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that improper diet and activities are the causative factors for most diseases and play a vital role in maintenance of health and prevention of diseases. A balanced diet in Āyurveda is one which helps to maintain the equilibrium of VPK and which should include all the six tastes, namely sweet, sour, salt, pungent, bitter and astringent. Āyurveda uses functional indices (how the food is functionally relevant to the person) rather than calories to assess nutrition. A number of parameters of practical significanceareusedtounderstandthefunctional,nutritional and therapeutic attributes of food and the ingredients that make it up, e.g., taste, thermogenic (producing heat or burning more calories) property, digestibility of the food, digestive power of the diner, etc. Āyurveda also stresses the importance of eating right. Some of the questions it answers are—who can eat what (personalised nutrition), what to eat, how much to eat, when to eat, how to eat (meal plan) and when to eat what (eating seasonally). Āyurveda has an in- depth knowledge of the nutritional and therapeutic values of daily foods such as rice, wheat, milk, ghee, oil, vegetables, pittvāta fruits and spices. All food items and ingredients are classified a kapha in terms of taste and VPK. vātapitta Traditional Indian cooking is based on the time-tested ayurvedic principles. Ingredients like ginger, pepper, turmeric Internal cedicine and fenugreek are used not for flavour but for their medicinal ck Kaya art Shalakyaaumara properties. Incorporating such spices for cooking dishes with Tantra bhrtya flavour and taste to suit the different climatic conditions antrayurveTantracology and seasons has been the strength of Indian cuisine. Bitter RasayanVidyaa and astringent tastes although beneficial to health, are toi Vajikarana a Producing physically generally not favoured by dieters due to their unpalatability. phhealthy progenynd psychologically Traditional Indian cuisine offers several recipes to increase the palatability of bitter and astringent food substances by cooking or seasoning them with spices and other ingredients which can mask these tastes and at the same time retain their health benefits. Therapeutic but tasty multi-ingredient foods were designed by incorporating antidotes for ingredients with side effects. For example, the side effects of chilli and pungent spices are tempered by cooking them in oil or ghee while retaining their medicinal properties. Another example is the preparation of wheat halwa — the K increasing property of wheat is countered by cooking in the K pacifier ghee. Ingredients like saffron (Crocus sativus) and cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), while reducing K also flavours the sweet dish. Saffron and cardamom, in addition to their antidote role also contribute other medicinal attributes to the halwa. Over centuries, numerous recipes have been 128 Knowledge Traditions anPractices oIndi — ClassXI Reprint 2026-27