Have you ever heard about super-foods? Look carefully in your kitchen, yes look at those onions and garlic. Well! Yes, onions and garlic are considered super-food that has numerous benefits regarding health. They are commonly known for adding flavor to your favorite curries and soups or yummiest dishes. Many use them as staples for cooking because without it food would be incomplete.
Despite being so beneficial for health, Ayurveda has a big no for including them in the sattvic diet. Now you wonder why? Well in Ayurveda they are measured as medicine or purifiers and not as food items. Food items in Ayurveda are of two categories: rasas and gunas that generally denote taste and quality.
Talking about taste there are around six types: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent. Moving further with gunas there are three of them: Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva. Since onion and garlic are considered tamasic and rajasic and are pungent in taste, thus they are avoided to be in the regular diet. Knowing all these in detail will clarify the reason why tamas and rajas gunas are exempted in food items.
Well before knowing about the gunas, one should know about the metrics of Ayurveda which comprises of Dosha and Gunas, where dosha indicates nothing but the constitution of the body i.e. Kapha (earth), pitta (fire), and Vata (air). An Imbalance in any of these three could disturb the lifestyle and health of an individual. Therefore, a proper balance is required among all three. When we look at onion and garlic, they fall under the category pitta which indicates fire. Hence consumption of these increases inner fire reducing the volume of Kapha. This also indicates that being a source of pitta or vata onion and garlic can dial the immune system and cure a cold easily.
Now coming to the gunas, which means the qualities of these food items or say medicines in Ayurvedic terms. These qualities work over the human body along with their mind thus they underlie all the manifestations.
Sattva: Balance is the main principle of this along with purity and stillness altogether. A person dominated by sattva, believes in harmony with a great practice of spirituality. Food included in it is light, digestible food such as fruits, grains, mild spices, vegetables, etc. Moreover, organic products behave as a source of sattvic food.
Rajas: Indicates the acceleration, activity, ambition, greed, and principle of outward motion. A person who is into the practice of greed, competitiveness, desires, and all similar traits is considered dominated by rajas. Generally, hot and spicy food items fall under this category such as onions, garlic, coffee, eggs, extreme tastes, etc.
Tamas: Ayurveda believes a person could become lazy, insensitive, dull if he/she is dominated by tamas as he/she can easily be triggered by lower impulses. Tamasic traits incorporate the principle of inertia and downward motion. The food items that fall under the tamasic category are meat, fish, alcohol, stale food, over-processed food, onion, etc.
The above information gives a lot closer view about a healthy life of yogis and their diet. In short, this indicates sattvic diet is the greatest of them all. Onion and garlic are food items that contain an excessive amount of heat and can increase bile in the body. Further, they can cause aggression, anxiety, overstimulation of senses, etc. Thus in Ayurveda, it is believed to live a healthy and nourished life by avoiding such tamasic and rajasic food items.
In a nutshell, the Ayurvedic diet considers onions and garlic as medicines after recognizing their benefits mainly as blood purifiers. Thus, one should not consume them regularly. In short, it would be more preferred to evolve than that to revolt, which means little by little ushering change in our diet can lead to a happy and healthy life. Food is the primary source of leading it that way, and hence monitoring the intake of the right food should be tackled carefully. Listen to your body and respond to it accordingly in your unique way. Because it is the only place you live, then why not make it worthwhile.