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AYURVEDIC FOODS

Cashews Benefits (According to Ayurveda)

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"Cashews are one of my favorites because of the versatility when used as a dairy substitute. Cashew "cheese" is one of..."

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1. Ayurvedic Perspective

2. Biocharacteristics & Herbal Actions

3. Similar foods and herbs

4. Impact: On tongue, nerves, elimination, etc.

5. Comments and reviews

How Does This Ayurvedic Food Improve Wellness?

CLINICAL AYURVEDIC REVIEW

Recipes with Cashews: Lemon Rice with Cashews, Peas, Ghee & Cumin

Sweet and heavy, cashews calm the nerves and satisfy your belly. The crescent shaped cashew is dense and warm, building strength and leaving you feeling sustained, particularly in cooler months. Initially crunchy, these nuts become creamy and smooth with each bite. You can satisfy your crunchy cravings by sprinkling cashews on top of curries, adding to stir-frys, or crumbled on top of your morning oatmeal. Cashews blend to one of the smoothest consistencies of any nut, and can be turned into a creamy nut butter spread, silky homemade cashew milk, or soft cashew cheeses.

Native to Brazil, these nuts are technically the seeds of the cashew apple. Once you see how cashews are grown, you will understand why they are some of the more expensive nuts on supermarket shelves. Just a single cashew grows out of the bottom of each apple. It is encased in a shell that contains a toxic residue that must be cleaned before eating too. Cashews are a member of the poison ivy family, so some people are highly sensitive to them. They balance Vata and Pitta, but are too heavy and difficult for Kaphas to digest.

Soothe Your Nerves

The heavy and grounding qualities of cashews help stabilize a frantic nervous system. They are particularly beneficial in autumn, the season when the nerves are most easily aggravated. These nuts balance Vata dosha and help slow a racing mind. "After eating the cashews, I felt very calm," explained a client. "It was a relaxing sensation," they continued. As well as its density, the high magnesium content in cashews also helps soothe your nerves. Your nervous system carries out countless jobs every single day, and can become easily agitated. The magnesium in cashews has a mild depressant effect on the nerves that helps ward off feelings of stress and anxiety, relax the muscles, and promote sound sleep throughout the night.

This relaxing effect of cashews can be too sedating for Kapha types. These heavy nuts can burden a Kaphas already sluggish digestive system and leave them feeling weighed down, both emotionally and physically. One client described their experience of this effect, "The heaviness of the cashews left me feeling more weighed down emotionally, more prone to dozing off and wanting to nap." Another client had a similar, but stronger, reaction, "I felt like the cashews slowed down my whole system. My muscles felt heavy, my gut felt overly full, my blood slowed and I felt tired and unmotivated. It was an unpleasant slug like feeling that reminded me why I don't generally eat nuts."

Satisfying & Strengthening

Cashews build tissue, strength, and stamina, due to their dense, heavy and sweet qualities. It doesn't take many of these nuts to curb your appetite. "My stomach felt full with a small amount of nuts because of the density of them. I felt sustained and energized," observed a client. Another noted, "It was very grounding and satisfying, a small amount of cashew nuts took me a long way." Provided digestion is strong, cashews can nourish the blood as they are a rich source of both copper and iron. You need iron to build strong blood, but copper is required so you can absorb the iron. These two minerals, packed neatly in this tiny nut, work together to form hemoglobin and red blood cells, known as rakta dhatu in Ayurveda. When the blood is strong, every cell, tissue, organ and system will be stronger.

Recipes with Cashews: Cultured Cashew Cheese

Warm & Content

Cashews are warming and sweet, making them a worthy addition to your pantry in autumn and winter. Their noticeable warmth radiates throughout the body on a cold November afternoon. "I felt kind of warm through my toes and fingers about ten minutes after eating them," a client explained. When the blustery winds have you feeling chilled to the bone, cashews can be a hearty addition to your diet, providing the energy your body needs to sustain warmth in winter. Cashews help satisfy your cravings for something sweet and warm you up from your tummy to your toes.

Effect on Digestion

Provided digestion is strong, cashews can improve the quality of elimination, "My elimination became more regular when I ate cashews," remarked a client. We conjecture that this is due to oily quality of the cashew and fiber content.

One client shared this experience, "My stool was nicely formed, easy to pass, but I did notice some pieces of undigested cashew." The undigested pieces of nut in this clients stool points to the fact that nuts in general are difficult to digest, especially if not thoroughly chewed. The oiliness of nuts can also bog down an already sluggish digestion. One client noted, "I had mild constipation and stagnation in my gut from the cashews." Cashews, as all dried foods, can create a thick, indigestible paste in the gut. Drink warm water if you plan to eat many cashews at once. When undigested, cashews can provoke gas and bloating, leading to constipation.

Another client shared how cashews created gas and bloating in the digestive tract, but once they started soaking the nuts, "the situation was totally different," the gas and bloating reduced and "elimination was very easy."

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Are Cashews Good for My Ayurvedic Diet?

Find out by taking this free, easy quiz. You'll learn your body type, and whether 'Cashews' is a good fit. Complete the basic quiz in 1 minute, or go deeper with additional quizzes at your own leisure to learn more about your body.

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AYURVEDA'S GUIDE TO VITALITY & WHOLESOME NOURISHMENT

Your Ayurvedic diet is tailored to your individual body and your specific imbalances. With an Ayurvedic diet you feel joy and satisfaction because what you are eating truly nourishes and balances you. Disease results from diets and lifestyles that are incompatible with your nature. By eating a personalized diet matched to your body, you experience optimal health. See How it Works.

SERVING SIZE: 2 tbsp

EAT IN: AUTUMN-WINTER

Metabolic Nature of Cashews

See a complete list of all biocharacteristics.

INCREASES Increases These Biocharacteristics (Gunas) Functional Ayurveda helps you assess imbalances through 20 main biocharacteristics (gunas). Aggravating these characteristics weakens your body and causes imbalance. By knowing which characteristics are habitually imbalanced in your body, you will be able to identify and correct imbalances before you get sick. Every characteristic has an opposite which balances it (i.e. hot balances cold). You restore balance by favoring diet and lifestyle choices that increase the opposite characteristic. Learn More	DRY ABOUT DRY BIOCHARACTERISTIC Dry is identified by lack of moisture, lack of fat, or anything that causes diuresis. LEARN MORE ABOUT DRY HEAVY ABOUT HEAVY BIOCHARACTERISTIC Heavy is identified by sedation, sluggishness, or increased weight. LEARN MORE ABOUT HEAVY HOT ABOUT HOT BIOCHARACTERISTIC Hot is identified by increased body temperature, metabolism, or inflammation. LEARN MORE ABOUT HOT DIFFICULT ABOUT DIFFICULT BIOCHARACTERISTIC Difficult refers to anything that is difficult to digest, or takes a long time to digest. LEARN MORE ABOUT DIFFICULT
TASTES The 6 Tastes Taste is used to sense the most basic properties and effects of food. Each taste has a specific medicinal effect on your body. Cravings for food with certain tastes indicate your body is craving specific medicinal results from food. Taste is experienced on the tongue and represents your body's reaction to foods. Sweet taste causes physical satisfaction and attraction whereas bitter taste causes discomfort and aversion. Kapha should use less sweet taste while Vata and Pitta would benefit from using more sweet taste. One of the first signs of illness is that your taste and appetite for food changes. The six tastes are sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent. Do you crave foods with any of the tastes below? Learn More	SWEET ABOUT SWEET BIOCHARACTERISTIC Sweet refers to anything builds tissue, including macronutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins and fats. LEARN MORE ABOUT SWEET
DOSHAS The Three Doshas / Body Types According to the biocharacteristic theory of medicine, people tend to get sick, over and over again, due to habitual causes and imbalances that are unique to the person. Your body type summarizes this tendency, showing you the 'type' of conditions and imbalances that frequently challenge your health & wellness. Using body type, you can also identify remedies likely to improve your strength and resiliency. Your body type identifies physical and mental characteristics as well as your personal strengths and weaknesses. The calculation of your body type is based on your medical history. The 3 functional body types (doshas), are Catabolic (Vata), Metabolic (Pitta), and Anabolic (Kapha). Catabolic individuals tend to break down body mass into energy. They are easily stimulated, hyperactive, underweight and dry. Metabolic individuals tend to burn or use energy. They tend to be rosy-cheeked, easily irritated, focused, driven, and easily inflamed. Anabolic individuals tend to store energy as body mass. If they store too much energy, they could gain weight easily and have congestion. Anabolic people tend to be stable and grounded. Learn More	PACIFIES AGGRAVATES
HAS THE FOLLOWING	Subtaste: Crunchy CRUNCHY Makes an audible noise when you eat them. Can provide fun texture variation. SEE ALL 'CRUNCHY' FOODS / HERBS Tissue (dhatu): Blood Plasma Lymph BLOOD-PLASMA-LYMPH Plasma (Rasa Dhatu) includes plasma, white blood cells, and lymph. SEE ALL 'BLOOD-PLASMA-LYMPH' FOODS / HERBS Affinity: Bone Joint, Heart Circulation Blood, Liver Gallbladder
HERBAL ACTIONS (see all)	Medicinal Benefits, Uses & Herbal Actions of Cashews Experiences are Personal Experiences vary according to the person and constitution. Individual results may vary. The list of herbal-actions below has not be approved by the FDA and should not be used to treat a medical condition. Energy Vitality: Builds Stamina BUILDS-STAMINA Promotes strength, endurance and resistance in the body. Rebuilds weak tissues after a time of depletion. SEE ALL 'BUILDS-STAMINA' FOODS / HERBS , Satisfies Stomach SATISFIES-STOMACH Provides a sense of gratification and fullness in the stomach. SEE ALL 'SATISFIES-STOMACH' FOODS / HERBS , Nutritive NUTRITIVE An herb that is strengthening and nourishing. SEE ALL 'NUTRITIVE' FOODS / HERBS Constituents: Fats, Magnesium MAGNESIUM Helps muscles relax. Laxative. SEE ALL 'MAGNESIUM' FOODS / HERBS , Phosphorous, Phytates PHYTATES Phytates prevent absorption of nutrients. They are commonly found in all seeds, including nuts, grains, and beans. Sprouting greatly reduces phytate content, as well as long, slow cooking with vinegar. SEE ALL 'PHYTATES' FOODS / HERBS , Protein, Zinc

Nutritive

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Guarana

Guarana has these Actions in Common

Builds-stamina

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Impact of Cashews

In each clinical research trial below, students from the Joyful Belly School of Ayurveda ate the selected food for 3 days and reported the pharmacological effects. See other clinical research trials for diet & herbs at Joyful Belly.