Convalescent Food Practices in Ayurveda

Abstract

Food has been a principal modality of health care intervention in Ayurveda. Owing to the advent of strong synthetic medicine during the past few decades, other holistic aspects of health care, including food, were either neglected or ignored. It is only recently that a resurgence of comprehensive health care wisdom including food has been observed. This revival of interest in food as a means of health care intervention, both during health and also in disease, is partially the result of experiencing failures of targeted therapies in alleviating diseases and bringing out holistic recorrections and well-being often residing outside the domain of biochemical correction for a disease. Convalescent food was a strong submission of traditional health care emphasizing the importance of food and its processing, which may promote better healing in general or in a particular clinical situation. There are multiple ways of preparing food, and surprisingly the ultimate biological effects of processed foods are found to be dependent upon the method employed for food preparation. It is revealing to know that many of these age-old convalescent food practices described in Ayurveda have a strong scientific foundation, as has been shown in many recent studies.