Prefer freshly prepared, warm, home-made meals.
Eat in a calm, pleasant environment and in good company.
Do not eat too slowly or too quickly.
Leave 3–6 hours between meals so your body has enough time to digest.
Do not overdo it with water.
The sweet taste acts very quickly on the taste buds, stimulating the production of saliva and other digestive juices. If you eat something sweet at the end of a meal, you slow down your digestion. If it feels unnatural to begin with something sweet, try at least one or two bites before eating vegetables, chapati or rice. This will help you absorb vitamins and nutrients more effectively.
According to Ayurveda, every meal should include all six tastes. One of the classical Ayurvedic texts, the Sushruta Samhita, describes the correct order of tastes to support proper digestion.
Start with the sweet taste, continue with sour and salty, then follow with pungent, bitter, and finally astringent. In someone who is hungry (we should eat only when genuinely hungry, not merely because something tastes good), the sweet taste at the beginning helps calm Vata (the element of air and ether, wind) in the stomach.
Sour and salty tastes in the middle of the meal help stimulate the digestive fire in the small intestine.
Pungent, bitter, and astringent tastes then help subdue and balance Kapha (the element of earth and water, mucus).
