Foods for Pitta

Foods to Balance Pitta

This is a continuation of the Ayurveda of eating your way to a balanced state of mind body and spirit.

This entry is about balancing Pittas.

These ambitious organizers’ strengths include high mental reasoning, leadership tendencies and competitiveness. In imbalance, they have the tendency to be intolerable, jealous, perfectionists and power hungry. Imbalance will create problems in the circulatory system, sensitivity, allergies and inflammation (both internal (circulatory system and organs) and external (skin). .

If you are not a Pitta but exhibit any of the above symptoms, you can be suffering from a Pitta imbalance and can also follow the same advice to balance.

Things that can tip the scales to manifest these negative tendencies can be triggered by Pitta Weather – hot, damp – eating Pitta Foods – stimulating (caffeine), acidic(vinegar), fat, sour (citrus), spicy(chili peppers), hot, salty – or hanging out with Imbalanced Pittas – overly ambitious, workaholic, extremely envious, status seeking, compulsive, demanding, angry

The general rule is to eat raw and cold foods. These can be adding salads to your meals or following a raw food diet. Learn to favour flavours that are bitter, sweet and astringent and avoid those that are spicy, salty and sour.

The big no-no's are coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, red meat, vinegar, citrus and hot foods.

And the balancing foods can include algae, white fishes, all raw vegetables, natural sweeteners and dairy. An ideal diet is raw food.

A sample daily menu can be;

Breakfast

Pittas have a healthy appetite but can be irritable if their eating schedule is disrupted or late. A natural route to Pitta imbalance is to ignore hunger to maintain work or any external schedules.

1. Cold whole grains cereal with any seeds with cold milk
2. Cooked whole grains with roasted sesame seeds and fresh or dried fruits
3. Fruit smoothies made without yogurt (acidic)
4. Almond Milk made with soak almonds then blending it with water and any natural sweetener
5. Herbal non-caffeinated tea with any natural sweetener. Make an ice tea from herbal teas instead of black tea.

Lunch

This will be your main meal for the day. Make sure lunch is not later than 2:00pm
1. Raw Fish Sushi with vegetables and brown rice
2. Whole wheat pasta with nuts or legumes and vegetable
3. Salads with nuts or legumes – replacing vinegar with lemon juice or use only oil.
4. Dessert is fresh fruit as per Snack suggestions
5. on really hot days – ice cream

Snack

It is best to eat according to a regular schedule. So extend your habit to organize to your daily meals and snacks

1. Sweet fruits – melons, papaya, mangos, bananas
2. Smoothies made with ice, sweet fruit and milk
3. Smoothies made with ice, sweet fruit and natural sweetners
4. No sour fruits like citrus
5. No yogurt

Dinner

Eat non-oily, fresh and raw. To prevent acidic stomach and poor digestion eat at a regular schedule.

1. Whole grain pasta with cream sauce, young low salt cheese, nuts or legumes and fresh vegetable. Do not eat tomato sauce (acidic)
2. White fish with vegetables and brown rice
3. Salad with raw protein – nuts (sliced almonds), seeds (roasted sesame seed), legumes (hummus, tofu soaked in spices)
4. Veggie burger with steamed vegetables or salad ( depends on season) – No fries

Pitta Hors d’euves ( from the book Party)

The criteria for these dishes are;

• The food ingredients follow the Ayurvedic diet for Pittas
• Use whole organic food ingredients
• Minimal waste – edible containers
• The dishes chosen are from raw food diet which is very suitable for Pittas
• Please modify to suit your tastes


1. Seaweed Beet Salad and lettuce (the container)

a. Seaweed ---- choose your favourite seaweeds

i. Soak them in separate bowls- for fifty rolls the total amount of dry seaweed should be about a cup ( a cup and a half if you want more seaweed to vegetable) of dry volume
ii. Arame is easy with not further preparation needed
iii. Kombu and Wakame and other broad leaf seaweed need to be cut into pieces
iv. Nori is more suitable as a the wrap so don’t soak it.

b. Roast Sesame Seeds ahead

i. Heat a iron frying pan
ii. Add a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of oil
iii. Then add 500mg or raw sesame seeds
iv. Roast seeds with constant stirring for 1 minute
v. Put roasted seeds into a small bowl

c. Grate the following vegetables

i. 1-2 beets
ii. 3 carrots
iii. ½ onion

d. Sauce ----

i. Mix in one at a time the following---
1. ½ avocado,
2. 2 tablespoons tahini,
3. ¼ teaspoon ginger,
4. 1 tablespoon basil,
5. 2 tablespoon Lemon Juice
6. 2 tablespoon Lime Juice

e. Mix the vegetables with the drained Seaweed
f. Prepare Lettuce – wash, dry then cut into uniform pieces for wrapping
g. Put the vegetable seaweed mixture into each piece of lettuce
h. Sprinkle with the roasted sesame
i. Wrap lettuce around the mixture
j. Or leave it open


2. Tofu and Sprouts in Nori

a. Tofu Marinated
i. Drain one pieces of firm organic tofu and put it in a strainer to release excess moisture from the block
ii. Cut into square strips
iii. Mix marinade in a bowl with
1. ¼ cup Olive Oil
2. 2 Tables spoons Lime Juice
3. 2 table spoons Soya Sauce
iv. Put the drained tofu in the marinade and strore for hours or overnight

b. Rinse sprouts
c. Cut the Nori sheets into widths similar the lengths of the Tofu Logs

d. Drain Tofu of Marinade
e. Put the Tofu Logs along one end of the Nori sheets
f. Put sprouts in the same direction
g. Roll the 2 ingredients
h. Put a weight to keep it from unraveling (I used a Kitchen knife across the rolls)
i. Serve right away when finished rolling





Macadamia Lime Mousse ( makes 48 mini cupcake size tarts)

The Shell (the container)

a. Mix the following ingredients into a measuring cup
a. ½ tablespoon Lime Zest
b. 4 tablespoons lime juice
c. 2 tablespoons Vanilla
d. 1 teaspoons Himalayan Salt
e. 3 tablespoons Xylitol
f. 4 tablespoons Agave
b. Turn on food processor and then slowly add
a. 4 cups of macadamia nuts (raw of course)
b. 2 cups of shredded coconut (make sure it is still moist)
c. Then as your mixing cup of ingredients
c. Put cupcake papers into your cup cake tins (use tins for small cupcakes)
d. Put a teaspoon into the paper holders and then put a pieces of the cupcake paper on top
e. Use a shape ( I used the handle end of wide handled ice cream scoop) and press the nut mixture
f. Continue until you have used up dough (2 tins of 24 cupcake )
g. Put the mixture in the freezer

The Filling -

a. Mix 5 Avocado in the food processor or blender
b. Add the following ingredients one at a time
a. ¼ cup lime zest
b. ½ cup Lime Juice
c. ¼ agave
d. 2 teaspoons vanilla
e. 2 tablespoons of Organic Unrefined Coconut Oil
f. ¼ teaspoon Himalayan salt
g. 4 tablespoons Xylitol (add more if you want it sweeter)

c. Chill the mixture in the freezer for ½ Hour

d. After 30 minutes take out both the shells and the filling
e. Put a teaspoon of filling in each shell
f. Put the tarts back into the freezer
g. When you are ready to serve take out the tins of tarts and put a berry of your choice on top of the filling