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1. Use split mung bean if possible. Soak the mung beans for several hours before cooking and drain. Add 6c water and bring to a boil, scooping off any foam that forms on the top. Then, strain out the liquid, and add another 4c of fresh water to the mung dal.
2. When the mung beans are dissolved into the broth (1-3hrs depending upon desired textured), grind the ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and cumin. Make a thick paste by adding a bit of water. Let sit for five minutes, then saute in the ghee until the spices become aromatic but before they brown. De-glaze the frying pan with a 1/4c of water to soak all the remaining flavor of the spices and add to the mung soup.
3. Add rice and any remaining ingredients to broth. Stir. Cover and cook on low heat for 20-25 minutes or until grains are tender.
How Does This Ayurvedic Recipe Improve Wellness?
CLINICAL AYURVEDIC REVIEW
Cleanse Your Body
If your belly feels sluggish after too many treats, Kitchari is an easy way to cleanse your digestion and restore freshness. Kitchari offers a true delight to both your body and senses. It is a heart warming synergy of mung beans, basmati rice, and digestive spices that is easy to prepare. This time tested formula, centuries old, is a complete protein, rich in fiber, cleansing to the digestive tract, and will act to bulk up stool for easier elimination.
To maximize the many benefits your will receive from kitchari, eat it for several meals in a row, such as lunch and dinner on the same day. Once you experience the benefits of kitchari, you'll see how feeling good again is just a few steps away. It just may become addictive! Those who avoid beans because of digestive difficulties need not avoid kitchari. Mung beans are among the easiest to digest legumes. They are antacid, helping to soothe fiery digestive conditions, and won't promote gas and bloating.
Invigorate Your Metabolism
Spices are the difference between a tasty meal and a bland one, and also the difference between healthy and poor circulation. A Kapha imbalance can cause your circulation to stagnate, depressing your metabolism and causing weight gain. A well-spiced dish can stimulate your circulation, invigorate your metabolism, and clear out congestion. In this recipe, cloves open up your pores and enhance blood flow to the skin, reducing puffiness and lymphatic congestion. Cardamom destroys mucous congestion. Ginger stimulates the heart. Cumin and bay leaf reduce water retention. Reach for these spices with enthusiasm, but remember: Too much spice is harsh and can leave a burning feeling the intestines. Be aware of your body's reaction to spices. Those with ulcers or inflammation will not benefit from too many spices, but it is helpful for those with sluggish digestion.
Kitchari is Ayurveda's perfect food, indicated in times of recovery as well as cleansing. Kitchari can even be the centerpiece of a mono-diet or fast, as it is a simple food that supplements the healing process. As with Grandma's chicken soup, there are as many ways to make kitchari as there are reasons to consume it. Typical modifications include vegetables such as carrots, greens, zucchini, or potatoes. Spices like cumin, cinnamon, or black pepper can be included, as well as even toasted nuts or coconut. Technically, a kitchari is any dish combining rice and legumes. Typically, however, kitcharies use mung beans because they are the easiest legume to digest. This kitchari is especially suited to Kapha dosha.
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 Mung Dal Kitchari (Kapha Reducing) Good for My Ayurvedic Diet?
Find out by taking this free, easy quiz.
You'll learn your body type, and whether 'Mung Dal Kitchari (Kapha Reducing)' 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 Mung Dal Kitchari (Kapha Reducing)
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.
Expectorants help you eliminate mucus from the lungs. These herbs often work by increasing the quantity of mucus, or thinning the mucus. Expectorants are indicated when phlegm congests the lower respiratory tract.
An agent that kills microorganisms or inhibits their growth. Antimicrobial is an umbrella term that can be broken down into specific categories of target microorganism, such as anti-bacterials, fungals, and virals.
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.
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.
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.
Comments & Impressions of 'Mung Dal Kitchari (kapha Reducing)'
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Dear Catherine,
Nan bread is made of wheat, which may nullify some of the cleansing effects of the kitchari. Papadams are made of lentils and are very suitable to cleansing. Both are tasty!
Warm Regards,
-John
@David - Quinoa is an excellent substitute, and probably more Kapha pacifying than regular rice, although we're splitting hairs here. The firm texture of the quinoa changes depending on how you cook it - how much water, etc. Thanks for asking!
Yes, you can substitute brown rice for white rice, and olive oil for ghee. These recipes are merely suggestions. Innovate at will but use the gunas, nature's healing qualities, to make sure it is still healthy for you.
I made this for the first time last week; very tasty! However, I found it took a lot longer to cook than the 25 minutes (about 50 mins). The rice was still quite firm at 25 minutes. Should the rice be cooked on its own first and then added in?
Alyssa.....1. Use split mung bean if possible. Soak the mung beans for several hours before cooking and drain. Add 6c water and bring to a boil, scooping off any foam that forms on the top. Then, strain out the liquid, and add another 4c of fresh water to the mung dal.
Pretty good, though I had to add a LOT of water to the recipe -- though I may have read it incorrectly. I also used some vegetable broth in cooking the beans -- not sure if that's an acceptable addition, but I haven't found a recipe that uses water instead of broth that tastes good to me. Filling!
I have never cooked with mung bean before - i boiled some last night and i am eating them in a dish with lots of veggies.
do they really disintegrate into water? or do they just remain at the bottom? thanks! cannot wait to try! i need to lower my kapha which has been dominant lately :)
In order to "be a kitchari" legums and grains must be cook together.however you can soak your rice for 2 hours before your mix it with the moong dals (if you soak your rice overnight it will take only 7 minutes to be done)
I find it a little confusing that for a recipe that is supposed to be Kapha reducing, that every ingredient has an exclamation mark which indicates that these ingredients aren't particularly suited to a Kapha reducing diet. Can you clarify........
The exclamation points represent foods that are not ideal for you personally based on your Joyful Belly quizzes. There are only 4 ingredients on the list with a line through Kapha - Basmati rice, ghee, salt and water. Each is used in a minimal amount and balanced with digestive spices that make this dish overall balancing for Kapha.
- Kimberly Kubicke, Asbury park, NJ, 12-26-16 (Reply)
Ayurveda doesn't measure food in terms of calories or grams of fat. It looks at food in terms of taste and qualities which we have included above.
- Kimberly Kubicke, Asbury park, NJ, 09-19-18 (Reply)
* 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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