The Ayurveda Experience Blog
An Ayurveda breakfast takes into account your dosha or Ayurvedic body type and follows certain guidelines to ensure good digestion. Let’s take a look at some healthy breakfast ideas from Ayurveda.
The Importance Of A Healthy Breakfast
We all know that a balanced breakfast is important for starting the day. In particular, breakfast is a critical meal when Vata dosha is elevated.
After an overnight fast, a healthy breakfast helps in nourishing Vata, the Ayurvedic element of air and space responsible for all forms of movement in the body.
NOTE: Do you know your Ayurvedic body type or dosha? Take the free quiz to find out!
From an Ayurvedic perspective, one should eat in accordance with their hunger alone. Skipping breakfast might also disturb the sadhaka Pitta which is responsible for maintaining an even temper, joy, and contentment.
If you want to learn more about the ins and outs of Ayurvedic nutrition, check out this Ayurvedic course on Holistic Nutrition by Todd Caldecott. 
Here are 10 healthy breakfast ideas from Ayurveda.
An Ayurveda Breakfast: 10 Tips + Ideas
- Drink fresh fruit or vegetable juices. This will help in rehydrating the body and gives overall wellness.
2. Whole grains and fresh fruits can also make for a good start to the day.
- Maintain a regular eating schedule. This helps the body’s circadian rhythms set the time for releasing enzymes and starting the digestion process.1
4. A pinch of rock salt and ginger before breakfast helps in the proper secretion of enzymes and aids in digestion.
5. Sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent – this is the order of tastes one should eat according to an Ayurvedic diet plan. An ideal breakfast should have all these six tastes.
6. Slow eating is advised for those desiring weight loss.
7. A power-packed meal of eggs, ghee, sauteed veggies, and creamy oatmeal are an ideal breakfast for those predominant in Vata dosha. Almonds, dates, figs, and raisins make a good choice as well.
8. A healthy fruit salad, egg whites, oatmeal with milk, ghee, raisins, and coconut are a good choice of breakfast for Pitta dosha.
9. A serving of fruit salad, millet porridge, stewed apples, freshly juiced fruit, and barley cereal are ideal breakfast choices for Kapha dosha. Green tea or black tea is also an ideal choice for Kapha predominant people.
10. It’s important to eat according to one’s hunger and Agni or digestive strength. Remember to have water in between breakfast. This will aid in easy digestion.
If you want to learn more about the ins and outs of Ayurvedic nutrition, check out this Ayurvedic course on Holistic Nutrition by Todd Caldecott.
References
- Eckel-Mahan, Kristin, and Paolo Sassone-Corsi. “Metabolism and the Circadian Clock Converge.” Physiological Reviews, American Physiological Society, Jan. 2013, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3781773/
Fruit and diary products in Ayurveda? I am suprised.
Drinking water from a copper vessel as the first thing is mentioned as a part of Dinacharya or daily regimen. Here I have tried to explain some breakfast ideas. So, it’s not essential to mention about daily regimen or drinking water from copper vessel here.
Ayurveda is a traditional system of medicines native to India. In Ayurveda, regulation of diet is crucial, since it examines the whole human body as the product of food. Ayurveda illustrates how an individual can recuperate by establishing the connection between elements of life, food, and body. According to Ayurvedic concepts, food is responsible for different aspects of an individual including physical, temperamental, and mental states. To stay healthy, maintaining a stable healthy diet routinely is essential.
Ayurveda mentions to eat food when you are hungry. If you have a strong digestive fire, and you are a healthy person, after a proper sleep at night, you will feel hungry in the morning. Lunch, of course should be the greatest meal of the day. That doesn’t mean you should skip breakfast. Ayurveda allows organic grass-fed dairy, poultry and meat. A wide mis-conception is Ayurveda is completely vegan. Eggs pacify Vata and its mentioned in the Ayurveda classical text books. If you have gone through any of the ancient Ayurveda classics, you might have come across a detailed description of Knowledge of nature of edible materials (Ashtanga Hridaya – Sutra sthana Chapter 6) in which the use of milk, meat and other edible substances are described in detail. Go through it when you have a chance.
The classical texts of Ayurveda of 300 BC–700 AD dedicate elaborate sections on foods. Unique aspects include detailed descriptions of food and beverage, food classification based on their taste, therapeutic qualities, etc., food safety and measures for the same, different incompatibilities of food based on their tastes, processing, dose, time, place, etc., prescriptions of consumption, food qualities and intake based on the digestive ability of an individual, and the nature of food that is being consumed. In India, Ayurveda is not a science which is learned in 1 or 2 years, basic 2 years knowledge in Sanskrit is essential to understand the ancient Ayurveda scriptures.
In contrast to western dietary understanding and the U.S. guide to diet, Ayurveda states that a diet can be vegetarian (plant based) or non-vegetarian (animal based) and portion size should be customized for each individual according to one’s own needs, body constitution (dosha) and agnibala (digestive power). Also, the quality and properties of food should be taken into consideration such as heavy, light and oily. Foods like rice may be digested easily as opposed to pork meat that is heavy and oily. Thus, the quality and quantity of food is often weighed on the basis of how effectively the food is digested. Ayurveda emphasizes that a diet must be properly selected and wisely formulated, not only according to the physical conditions of a person, but taking into consideration the body type (pita, kapha, or vata) and should complement the seasonal and daily changes and other natural factors that surround an individual. According to Ayurveda the use of wholesome food promotes health, while unwholesome food manifests disease. ~ Arya Krishna, BAMS, Ayurveda Consulting Physician & Educational Co-ordinator
Eggs? Ayurveda and modern medicine don’t recommend eggs. Breakfast is a western concept and doesn’t exist in Ayurveda. Eating thrice a day is the most horrific thing you can do to your body. First thing you should do as per Ayurveda, is to drink water kept overnight in copper vessel and then after 2-3 hours, it recommends eating whole fruits(no juices, sorry!) if you are hungry. Ideal time to have your meal is between 11 am and 1 pm. I am sorry, but your article is misleading and your knowledge about Ayurveda is questionable at best.
Hai John, You are 100 percent right.
John fo you have any recommendations in books, groups, pages, to learn proper Ayurveda?
Anyone who knows even basic Ayurveda knows fruit is meant to be eaten alone and never with starches. Very surprised with this misguidance.
Hi Arya! Sounds like a lot of good tips but not a lot of ideas as far as recipes. Would you care to share some specific recipes?
Grains and fresh fruits together might not be so good combination as per ayurveda 🙂
So NOT Vegan. Sounds interesting but as Vegan only cruelty free program.
Typical vegan
vegan is not cruelty free. how many rodents are killed intentionally by farmers? how much cruelty by being condescending to others?
Thanks Dr Danny Devasy for your Valuable opinion
Dear Dr. Krishna Ji,
Its a nice article that you have written. We are forgetting the way our ancestors used to do. Its that going astray from our path is leading us to a lot of health issues. Food being the foremost. Please keep up the good work.
Regards
Dr. Danny Devasy
B.Sc., BAMS, HDSM, Cert. in Clinical Nutrition.
Kerala, INDIA