Book Therapy | Eat Feel Fresh : Balancing the Body with 100 Ayurvedic Recipes

mama jenny
Sep 27, 2021
3 min read

Updated: Nov 22, 2021

Eat Feel Fresh: A Contemporary, Plant-Based Ayurvedic Cookbook by Sahara Rose Ketabi

This is more than a cookbook. It's a 'how to heal and live your life with food' book.

Through my exploration of wellness and learning the stories of others, I am often finding one common element which keeps presenting itself...Ayurveda. It's a is one of the world's oldest holistic (“whole-body”) healing systems. Ayurveda, or ayurvedic medicine, is a healthy-lifestyle system that people in India have used for more than 5,000 years and it seems to be making a come-back in our modern, western world today especially with the help of Sahara Rose.

Deepak Chopra gives his praises to Sahara Rose in his foreword which he wrote for this book, which I think is pretty incredible considering he's been studying Ayurveda for his entire lifetime. So, I think that kinda says something.

For me, this is a first in the 'purchasing a cookbook' department. I am much more of a 'google the recipe and get creative' kind of person, that's the Vata in me. But getting this book was not so much about having plant-based Ayurvedic cookbook but more about learning the ways to incorporate the healing lessons of an Ayurvedic lifestyle into my kitchen.

Ayurveda aims to heal and prevent health issues with lifestyle, mindset, food and herbs. It believes we are all made up of different formulas of 'elements' creating our own unique constitution. These unique constitutions must be balanced specifically for each person to create harmony in our bodies, physically, emotionally and mentally. Which, long story short, means that one recipe doesn't fit all when it comes to 'health foods'. So something that may be good to balance your body, may do determent to someone else's. This books helps you determine your Ayurvedic constitution, or 'doshas' - either Vata, Pitta or Kapha - and what foods and drinks you will need to balance and yourself physically, emotionally and mentally.

For examples, starchy root-based vegetables are very grounding and are used to 'ground' an 'airy or flakey' person. Makes sense if you think about it. It's also amazing how once I determined my dosha (take Sahara Rose's Dosha quiz to discover yours) I realized how many foods I was actually 'supposed' to be eating were actually the types of foods that benefited me. Like spicy foods! Spicy foods are great for my dosha - and I'm a very spicy kind of girl - in the hot sauce and chili peppers kind of way.

I also tend to fall into bouts of insomnia when out of balance. Eat Feel Fresh has more than one kind of recipe for the 'sleep inducing' magical Golden Milk or Moon milk which also helps with digestion, immunity, detoxification, and is beneficial to all doshas.

But besides some amazing recipes - you will learn some ancient knowledge about the healing powers of food. Fun fact: most of our bodies don't do well with eating cold, raw foods. Cold foods and drinks are hard on our digestive system and stifle our 'agni' or our digestive fire. So perhaps while trying to lose weight by eating buckets full of cold salads, you should have been eating warm comfort foods all along. Like doesn't that sound amazing? And now it makes sense why you always see old people drinking hot water (no stereo types there hey? sorry old people - you are just trying to carry on the ancient wisdom and us mindless young folks have be inspired by the internet before we follow suit. I know, I know.)

Have a peak into some healing Ayurvedic recipes on Sahara's site Eat Feel Fresh.

But before diving into this book I suggest having a quick peak at an intro into Ayurveda. And once you're done there you can head over to Sahara Rose's website and TAKE THE QUIZ to figure out what your constitution, or DOSHA TYPE is and from there you can dive into her book and find all the healing foods and potions.

Check it out on Amazon