According to Ayurveda, certain types of foods trigger allergies. Dairy products, rice and rice products, fruits like apples, bananas, guavas, lychees, pineapples, watermelons, muskmelons, cucumbers, grapes and products made from them, and cold food can act as triggers to hay fever.
This happens because from the Ayurveda perspective every food we consume has an innate cold or hot property. Hot foods enhance digestion and circulation in your body, whereas cold foods provide nourishment and strengthen the body.
Ayurveda classifies the body types as vatta, pitta (heat), and kapha (phlegm). Maintaining a balance between the hotness and coldness in our bodies is essential for optimal health. Everybody type is affected in a different way as compared to another.
Hot foods aid in the digestion of food. However, excessive consumption of hot foods can cause vomiting, purging, gastritis, ulcers, rashes, and even destroy the quality of semen. Cold foods promote nourishment, strength, and steadiness. They are difficult to digest and put an impact on the immune system.
An excess of cold foods can lead to the development of Kapha (phlegm) in our body. There are two consistencies of phlegm, dry and runny. If you eat cold foods even when you suffer from cold and other cold-related symptoms, the phlegm is accumulated in the lungs. If the phlegm is runny then the body easily removes it by coughing, runny nose or sneezing. However, if the phlegm becomes muggy, it sticks to your lungs, making it difficult for your body to discard it. Therefore, your respiratory becomes sensitive to all external microorganisms.
This is why maintaining an optimal hot and cold balance is essential. The following cold foods are known to trigger allergies and worsen the symptoms of hay fever:
- Milk (Dairy): Milk and milk products like butter, cheese, yoghurt, curd, ghee, milk chocolate, cookies with milk, milk coffee
- Rice: Rice and rice products and any food that has rice in it, like rice cereals, rice crackers, tempura fried with rice batter
- Fruits: Fruits and Fruit products, Apple, Banana, Guava, Lychees, Pineapple, Watermelon, Muskmelon, Cucumber, Grapes and any product or recipes made from fruits.
- Cold temperature food, liquid, water, air, like cold drinks, food just out of the freezer
Thus, when the cold in your body increases and you have symptoms of cold and allergies, including the following in your diet could be helpful.
- Ginger
- Black pepper
- Coconut
- Cinnamon
- Cardamom
- Turmeric
- Carom seeds
- Cumin
- Chillies
- Nutmeg
- Thyme
- Honey
- Hibiscus
- Mango
- Jaggery
You can include this food in a variety of everyday dishes that are not only easy to make but also delicious. However, if you are someone with pitta, do not consume an excess of these foods as they would cause excess heat in your body and harm your health.
You can get the Hay Fever Relief program and get detailed help on managing your allergies and living a healthy life. In the Hay Fever Relief program, food items are divided into ‘Do not eat’ and ‘Should eat’. It is a step-by-step foo- based guide with recipes and daily plans.
