Stephanie Iris

 Summer is officially here! It's time to welcome in cooling nourishment into your life to stay cool, just like a cucumber ;)

The body is always working to keep the internal body temperature at around 97-99 degrees F. The body has a natural ability to adjust itself to any given environment to maintain balance. Some people adjust easily to temperature changes while others can experience symptoms of over heating. It all depends upon the person's current state of health and how "hard" the body needs to work to reach balance. If the body is fed acidic food, is being pushed to it's limit daily, and inflammation is present within the body, it will not be as easy for the body to adjust to higher temperature change. 

Symptoms and Signs of Excess Fire Within:

-acid indigestion

-redness in eyes

-inflammation (swollen muscles, red pimples, rashes)

-irritability 

-impatience 

-tendency to over-work

-tendency to crave sugar, cheese, salty, oily, sour, spicy foods (when the...

This world is extraordinary with so many things to explore. In this life I've chosen to explore foods and share my explorations with you! This week let's talk about Kudzu root.

Have you heard of it? 

Kudzu root has been used in Chinese Medicine for over thoundans of  years. It is cooling and sweet, perfect for the firey pitta dosha. As you can see, herbs from all over the can be considered "Ayurvedic" if the nature of the patient is known (elemental genetic makeup), the nature of the herb being administered is known, and the nature of the imbalance is known.

For example, let's imagine there is a person who's elemental genetic makeup consists predominately of 50% pitta (fire) and 35% air and ether (vata) and 15% kapha. Recently, this person has been overworking, barely getting sleep, and eating spicy hot foods and drinking coffee to keep up with work's demand. A week later this person notices that he or she has been feeling depleted, has a short fuse with others, feels heat aroun...