coconut Milk is recommended to people with an imbalanced Vata Dosha, for both consumption as well as application.

Cow's milk is considered to be the best, but raw goat milk is fine to use too.