Digestion and Indian Food

I know this is going to sound counter intuitive to many of you with digestion problems, since Indian food is highly spiced, But for the last, oh, eight years I have had increasing issues, like nausea, stomach pain, gas, bloating, pushing up where its harder to breath, inability to belch when I am totaly bloated and so on. I get up in the morning, and probably do the worst thing for myself and go outside and pace in front of my apartment smoking. And here it comes, stomach upset and belching. Sometimes the stomach hurts so bad all I can do to settle it down a little is drink some warm water and that doesn't help much.

Okay, that said, I remembered what I was doing before all this started up. I was living way out in the country in Maine for two years where all we ate was Indian food specifically spiced to promote digestion and healing. And I remembered that even though I had the neck and shoulder pain, so much stiffness in the winter I felt like I was 90 years old trying to sit down on the floor, since they ate sitting on cushions, plus the overwhelming fatigue on some days. I never had a bit of digestion issues eating that food.

That said, there is a Indian restaurant right next door to my store. If I go in after 2 pm when the buffet is done, I can get what I want for free, and having ate this kind of food for so long, I can tell by the coloring of the sauces which ones have the spices that are good for digestion. Also, in this particular restaurant, they will only use the spices that promote digestion and healing anyhow. Most Indian restaurants don't use that kind of consideration, where if they know its bad for their own bodies, they serve it up to the customers anyhow.

So far, its been a God send. I put off eating their food for months, because I never really liked the taste of what I ate for two years. But their mentality was let your food be your medicine sort of thing, and you felt like you were eating the same old bland stuff everyday with the same neutral tasting spices.

I finally broke down and started taking advantage of the offer to eat this restaurants food everyday. All I eat is the Basmati rice, and cover it with spice juice, and the Dall, which is basicaly lentil beans with another kind of spiceing, and my digestion is massively improved in a couple of weeks.

There are some catches to this. Some people may not be able to handle the spicing, even if it is digestive promoting. I have found that most westerners, and I am a westerner, don't like the taste of Indian food. And the biggest impediment of all is you would have to learn how to cook it yourself, what spices to try, how much to put in and so on. You would basically have to research it and learn how. It is actually work to cook this food correctly with the right spices and how much and then modify to your taste and what works best for you from there.

I think for those that it would work for, it is well worth it. Imagine no more pain in your digestive track, nausea, or, bloat, belch, can't belch, gas pushing up so bad its messing with your breathing and pushing on your heart.

I know this probably sounds about as realistic as fly a kite to the moon, but someone asked me where I picked up allot of the stuff I talk about. Part of it is I worked part time for a Ayurvedic Doctor in Maine that two years I lived there on his property. I can honestly say that every single patient that came to him with digestive issues and started cooking and eating the way he told them, and they went through with it, within a couple of weeks they had no more digestive complaints and the issues never came back as long as they kept it up.

How the heck to you learn to cook like that. It is not a natural thing for me BUT a friend of mine in Boston thrives on Indian food and swears by it. Is it curries???? Patsie

Cooking Indian food right is almost a art. But you can learn basic dishes without to much trouble. The main issue is which spices. For instance, lets say I was making the most basic food there is for digestion and healing digestion. Its called Kachadi. I probably don't have the spelling on that right. Also, there are allot of different Kachadi recipes. This basic one amounts to something like this. Keep in mind I haven't cooked it in myself in over 12 years, so I maybe leaving out some of the spices or not using the exact correct amount .

First, you use long grain basmati rice. Not the stuff you buy out of the Grocery store that cooks up in 15 minutes. That is processed heavily and devoid of nutrients. You have to go to a Indian market, or a natural foods market to get the real thing. Real Basmati rice is heavily loaded with nutrients, and it taste good.

So I take my rice pot, which needs to be a heavy one with a heavy lid to hold the steam better or have a lid you can stick some weight on it. Then you put a little bit of vegetable oil in the bottom and heat it, but not to the point of burning that oil. Then I take whatever seasoning I am going to use, and put it in the oil. First I put in real, unground small pepper seeds, maybe a half teaspoon to a teaspoon and let them cook in the oil for a few minutes so they will break down right. Then I add a teaspoon of Tumeric, which is anti inflammatory and promotes digestion and healing. I stir it around in the oil, and then I add half a teaspoon to a teaspoon of ginger, which is very good for digestion problems. Then I add a half teaspoon of fennel. I might put in some Curry if you like the taste. Curry is good for you too. Okay, so I have all this stuff stirred around in the heated, but not burned oil.

Now you add your water, which like regular rice is about 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. I use a big pot because this Kachadi can be refrigerated and reheated for a couple of days in a microwave or pan, and if I am going to go through all this, I want extra. So, I use 4 cups of water and 2 cups of rice.

Now, bring your water to a very hot steaming boil and toss in whatever amount of salt suits you. I use about a teaspoon of that. Your making allot of food. At a hot boiling level, put in your rice, which will slightly cool the water. Let it come back to a hot boil and put the lid on. If your useing a thin pot, put something heavy on the lid.

Bring the flame down to a low simmer. Depending on your heat level, it takes real Basmati rice about 50 minutes to cook.

While it is cooking, prepare whatever vegetables your going to put into this. Green, leafy vegetables work well, but you can use other stuff, brocholi, cauliflower, whatever, except corn, since everyone knows it doesn't digest well.

about 10 minutes before your rice will be done, you have all your vegetable ready to toss in the pot, quickly open the lid, throw then in on top of the rice and put the lid back on. This will cook your vegetables while the rice is finishing.

Okay, this is going to sound like yuck, but remember, this is one of the most basic dishes you can eat morning, noon and night if need be to fix digestion problems.

open up your pot and if the vegetable are preaty soft, and the rice is reasonable cooked, take a big spoon and stir the whole thing into one big mixture of rice and vegetables.

Now spoon out a bowl full and theres your dinner, and maybe your lunch the next day and so on.

Oh, and don't be surprised if the first few times you do this, your rice is either over or under cooked. This whole process is learning the combination of what your cookware is doing, versus your stove and the heat your applying for how long, versus the water to rice ratio you need.

So, like I said, this is actually one of the easiest things to cook that will heal up your digestion, stomach and intestines and its very boring to eat this over and over because you don't know how to cook anything else.

But it is possible to learn how to cook Indian food for specific problems. You can spice it for digestion, or for energy and digestion, or to promote calming you down and digestion. The Indians have this down to something of a science on useing food and herb combinations that don't just fill your need to eat, but are good for your body and mind.

Ahh, yes, grateing fresh Ginger. Forgot that one. Its been a long time. I have to relearn all of this myself.

I broke down this response into two post, because there is the issue of how do I learn to cook food that is designed for specific problems.

There is two categorizes of this. One is pretty simple. You order a Indian Food cook book, then you research the herbs that are good for digestion and healing and only use combinations of those herbs.

Then there is the complex way, which involves Indian medicine, known as Ayurveda. In Ayurveda they would say that most of us have three obvious problems going on. One is our digestion is poor, so the digestive process needs to be enhanced. In the process of enhancing the digestion, over time it will help to remove the accumulation of stuff that has built up because of poor digestion. The second thing is were stressed out, so they would address what your eating to help calm us down. Third, our energy levels are low, so they would add to that to give us a little more energy, without pushing it to the point the calming aspect is not working. The lack of energy would be addressed more on a level that if you eat food that properly digest and clear the nasty stuff out from long term poor digestion, and you bring the stress level down, the energy level eventualy goes up.

Like I said in the other post. Cooking Indian food properly and actualy liking the taste of it is almost a art and if you can learn that much your doing good. Going off into Ayurvedic medicine and learning it well enough to cook to specific issues would be learning a whole new way of viewing what we eat and what we do is what we become. I worked with a Ayurvedic Doctor for a couple of years and have a moderate understanding of it, and it would be beyond my capacity to learn the rest and effectively self treat.

So I will be opting for the simple version, which is buy the cook books, re-learn all the correct spicing and work on correcting my digestive issues. Accomplish that much and it adds up to a big plus for your body.