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2. Remove from heat. Let cool a few minutes and pour into a cup with honey. Be sure not to heat the honey with the milk and herbs. The honey can liquefy in the warmed milk, but heating honey is not recommended.
How Does This Ayurvedic Recipe Improve Wellness?
CLINICAL AYURVEDIC REVIEW
Gold milk is the fabled "milk and honey" of the promised land and provides tremendous nourishment. Its fragrant spices will awaken your appetite for its nurturing satisfaction. In South Asia, people believe milk is sacred because it (along with fruits) are one of the few foods freely given without violence to the plant or animal. A mother freely gives milk to a calf with love. Gold milk is thus a loving way to relax and enjoy the holiday season.
Healthy Holiday Cheer
There are many special dishes and foods that evoke the holidays: holiday cookies and fruitcakes, hams and rich side dishes, even eggnog. But how many of these foods and drinks ultimately help you to feel good? December is full of joy and family. It is also full of rich feasts, gatherings, and meals-on-the-run due to last minute shopping. These activities can exhaust your system, creating fatigue and making you vulnerable to viruses. Sometimes you need something that is delicious in a traditional, holiday way, but also is supportive to your health. This sweet, warm milk recipe, reminiscent of eggnog, is spiced to infuse you with that essential holiday cheer and strengthen your body.
A Recipe for Those Who Need Milk Most
Gold milk strengthens and rehabilitates those with weak constitutions. Cow's milk is the star of this drink and it is a supreme rasayana, or rejuvenative, aiding you through the chilly, demanding weeks of the holiday season. Just as milk nurtures a baby, it can satisfy your every nutritional need. However, there are many misconceptions about milk and the best ways to consume it. Cow's milk is difficult to digest and many find it downright indigestible. Thin, emaciated, weakened individuals (Vata types) need milk's nourishment most, but often these are the very individuals who cannot digest milk. Gold milk makes the nourishment of milk accessible to all. The key to this improvement on milk is in the spices. Vata individuals often suffer from poor digestion due to dryness, cold, weakness and digestion. The turmeric, cinnamon and cardamom in this drink add heat and stimulate extra blood flow to the digestive tract, counteracting coldness and making the milk easy to digest.
Enjoyable for Those who Love Milk Most
Vata types aren't the only ones who have trouble with milk. Milk can create instant congestion for those with a Kapha-type body (i.e. those who tend to have low metabolism and gain weight). Kapha people who drink too much milk soon end up with excessive mucus in their digestive tract and sinuses. Since it is nutrient-dense, milk has a tendency to cool, congeal, and clog the blood. As circulation becomes more stagnant, thick mucus and fluids tend to collect in the lungs and sinuses. This kind of mucous lodges deep in the lungs and can be very difficult for Kapha individuals to expectorate. The spices in gold milk, on the other hand, actually destroy mucous in both in the respiratory and digestive tract, making this nutritive tonic supportive even for Kapha types.
The Golden Spice
Colds and flus are as much a part of the holidays as caroling and jingle bells. The herb that gives this recipe its namesake, the golden turmeric, heats, thins and invigorates the blood. Thin blood circulates freely, mobilizes the immune system and making Kapha body more warm-blooded in colder winter months. Additionally, turmeric is a natural antibiotic and antimicrobial that is appropriate for even weak individuals. The heat in cinnamon, beloved in many fall and winter desserts, also helps you rebound from a cold or flu.
A Good Night's Sleep
Suffering from insomnia? Spiced milk is an age old formula for relaxation in Ayurveda. From a western standpoint, the calcium and magnesium levels in milk indicate its ability to relax a racing mind and tight muscles. From an Ayurvedic perspective, Gold Milk contains all the qualities that bring on sound sleep- it is heavy, warm, and nourishing. Milk is what lulls babies to sleep; it innately offers a sense of peace.
What About Raw Milk?
Many health-conscious people are enthusiastic about raw milk. These individuals are often surprised to find that Ayurveda recommends heating milk, even the prized raw milk. Bringing milk just momentarily to the boiling point breaks up difficult-to-digest molecules. While raw food experts say raw milk contains helpful digestive enzymes, Ayurveda recommends cooking all milk for easy digestion. There is no right answer. Try both and find out what your body prefers. For maxmimum benefit, be sure to source cow's milk from an organic dairy.
Milk is deeply nourishing to all tissues and aids in calming raw nerves. Warmed and properly spiced, milk enhances the effect of herbs in many medicinal preparations, not just gold milk. Gold milk will smooth the bumps of a turbulent and joyous month, supporting good digestion and just plain tasting delicious. This recipe is bound to be a favorite for all, creating whole new culinary holiday memories. A holiday drink that tastes great, keeps illness away, and makes you feel good? It's a gift for the whole family. Spice it right, and reconsider milk!
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.
Is Gold Milk Good for My Ayurvedic Diet?
Find out by taking this free, easy quiz.
You'll learn your body type, and whether 'Gold Milk' 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.
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.
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?
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.
Herbs or spices with volatile essential oils that present strong aromas. Aromatic oils shock, refresh and numb tissue, with the end result of relaxing, opening and clearing stagnant fluids in tissues.
Bland means doesn't have much taste. In Chinese medicine, bland taste refers to afood without little macronutrients, such as cabbage, radish or bok choy.
Medicinal Benefits, Uses & Herbal Actions of Gold Milk
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.
Stimulates the release of gas. Helpful for bloating or cramping abdominal pain. Propels food downward. Carminatives typically expel gas by relaxing the muscles of the intestines.
Encourages feelings of stability and heaviness. Makes you feel settled, mentally relaxed. Mildly sedates the nervous system to ease stress. Can bring a spacey or anxious person back to earth. Reduces agitation, irritation, stress and racing thoughts.
A tonic herb restores function through strengthening tissue. This can happen through a combination of nourishing the tissue, and invigorating tissue metabolism. The tonic should not be withering, as in caffeine.
A vasodilator is an herb that widens the blood vessels by the relaxation of smooth muscle cells within the vessel walls, thereby increasing circulation systemically or to a local area.
An herb that produces more blood cells in the body, or otherwise improves blood cell quality or hemoglobin content. Helpful for anemia and other types of deficiency.
An herb that inhibits clotting, dissolves clots, thins the blood, or destroys platelets, therefore reducing the tendency of blood to form clots. They are useful in cardiovascular disease, clots, and stroke. Aka anticoagulant.
An antioxidant is a molecule that inhibits oxidation. Oxidation is a chemical reaction that can produce free radicals that lead to a chain reaction causing damage or death to cells. Antioxidants terminate these oxidation reactions.
Herbs that promote urine formation, thereby flushing the kidneys and urinary tract while eliminating any excess water retention. As diuretics reduce water retention, they are often used to reduce blood pressure.
Cholagogues stimulate the production & release of bile from the liver & gallbladder. This refreshes and cleanses these organs, as well as increases bile in the small intestines.
Herbs which stimulate menstruation. Emmenagogues are used for scanty menstruation, to relieve menstrual pain, and improve blood flow in the pelvic area and uterus.
Herbs that increase sexual arousal through various actions including increased circulation, relaxation, stimulation, or tonics that strengthen glandular health.
Flavonoids are a colorful type of polyphenol. As all polyphenols, they have a strong antioxidant effect. Many flavonoids have an anti-inflammatory, and/or antiallergen effect.
John Immel, the founder of Joyful Belly, teaches people how to have a
healthy diet and lifestyle with Ayurveda biocharacteristics.
His approach to Ayurveda is clinical, yet exudes an ease which many find enjoyable and insightful.
John also directs Joyful Belly's School of Ayurveda,
offering professional clinical training in Ayurveda for over 15 years.
John's interest in Ayurveda and specialization in digestive tract pathology was inspired by a complex digestive disorder acquired from years of international travel,
as well as public service work in South Asia.
John's commitment to the detailed study of digestive disorders reflects his zeal to get down to the roots of the problem.
His hope and belief in the capacity of each & every client to improve their quality of life is nothing short of a personal passion.
John's creativity in the kitchen and delight in cooking for others comes from his family oriented upbringing.
In addition to his certification in Ayurveda, John holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard University.
John enjoys sharing Ayurveda within the context of his Catholic roots,
and finds Ayurveda gives him an opportunity to participate in the healing mission of the Church.
Jesus expressed God's love by feeding and healing the sick.
That kindness is the fundamental ministry of Ayurveda as well.
Outside of work, John enjoys spending time with his wife and 7 kids, and pursuing his love of theology, philosophy, and language.
Since these ingredients are all natural and with minimal processing, you can follow your natural cravings - as long as they aren't emotionally based. Otherwise, once a day is probably enough - before bed is a good time.
Pasteurized cow's milk is simple cooked cow's milk - it will not affect the results of this recipe. However, most pasteurized cow's milk tends to homogenized as well. Homogenized milk causes digestive problems and should be avoided.
Dear Lavanya, Homogenized milk may create digestive problems, as the altered milk fat molecules are absorbed directly by the intestines without proper digestion. Pasteurized milk is okay though.
Hi Y'all - pasteurization heats just to below boiling temp, and makes the milk proteins glom together, harder to digest. At home, we can take it up to boil three times, to break up the proteins into smaller molecules again. That is, let it climb the pot, slide pot off burner to drop the froth, then slide back on and repeat 2X more. Per Dr. RamaKant Mishra. I find it helps me personally. Am sensitive to the whey, though the spices and making sure it is not low fat milk also helps. Mari, Goat milk is lighter, drier, more astringent, with diff properties. It is more suited to Kaphas and to those with more ama. It is still yummy this way, needing less spices. If using, I prefer it plain, in summer, or with something to make it thicker and more soothing to Vata in winter. A tsp of ghee in either type of milk is especially nice at night, or to build ojas even better, add ghee, a few almonds, and a couple soaked medjool dates (or as desired) and few threads saffron. Blend a little of the milk with the nuts and dates, then add the rest so it doesn't spit, you know? Yum!
Was a little hesitant about the cardamom due to it's pungent odor & spicy taste but it was a nice compliment to the mix. Tasted great - THANK YOU! *(use this for pain-works well and NO crazy side effects like with pain RX's).
* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
The information and products on this website are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any
disease.
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