Beyond Raw Salads: Gut Health and Vitality in Ayurveda
Hi and welcome! I’m Evangeline—mom, Registered Massage Therapist, Yoga teacher, and lover of all things health and wellness. I started this blog back in the early days of Covid19 as a way to stay in touch with my clients, and it’s grown into a space to share what I love most. Here you’ll find simple, nourishing recipes I make for my family, sprinkled with Ayurveda and Yoga wisdom. My hope is that these posts inspire you to care for yourself in small, joyful ways and feel a little more balanced in everyday life.
In Ayurveda, gut health, sleep, and balanced daily activity form the foundation of lasting well-being—a perspective increasingly supported by modern research. At the heart of this is digestion, working in close partnership with the liver—the seat of digestion in Ayurveda. The liver is the body’s master filter: it cleanses the blood, produces bile to metabolize fats, clears toxins, and carries out countless vital functions. When the gut is balanced with thriving colonies of friendly bacteria, and the liver is supported in its essential work, the entire system benefits—energy becomes steadier, mood lifts, immunity strengthens, and resilience grows.
Potent Foods: Onions and Garlic in Contex
One hallmark of digestive health is the presence of thriving colonies of friendly bacteria. This is why, in recipes such as my Easy Vegan Caesar Salad from this past summer, I prepare it without garlic. While garlic and onions are well known for their medicinal power against colds and flus—acting almost like natural antibiotics—they can also disrupt beneficial bacteria. In Ayurveda, these foods are not seen as “bad,” but as potent allies to be used purposefully and medicinally, rather than as everyday staples.
Causes of Sluggish Digestion
Rich and creamy foods can feel deeply satisfying—and for pitta dosha, they can even be soothing, since pitta benefits from cooling, nourishing elements. Yet modern treats like ice cream or take-out meals, while enjoyable in the moment, often create longer-term problems: clogging, heaviness, and sluggish digestion. In Ayurveda, this is linked to the build-up of ama—partially digested food that burdens the body and, over time, may pave the way toward metabolic disorders.
Other foods that clog the body’s channels—including the arteries—are heavy meats such as beef and pork, refined sugar, ultra-processed foods, hard aged cheeses, and unfermented soy. Balance is key: instead of heavy meats, choose lighter proteins like fish or chicken. For vegetarians, fresh soft cheeses such as paneer or cottage cheese, along with a variety of gut-friendly lentils and small beans like split mung beans or red lentils, are excellent options.
Raw salads, though widely celebrated in modern diets, can also challenge the digestive system, especially for those with sensitive or impaired digestion. Their fibrous texture is harder to break down, often leading to bloating or discomfort. In Ayurveda, excess raw food disturbs vata dosha, which governs circulation, timing, distribution, and the flow of nutrients and fluids throughout the body. Because raw vegetables are cold, rough, and dry—qualities that increase vata’s naturally light and mobile nature—they can aggravate imbalance when eaten in excess.
For those who enjoy salads, balance comes from preparation: adding a dressing with oil, lime or lemon juice, warming spices, and fresh herbs, or lightly cooking vegetables can soften their rough qualities, making them gentler and easier to digest.
Optimize Nutrient Absorption
From a nutritional perspective, raw vegetables also contain phytates, oxalates, and goitrogens—naturally occurring
occurring compounds that can reduce the absorption of important minerals, particularly calcium and zinc. When eaten in excess, these compounds may gradually deplete the body’s mineral stores. For example, recent research has linked high phytate and oxalate intake to lower calcium bioavailability, contributing to decreased bone health, osteoporosis, and fracture risk in adults.
Cooking vegetables helps reduce these substances, making minerals and other nutrients more bioavailable and easier for the body to assimilate. This aligns closely with Ayurveda’s emphasis on not just what you eat, but how it is prepared. A thoughtfully cooked meal often delivers nourishment in a way that raw food cannot, supporting both the digestive process and overall vitality.
And while plant-based diets are highly valued in Ayurveda, it is also essential to ensure that they include key nutrients for long-term health and balance: Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, iron, zinc, calcium, magnesium, and omega-3 fatty acids. Attending to these nutrients helps sustain energy, resilience, and harmony in both body and mind.
Attending to these nutrients helps sustain energy, resilience, and harmony in both body and mind. Ultimately, the goal is not to eliminate raw foods or restrict variety, but to find balance—choosing preparation methods and seasonal adjustments that keep digestion strong and the whole system in harmony.
Finding Balance
Raw salads may feel refreshing in summer, but if you’re prone to vata imbalances—dry skin, bloating, anxiety, or irregular digestion—it’s wise to have raw salads in moderation, and none or minimal during cooler months. Supporting vata dosha includes simple daily practices: sipping warm teas, eating mindfully, getting adequate rest, practicing meditation, and cooking with ghee or olive oil to soften the rough, cold, dry qualities of vata foods.
This is where Ayurvedic cooking truly shines—guidelines offer personalization, balance, preparation (samskar), and combination (samyog) of foods. When we align food with season and constitution, digestion strengthens and vitality flourishes.
Vata Imbalances May Increase During Cooler Seasons
Vata dosha is considered the “king of the doshas,” as my Ayurvedic teacher, Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra, would say. This is because vata governs the intelligence of the body—guiding circulation, movement, and the precise timing and delivery of substances like hormones, neurotransmitters, blood, and fluids. Keeping vata balanced is key to steadiness, ease, and proper function throughout all systems of the body. Signs of vata imbalances include:
Dry skin, dehydration, or dry mouth
Stiffness, cracking joints, muscle spasms or palpitations
Constipation, gas, irregular digestion
Poor circulation, irregular sleep, anxiety, restlessness
Feeling underweight or emaciated
Cultivating Digestive Harmony
As autumn deepens, dominated by the lightness of air and space, we’re reminded that food is more than fuel—it is medicine, rhythm, and grounding. Nourishing digestion with warm, wholesome, freshly prepared meals not only sustains the gut, but also supports mental clarity, emotional steadiness, and energy through seasonal change.
4 Simple Tips for Digestive Harmony
Favour warm, cooked meals – gentler on the gut than cold or raw foods.
Spice it right – add gentle digestive spices like fennel, coriander, cumin, or turmeric to steamed grains or proteins. Try adding a crushed cardamom pod and a cinnamon stick in your morning grains—cardamom helps digest protein, while cinnamon supports carbohydrate digestion.
Cook with good oil – ghee or pure olive oil both nourish and soften dryness. Ghee has a high smoke point of 485°F (252°C), and pure extra-virgin olive oil at 350°F (177°C).
Eat mindfully – pause, breathe, and enjoy without distractions to support assimilation.
Cooking with awareness—choosing the right foods, preparing them with care, and eating with presence—remains one of the simplest, most effective ways to cultivate vitality and balance.
References
Vaidya R. K. Mishra- Notes from Shaka Vansiya Ayurveda Courses, Practicum, Conferences and Lectures 2003-2015
