Milk, yogurt, turmeric

 Today I am having an inclination to write about how we consume turmeric and milk, yogurt as well. 

Before proceeding, I would like to thank my teachers - a guy named Ernst from whom I learnt about habits, and an ayurvedic practitioner named vaidya mishra whose work I research on, but he passed on a few years ago. 

Like Feynman said, to find the truth, you have to go deep, really deep. Having to experience it helps!

It's important to not be a fanatic and follow a balanced approach, but the more I research, the more I find that we are in bad habits, more like conditioned to be in bad habits, more often than not due to lack of knowledge. 

Moving on, 

Turmeric : 

At one time, I had something that was causing inflammation in my body. Alongwith other things, my doctor prescribed curcumin which is concentrated turmeric. I knew turmeric is an extremely potent herb, but it did not help me at that time, it in fact was more aggravating, I listened to my body and stopped. I did not know why until much later after that condition was gone and I'd started researching a bit more on food. I found the answer from one of my teachers who used a sanskrit book called charaka samhita. The property of pure turmeric is "Ruchhoshna" - "Ruccha" in sanskrit means drying, "ushna" means heat. Popping in just turmeric powder or concentrated turmeric is equivalent to driving in a Ferrari with a door open without a seatbelt. It's super powerful but the safety quotient is arguable ;) 

The solution then really is just to add something cooling with it, which makes sense if we think that curries have turmeric but they interact with coriander (which is a cooling herb) or  cumin even. (Cumin is slightly heating as well, but the heat potency of turmeric is reduced).

Milk :  

In the holy science, Sri Yukteshwar writes "By the observation of nourishment of the young, we find that milk is undoubtedly the food of the new born. This tells us milk and pure water openly exposed to air and sun is the best natural food for man". The unfortunate part is nowadays milk that is reasonably priced is made to last long. The process that preserves milk also kills the materials in milk that help us digest milk. No wonder lactose intolerance is a problem. I believe the safest way is to boil raw milk, and have it. I think that's the definition pasteurization too (boil milk and cool it immediately) if my high school science knowledge is still in tact ;) . That being said, raw milk is way too expensive! :(  which is ironic and unfortunate. 

Another important point as told by Vaidya is that milk produces a lot of "soma" which means it is very, very cooling. It can clog the channels.  It can be sluggish to the body and can block digestion of milk protein. Allopathic science says the same thing when they say we may not be able to make enough enzymes to digest milk. No one, even in India who knows their stuff recommends to drink raw milk from a cow or a goat.  

That is why we boil milk, it's even good to add a pinch of cardamom, or other spices like turmeric. That will balance out the cooling property of the milk.

Yogurt :  

This is not a do this way, or a do that way kind of lecture, but more like food for thought. It is very, very popular to add onion to yogurt for a dish called raita in India. Some also add garlic. Anyway, chances are that post digestive effects of this is irritation, or even a depressing feeling. 

When we think about it, it feels like such a basic thing. Garlic is a very potent medicine, it's an antibiotic, we use it to kill bacteria when sick. Same with onion, onion is a milder antibiotic. It kills microbes. Yogurt is filled with probiotics which are very nourishing and health inducing. So, yogurt with onion and garlic is like taking probiotics and adding antibiotics. 

Did we just start off a mini war with that ? :D