Food is not only about health. Food is also a joyful way to celebrate with loved ones. It might seem tempting to abstain from indulgence in social situations, believing that you are following the rules or being "good," but Ayurveda is not about having a perfect diet at the expense of your relationships. The word "companion" derives from the french word meaning "with bread" - you grow closer and bond with loved ones over food, which actually reduces stress and helps keep you healthy. It is healthier to eat the pizza or cake with joy than to sulk in the corner, missing out on memories & quality time with loved ones.

There are other reason why you might stray from your Ayurvedic diet, sometimes for convenience, or simply because you don't have any other options on hand. Travel, a church potluck, or a child's birthday party may make eating cookies, cake, pizza, and other "unhealthy" foods virtually unavoidable. If you generally have a healthy diet, you can afford a transgression on the weekend, so long as you are 'artful' about about it.

Ayurveda literally means the 'art of life.' To have an artful life means finding ways to live life joyfully, without sacrificing your health. While these tips won't make pizza actually healthy for you, they will help you indulge responsibly. Ayurveda can help reinforce your relationships and bond with loved ones over food, with minimal impact on your body. By following some basic steps in the example, you can figure out how to eat pizza and live to tell the tale. You don't have to follow all these tips - we've included them just to convince you that in any situation, you have lots of options to stay healthy. Once you master pizza, you'll soon figure out how to participate healthfully in myriad social situations.

Note: Yes, you might have to abstain if you have a wheat or dairy allergy, unless gluten free, dairy free options are available.

Step 1: What is Pizza Like? Let's figure out what's behind Ayurveda's 'pizza is poison' philosophy, then we'll try to restore some balance, slice by slice. First, consider how pizza makes you feel. Pizza can make you feel heavy, tired, and even depressed. You might notice a throbbing brick in your stomach that makes you feel stuffed and sluggish. That night, if you have trouble digesting pizza, you might get acid reflux, gas and bloating. The next morning, you might feel swollen and puffy.

From an Ayurvedic point of view, the main qualities of pizza are the following:

• Pizza is Oily - The fat content in cheese literally drips off the pizza. The amount of fat in pizza may overwhelm your body's fat metabolism and be indigestible. It can 'thicken your blood' leading to gallstones.
• Pizza is Gooey - If you've ever made pizza, you know that the dough is gloopy, goopy, and sticky before it is baked. When it comes out of the oven, it is deceivingly crispy and looks like it has lost some of that original gooeyness. But do not be fooled - once you've chewed up the pizza, that gooey stickiness returns and sits in your gut. Wheat and cheese form a sticky, gooey wad in your digestive tract, often surrounded by a thick layer of mucus. The pizza goop in your gut may be extremely difficult to digest, as stomach acids cannot penetrate this thick layer.
• Pizza is Sweet - The amount of calories in pizza can cause weight gain, diabetes, or any number of conditions.
• Pizza is Difficult to Digest - As we mentioned above, goopy pizza is very difficult to digest. Pizza digestion is an example of 1+1=3. When we combine two difficult to digest foods like wheat and cheese, the result is three times harder to digest.
• Pizza is Salty - Thick 'cheesy' blood together with toomuch salt can make you feel swollen.
• Pizza is Hot - Tomatoes are acidic. When mixed with oil, the acid heats up your liver. The acid content of tomatoes can irritate your digestive tract. Together, the oils in the cheese, mixed with the acidic tomato irritate the gallbladder, and altogether make you feel gross and disgusting inside. Heat & oil together are also acne forming. In Ayurveda, like increases like. Pizza looks like acne, so be cautious with it!

Step 2: Choose a responsible amount of pizza. Once you've figured out how pizza makes you feel, and its Ayurvedic qualities, you're in a great position to decide how much you can reasonably consume. No food is ever off-limits, so long as it is eaten in an appropriate quantity and with the proper precautions, it should be fine. Only you can discover the appropriate amount for your body, and you can only do so by listening. For pizza, a slice or two is normally enough to satisfy you without leading to imbalance. If you've eaten too much, you'll know - there will be a sense of heaviness, tiredness, and stagnation in the body and stomach. Notice the amount you ate, and remember to scale back in the future.

Step 3: Chew it well. Whenever you are in the worst of food situations, chew your food carefully. Saliva has digestive enzymes. Try to 'digest' the food as much as possible in your mouth. Unchewed food is even more difficult to digest. Plus, the slower you eat, the less you'll eat of potentially harmful foods, without feeling too austere.

Step 4: Always order a salad when you eat pizza. The roughage of the salad breaks up the Goopy-Pizza-Glob, dispersing it into smaller pieces instead of keeping it as one big, difficult, mass in your stomach. The bitter taste of the salad increases bile production and flushes the gall bladder, helping you mobilize heavy fats from the meat and cheese and taking the pitta-aggravating heating out of the oils. Order your salad with a vinaigrette dressing instead of ranch. The sour taste of vinegar also aids in fat metabolism by stimulating bile production and will help your body process the heavy fats in the cheese and meat.

Step 5: Order hot water with lemon. Hot water is a great way to get your digestive fire going and the sour taste of lemon improves digestion. Order this with your pizza and sip throughout the meal. Do not drink ice water or cool drinks - this will extinguish your digestive fire, and thwart all your efforts.

Step 6: Indulge Early. While it's not always possible, it is better to eat heavier foods early in the day as opposed to later. Around noon, your digestion is the strongest and therefore better prepared to handle heavy foods. If you are planning to go out for pizza or host a party with cake, try to do it around lunchtime or early afternoon rather than a late-night pizza binge. This will give your body more time to digest the heavy foods.

Step 7: Honor your body by eating light before and after. If you plan to eat pizza for lunch, eat something light for breakfast, like grapefruit with honey, and give your body a break. Your body has a tipping point. If you assault your body with bad choices meal after meal, eventually you will reach the straw that broke the camel's back. Eat lightly for dinner as well, or skip dinner altogether. This can keep your body from getting overwhelmed or bogged down by too much food. P.S. Eat just enough so that you aren't starving when you arrive at the pizza joint.

Step 8: Enjoy a stroll after your meal. Taking a short walk around the block afterwards revs your metabolism, adding an element of mobility and breaking up heaviness from the pizza.

Step 9: Consider Triphala before bed. Triphala is a mild, non-habit-forming laxative that is good to take the evening after indulgence, right before you go to bed. It will give your body a gentle cleanse, will help remove any lingering toxicity formed by the pizza, and will reset digestion so you feel ready to go the next day.

Step 10: Give Thanks, Release Regret, and Have Fun. If you eat anything with guilt or regret, it will certainly harm your body more than if you eat it with an attitude of thanks and joy. Eating a piece of pizza or a slice of cake is not the end of the world, and its important to keep that in mind. Focus on being thankful and enjoying the quality of time you have with loved ones and don't worry about the food.