Ayurveda Practical Tips

34yo Pitta-Kapha male from Amsterdam (NL) sharing some practical tips on Ayurveda for everyday practice!  Logo source: rawpixel.com

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An instant pot can be efficient

I don’t own one, but I can imagine a crock pot (aka Instant pot) can come in handy. They are electrically powered pans, with high pressure function. It’s possible to program these pans, which means in theory you can start the pot to cook a meal and have it ready at lunch time, without having to look or watch the time. 

Do beware there is a risk of burning your food when you are not around. I think it’s possible to prepare a mungsoup in it, when you are not around. But I think it’s best to do that in a small ammount and with a large portion of water added to it, to reduce this risk of burning the food.  

I personally don’t feel good about using this when not at home. 

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Steam your veggies

By steaming your veggies all nutrients will stay inside and not washed away in the cooking water. It’s also convenient that there is a timer function and turns off automatically after a certain amount of time. 

I might buy a steaming pan in the future. Because cooking with gas is cheaper than using electricity. 

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Quickly remove apple skin

Whenever I make an apple sauce I use the Ikea SPRITTA apple slicer. After that I remove the skin, add some ghee, a bit water, cinnamon and ginger, heat it et voilà.  

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Non parboiled rice

In almost every supermarket I am able to visit in The Netherlands, all available rice has been parboiled. Which means it is already partially cooked and the cooking time for the consumer is lowered. 

Ayurveda considers that in every processing step some prana is lost and therefore I feel it’s better to choose rice that isn’t parboiled. 

The easiest way to know this is the case is looking at the cooking time. When the packaging says it takes 30-40 minutes to cook, you know it hasn’t been parboiled. 

Offcourse 30-40 minutes is a long time. Therefore, I use a pressure cooker in which it takes about 20 minutes. Which I consider acceptable in my daily life.

Non parboiled rice is available a health food stores.  

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Buy virgin (raw) coconut oil

It’s ayurveda’s rule of thumb to choose products that are as unprocessed as possible. Coconut oil is available as ‘deodorizedl’ or virgin. The process applied to achieve deodorization is using hot steam. In this process, coconot oil will lose some of its high nutrional value. 

Therefore it’s best to buy virgin coconot oil. There is a little coconut taste, but I personally don’t mind at all. 

Take notice of this when you buy coconut oil

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Radiation (2): Actions you can take in your living space

As I wrote in Radiaton (1), I am a bit worried about the health effects of radiation (wifi, bluetooth etc) in our houses and everyday surrounding. 

Here’s some tips you can apply to lower the radiation in the home:

1. Disable wifi on your modem/router and only use cables. Or enable a power saving mode in which wifi is only on when there is a connection with a phone, laptop etc

You can login to your modem via your web browser. Instructions differ from brand and type. Refer to your Internet service provider for assistance or do some googling to figure out how. 

2. If you use a laptop and don’t have an ethernet connection on the laptop, you can buy an ethernet usb adapter. Make sure you disable wifi and bluetooth in the settings of Windows or macOs, otherwise there is no gain. 

3. Turn off appliances that use wifi when not using them. For instance your printer, television (better to just disable wifi in settings), your phone. 

4. Make well thought choices in what kind of product you are buying. Will you buy wireless speakers, thermostats, mediaproducts or is it best to buy a wired version?

5. Use a USB tethering mode when working outdoors with the laptop This is kind of a technical solution and takes a little effort. I can use the USB tethering mode of my Android phone. I attach a usb cable to my phone and laptop and hit USB tethering in settings. After that my laptop will be able to use my phone for the internet connection. This makes it able to lay the phone at a certain distance from me. Which I consider better than the laptop very close to me as a Wifi antenna. Off course, you have to turn down the wifi of the laptop to have effect. 

Important: on a macbook this doesn’t work right away. First install Horndis

My laptop and phone attached 

Screenshot of my android phone USB tethering settings (in Dutch)

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Radiation (1): Orgonite products to protect from radiation

Personally I am kind of worried about the radiation around us coming from Wifi, bluetooth, phones etcetera. 

There are products on the market which are called orgonite, which say to neutralize the effect of radiation. Included in the orgonite products, are crystals which have some healing effects, that are amplified by the use in orgonite (If I am right).

I bought some products called Dooozz discs. These are called Bionite and work on the same principle as Orgonite. This organisation really seems to know what they are talking about and what kind of Bionite/Orgonite you need in which specific room of your house. 

Dooozz website: https://www.dooozz.nl/ 

It’s a subjective experience but I do think I am sleeping better with these discs in my house. 

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Making a spice mix

This is probably something a lot of people are doing already, but is something for me it took some time to think of.

With making a spice mix there’s no need to open several jars of spices and add them to the pan one at a time. 

Right now I made spice mix of powders from turmeric, coriander seeds fenugreek, asfoetida, ginger and black pepper. 

Just add them to a glass jar and mix it up. Saving time and effort during meal preparation.

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Cleaning a copper cup

Below video shows how to clean a copper cup with vinegar. 

Copper metal forms, when in contact with air, copper oxides. A layer of copper oxides will form up to a point that no copper will be given off into the water any longer. So it’s needed to regularly clean the copper cup. There are several ways to do that. 

I personally prefer pooring in vinegar, because the other methods can be such a hassle to do regularly.  

It’s also possible to add some water to the vinegar, so the bottle of vinegar takes longer for replacement. 

My ayurvedic practitioner didn’t advise me particularly to use a copper cup, only maybe during summertime. 

However I recently watched a video on YouTube by John Douillard on drinking copper water which can contribute in not getting infected by the current virus outbreak. As this is the current situation at the moment of writing, I started using my copper cup again, at least for the coming time.

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Peeling almonds

Almonds are known for their high nutritional value and are part of my diet regularly. The brown skin of almonds is difficult to digest, so it's better to eat them with the skin removed.

It’s best to buy almonds that aren’t roasted. Roasting will cause part of the good fats within the nuts to go down. Also roasted nuts can contain a larger amount of transfats which you want to avoid. (Source)  

How to remove the skin?

According to this source it's best to soak almonds before eating and then remove the skin. However, if you haven't thought of that or don’t have the time, it's also possible to blanche them for about one minute and peel the almonds by taking them between thumb en pointing finger and squeezing the almond out of its skin.

You can also buy them without the skin, however it’ll cost you more. 

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These large babies are really convenient for keeping tea warm all day. They also come with a pump system. They are not suitable for traveling, but as they are large, their insulating properties are really good!

I bought this one at a local discount shop. It’s not pretty but it sure does work good. Keeping my cumin-coriander-fennel tea warm all day long.

Tip: also an option to make the tea before bedtime to have it still warm and ready during the morning.

If I ever buy another I will look for a more nicer looking stainless steel one:

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Using old jars for herbs and spices

Old glass jars are really useful for storing spices, tea or herbs air free. I placed some spoons I bought in the jars for dosing.

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Use a timer switch for water boiling in the morning

This is my water boiler. Often before bedtime, I fill it and flip the on switch. I connected the power cable to a timer switch. Mornings around 6.00 the power turns on and my water will boil. Getting up half an hour later, the water is cooled down to a drinkable temperature for my glass of water after waking and oral hygiene. 

I always add some more water, so I have more freshly cooked lukewarm water ready during the morning. 

I chose a water boiler made out of glass for most part. I prefer this over a plastic one, because of possible chemicals coming from the plastic into the water.

Note: make sure you close your water boiler properly so it doesn't keep on boiling continuously. Also keep it on a place where it's firmly grounded as you are not around when it boils. 

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A high pressure cooker is a great investment for a healthier diet on a daily basis. Because the pan is sealed, pressure builds and water boils at 10+ degrees higher temperature. Therefore cutting the cooking time in halve approximately. This makes it more practical to choose for fresh non-proccessed foods, like non-parboiled rice. Also lectins within beans, chemicals which are considered toxic for your digestive track, are being eliminated for most part because of the higher temperature (source). Also saving you money on your energy bill! There are a lot of videos on YouTube on how to use a pressure cooker. These pots are not dangerous or complicated!

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These cheap kitchen timers are on my fridge and are great for everyday use. I bought two, for cooking several parts of meals. Whether it's a kitchari or some sauteed veggies. I can walk away from my stove and don't worry about forgetting time. Also convenient for other things like abhyanga, facemasks or even meditation.

I made a short video on how to set en reset the timer