In this article, Gabriel Cousens talks about the types of doshas and how to learn which foods work best for you specifically. Gabriel Cousens is an author, holistic practitioner, and family therapist.
Kevin: When you talk about the science of living food, I find it extremely important to be able to compare the scientific evidence in order to influence other people. Where did you find holes that need to be filled?
gabriel: Well, I mean, one hole was “there’s one diet for everyone”. From Gibbon’s point of view, the people who developed these diets are talking about a diet that works for them, and so it’s a “if it works for me, it has to work for everyone.” For example, you have the mycosis diet. That’s interesting and good nutrition if you’re a kapha because kapha people are people who tend to have a lot of phlegm, but if you’re a vata it’s a disaster because your body really has a certain amount of phlegm must have to balance it . So once we get the idea of individualization, you start to understand how all these nutritional breakthroughs come about. Either way, whoever has a certain dosha, which we call it, develops it from it.
OK, here’s another example: In the ’60s, people did a lot of drugs. Well, what then became really popular? Macrobiotic because macrobiotic is the best diet to balance Vata – sweet, salty, sour. Sweet means grains, salty, very important for balancing Vata and sour. So the taste, which is macrobiotic, was the optimal nutrition. So it depends on the conditions, you know? So when we understand that diets apply to your constitutional type and the cultural imbalances that occur, like drug use, it’s like, whoa!
Of course we can balance Vata very, very well with live food once we understand what we are doing. It’s really easy. With Vata foods you will have Vata imbalance… I’m not explaining any of these things… it’s just the idea. You need more oily foods, you need slightly heavier foods, you have your low GI fruits, berries and cherries and you have your sprouted grains and it could be 100% live food to fully compensate. Bee pollen…there are several things that are really good. Your seed milk, nut milk, all that, and your hydrated nuts and seeds, nuts and seeds. You’ll make up for it. That’s not a problem if you understand what you’re doing. So we can use our live food to really balance any condition of a person once we understand the other forces that are occurring.
Kevin: And with the different doshas, that’s … that’s probably not finite either? The different types of food
gabriel: Well, there are nine basic doshas. Life is more complex than that. Even with nine you have variations with it. But nine is a lot and then we have the fast oxidizer, the slow oxidizer and the parasympathetic, sympathetic and on that spectrum some people can be fruitians, you know?
OK. That depends on your constitution type. A lot of people…high sugar isn’t so good these days. I don’t care if it’s fructose or not, it’s really been linked to a variety of issues, obviously diabetes. You see, diabetics are just jumping in at the deep end if they eat a little fruit before they’re cured. You can not. When you’re healed, go back to normal physiology, then you can have the low glycemic cherries and berries and citrus, but not until then. But there are people who have the right constitution and metabolize sugar very slowly. Fast oxidizers are metabolized very quickly and you get these spikes where slow oxidizers… and again you have the spectrum. So there are many diets. They must match your state of health and your type.
Kevin: How does one find out the type? What’s the best way to do it?
gabriel: The simple approach is we have a questionnaire with 30 questions and you can review it and add it up and find out what you are. You could be 50/50, which means you’re right in the middle and we call it Mixed Oxidizer, or you’re fast, this part is high, the other part is low.
But basically we have 30 questions because most people are not conscious enough to understand what they are doing. Serious. So if you had just three questions: “What kind of food do you like? Are you a person who really likes lots of nuts and seeds, lots of protein?” Then you are probably a fast oxidizer or you have parasympathetic nervous system. The person who has a buffet in front of him and only goes for the salad is most likely a slow oxidizer or a sympathizer. So the next question is, “What gives you the most energy at this point and two hours later, how much energy does it give you?” So you can have sugar as a quick oxidizer and you go up, but then you crash, so we’re always looking at the two or three hour mark across the board. OK, you felt good at the time, that’s good. How do you feel now two or three hours later? Did you fall or are you stable? The third thing is that fast oxidizers, parasympathetics, really need to eat more frequently, every two to three hours. Slow oxidizers, sympathetic, you eat six hours later, you may be hungry, you may not be hungry because you move much more slowly in terms of your metabolic processes. So that’s another clue.
So those are the three or four questions that will enlighten you quite a bit.
Thanks to Kevin Gianni
