Keep the Digestive Fire Going

photo via leadtheteam.net

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from the team at Tofu Yu. Whatever way you like to celebrate Thanksgiving (with turkey, tofurkey, veggie tacos, or fasting), we hope the day brings (brought) you bountiful joy, love, and peace.

Holidays have a way of bringing out the best and worst of us sometimes. The pressure of enjoying the holidays and impressing others with our culinary and conversational skills can put a damper on things and affect our digestion. Remember to breathe. Take your time to inhale and exhale. Slow breaths. It's just food (and no doubt delicious) and conversation.

Now when it comes to digestive tranquility, here's what Ayuredic and traditional Chinese medicine practitioner Scott Blossom has to say in an article published on www.care2.com:

"For successful digestive fire tending, at least from an Ayurvedic perspective, consider these images:

• Heavy foods, like flesh foods, dairy, highly processed and intensely sweet foods are big logs. (Actually, dairy and intensely sweet foods, especially sweetened dairy foods like ice cream, are more like green or soggy logs, since they are the hardest to digest for most people.)
• Nuts and legumes, which fall in the middle of the spectrum from heavy to light, are well-seasoned medium logs; their vegetable fat and protein content make them both easy to burn and substantial enough to burn for awhile.
• Vegetables and fruits are light foods, easy to burn but quick to burn out.  Fiber-rich foods like these are the sticks that keep the fire burning, that stir it up and keep air circulating within it (via healthy peristalsis and elimination patterns).
• Judicious amounts of alcohol (apertif anyone?) and seasonings are your matches and kindling."

So if we think of our feast as a well-tended fire, it seems that as usual moderation is the key. Not too much of anything. Although we'd like to add one ingredient not mentioned above: LOVE. (And lots of it.)

Happy Thanksgiving!