Vata Pitta Balancing Diet

Should I eat an anti-inflammatory diet (Pitta balancing), or a rejuvenative one (Vata balancing)?

A question that comes up often is how to eat when more than one dosha is out of balance. Most commonly, vata and pitta combine in excess in the digestive system.

It’s quite common for more than one dosha to be out of balance at the same time.

The simplest approach is to find the overlap between the healing approaches for the two doshas.

Let’s check in to see if your digestive system is saying it needs anti-P / anti-inflammatory approaches to food.

• loose stools
• narrow, ribbony stools
• more than 2 BM/ day
• heartburn or acidity
• urgent BMs
• bright red border of tongue

Let’s check in to see if your digestive system is saying it needs rejuvenative approaches to food.

Yup, it does. Take my word for it. I haven’t met anyone in modern urban living that doesn’t have depletion, or some degree of vata imbalance. This is why I personally combine the pitta balancing with the vata balancing in my food approach.

• bloating
• gas
• pain or cramping
• a lot of coating on your tongue
• food sensitivities
• constipation or straining
• hard or dry stools

Here is an example of how I would approach a V and P balancing diet:

warm in temperature
moist, cooked meals
spiced with cooling or neutral culinary spices
avoid pungent spices
mostly plant based, and cruciferous family veggies
sweet & bitter tastes predominate
heavy, or nurturing in quality
avoid fried foods, fermented foods, and too much salt
favor foods with cooling properties (we can do this without aggravating vata if the food is cooked and spiced)

To get to this approach, I listed out all the ways I would balance V and P separately, and then selected the overlapping facets of the two approaches. There was also a bit of seeing what may really increase or aggravate V or P to see what to avoid.

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If you have all 3 doshas out of balance, we recommend cleansing to reset the digestive system. Then a very middleground diet: not too heavy or light, not too spicy or bland. spices that are not too cooling or heating. We’d focus primarily on building healthy agni (digestive capacity).