What are the Gunas in Ayurveda? Ayurvedic Foods Diet According To 3 Gunas

Ayurveda believes that the 3 Gunas (basic qualities of the universe) work together on a mental, physical and emotional level. Everything in this universe consists of (a combination of) these gunas, including your food.

Guna is a Sanskrit word that could be translated as something like “what binds,” it can also be defined as “String, thread, or strand,” or “quality, peculiarity, attribute, property” or “virtue, merit, excellence”. These 3 Guna qualities are present in all human beings, even though the percentages are different in each and each case, Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.

When we speak of Sattva, we are talking about intelligence, the main maker of balance. Rajas would be, on the other hand, the attribute related to energy, change, activity, and turbulence.

This Guna is the maximum responsible for any type of imbalance. Finally, Tamas is the quality of substance, of darkness, of drowsiness. Tamas brings a loss of perception and is in the end, to burden that prevents us from freeing ourselves from the most material.

The Three Gunas in Ayurveda Diet

The most important thing when maintaining a good state of health both physical and mental, first of, it is necessary to promote, the Sattva Guna. For this, there is nothing like meditation and, of course, good nutrition.

Both instruments, together with the practice of Yoga, will serve to calm the Guna Rajas and eradicate the Guna Tamas. In this post, you will learn some basic several indications on the most suitable diets for each Guna.

It goes without saying that from the Tam as the diet you have to flee like the Devil. What would be the point of maintaining a diet that would only serve to enhance the most negative attributes of our nature?

1. Sattvic diet

The ideal Ayurvedic diet for good health, therefore it is fundamentally a sattvic diet. Thanks to it as it would improve our mental energy, our good mood and as a rule, our balance.

The sattvic foods serve to provide lengthen life and health. This diet also serves to cleanse and purify our body, and would therefore be the basis of a correct Ayurvedic diet.

The sattvic food should be natural and fresh, preferably organic food, and should be taken most naturally, raw, boiled, or steamed lightly cooked. Among the sattvic foods we can find the following:

1. The cereals will serve to provide our body with carbohydrates and amino acids that serve the body to synthesize proteins.

• Cereals such as quinoa, oats, rice, millet, corn, etc.

2. When consuming dairy products you have to do it in moderation. An excess of dairy increases the production of mucus and hinders breathing.

• Legumes that provide proteins.
• Spices are fundamental in Ayurvedic food.
• Dairy products such as milkor butter.

3. When we talk about fruits we also talk about juices from them. The juices contribute to our body’s vitamins, minerals, and fiber. In addition, they contain alkaline substances that serve to cleanse the blood.

• Fruits and vegetables.

4. Sweeteners that are used in the sattvic diet should be natural sweeteners such as honey, molasses, or maple syrup.

• Nuts such as nuts, almonds, etc.

2. Rajasic diet

The rajasic diet, which pursues the union between body and mind, is especially indicated for people who perform great physical exhaustion. Even so, it must be borne in mind that rajasic foods are bitter, sour, salty, or too spicy foods.

The person endowed with a rajasic personality is a fundamentally very active and emotionally unstable person. Restless and passionate, the rajas person are a person often uncontrolled, a person who acts by impulses.

Among the rajasic foods are garlic, onion, radish, coffee, tea, and all the excitement. According to the principles of Ayurveda, rajasic foods foment anger, greed, violence, selfishness, or lust. Of all the Guans, Rajas is ultimately responsible for disputes and wars.

3. Tamasic diet

The worst foods you can imagine for your health are precise, Tamasic foods. The Tamasic diet makes the person a lazy person, devoid of motivation and tend.

Giving up Tamasic foods is always a decision that should be made by anyone who decides to improve their way of life. Body, emotional and mental dullness is the main characteristic of the person who abuses Tamasic foods.

What foods are those? Meat and fish are for example. It is also alcohol or the fruit that is unripe green or too ripe. Or fried food grilled or reheated many times.

And the dishes that are not at their point, that is, those that are too raw or too cooked. Tamasic foods are, for example, precooked dishes. And the canned food, the vinegar, the mushrooms, the refined foods, the Chocolate, and the pasta of course.