Ayurvedic Detox diet

The cusp between winter and spring is the ideal time to do an at-home internal cleansing program, to allow your body to release the toxins that may have built up over the long cold winter.

A complete ayurvedic cleansing program includes 15 days of preparation and 45 days of actual cleansing. Ayurvedic healers recommend paying special attention to your diet during these two phases to avoid overtaxing your digestion and to enable purification to occur easily and completely. Maharishi Ayurveda does not recommend fasting or entirely liquid diets such as juices, because that may cause your agni (digestive fire) to become imbalanced.

Here are some suggestions from The Council of Maharishi Ayurveda Physicians for diet management during detox:

Avoid Ama-producing foods

Ama is the product of incomplete digestion — it represents sticky toxic matter that can clog the channels of your body that carry nutrients to the cells and waste out of the body. Since cleansing is done to clear ama out of the body, you'll want to stay away from foods that build more ama in the body. From the ayurvedic perspective, leftovers, and "dead" foods such as processed, packaged, canned and frozen foods all create ama because they are very hard for your body to digest.

Non-organic foods; genetically modified foods; foods grown with chemicals, pesticides and chemical fertilizers; and foods with chemical additives also introduce toxins into your body and are confusing for the natural "intelligence" of your digestive system, and should therefore be avoided.

Avoid heavy dairy products such as aged hard cheese or yogurt, foods that are deep-fried or oily, raw foods of any kind, heavy desserts, and foods that contain refined sugar and honey, as these are harder to digest and create ama. Avoid yeasted breads, dry breads such as crackers, and fermented foods.

Eat Ama-reducing foods

Favor vegetarian foods that are light, warm, cooked and easily digestible. Freshly-made flatbreads, freshly-made light soups and dhals, organic vegetables cooked with spices, and freshly-made grains such as quinoa are ideal. Mung Dhal pacifies all three doshas and is nutritious, yet easy to digest.