The inspiration behind the Banyan Botanicals Kitchari Spice Mix comes straight from the kitchens of families who have been making wholesome kitchari for generations, as well as our well-respected Ayurvedic teachers. When using this traditional spice mix recipe, you can be assured that you are taking in something that is time-tested and authentic.

Kitchari (pronounced kich-uh-ree) is the traditional cleansing food of Ayurveda. It is a combination of split mung beans and white basmati rice with plenty of spices, depending on your constitution. Amidst all of the modern diet trends happening today, this might seem like an unusual cleansing food. Here are seven reasons why kitchari is a fabulous food for cleansing.

Traditionally, when we think of spring cleaning, we think of our homes. But what about taking time to clean the accumulated toxins in our minds and bodies? If you find yourself feeling sluggish, bloated, experiencing brain fog, or you have an overall sense of lethargy, then it is time to clean and polish your body, mind, and spirit. Returning to a place of radiance and bliss is not that hard—you were created to shine! Click here to get started on your spring cleanse journey. 

What are sattva, rajas, and tamas? These universal qualities comprise everything in our physical nature and all energetic expressions within the universe. Observing them can help you better understand the Ayurvedic approach to living in harmony with your environment. Read this article for an outline of each quality to support your process in cultivating health. 

Kapha has gotten a bad rap. For some reason, we fixate on the negative attributes of kapha, so when people hear that they may be more kapha-predominant or that their kapha has increased, they tend to get upset or offended. Read this article to learn why balanced kapha is so beautiful and why we would do well to embrace the kapha within us.

If you’ve never heard of CCF Tea, allow us to introduce you! The name, CCF, is an acronym that stands for its ingredients—cumin, coriander, and fennel. You may be most familiar with these seeds because of their role in spicing up your meals. They play an integral part in many spice blends and curry mixes to make your food more delicious and easier to digest.

Coriander just might be one of the most underappreciated herbs out there, in spite of its popularity worldwide as a culinary spice. Most people know coriander by its Spanish name, cilantro, and they either love it or hate it. Read more about coriander's uses and benefits in this article.

Vibrant immunity requires a robust digestive fire, or "agni." When you feed wholesome food to a healthy digestive fire, the nourishment passes from the digestive tract to your entire body by way of the seven tissues. Read this article to learn how to know when your agni may be struggling and how to support it.

For millennia, the dandelion, or lion’s-tooth, was beloved globally for its cheerful beauty and potent medicinal qualities. Completely edible from the root to the tips of the long, jagged leaves, the plant is a powerful healer. Dandelions were used by ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese to purify the blood and address digestive issues. Pleasantly bitter in taste, dandelions are wonderful for gentle cleansing and reducing kapha in the system during the transition from winter to spring.

Here’s the skinny on fats. Although fats have had a bad rap for a few decades, modern medicine has begun to see the importance of good quality fats in the diet. Ayurveda, however, has been using fats not only as a healthy part of a balanced diet but also as a powerful herb and spice vehicle for thousands of years! The utilization of fats in this way is called an anupan. Fats such as ghee, sesame oil, coconut milk, and cow’s milk are recognized as anupans and are valued for their ability to carry herbs and formulas deeper into specific tissues.

Ayurveda teaches us that like increases like and that opposites balance. So, in order to cultivate an optimal winter experience, we want to give our systems access to plenty of warmth, clarity, lightness, and mobility. Together, garlic and ginger cover many of the bases necessary to thrive all winter long. Read this article to discover how they act as potent and worthwhile allies we’d be wise to keep close at hand at this time of year. 

Daily stress is inherent to life. Fortunately, Ayurveda teaches us to use preventative measures to lessen the toll it can take on one’s physical health. Each dosha, or individual constitution, will adapt to stress in its unique way, making the pathway to balance multilayered. Read this article learn more.

Bean sprouts of all types are full of potential—they are nutritious, easy to digest, and delicious. Find out how to grow them from green mung beans, plus learn two simple, tasty, fun recipes you can make with them! 

What do doshas have to do with love? Quite a lot! Check out this article to learn how the doshas play a part in our natural tendencies and attractions towards others. 

Comparing organic raw cacao and most commercial chocolate is like comparing a perfectly ripe, fresh, organic, wild blueberry with the synthetic chemical blueberry flavoring in a jelly bean. The processing and the toxic additives are not digestible and are lacking in prana, aggravate all three doshas, builds ama, and contributes to disease. But don’t despair. With a little education, you can learn how to use this wonderful food to your benefit.

"Heart-opening yoga" is a term often associated with images of various back-bending yoga postures. While these chest-forward expressions are helpful in creating space, a student can perform backbends until Armageddon and still have restriction to the heart chakra and the flow of prana, our life force. Being bendy is good but having a truly open heart is vital. Read this article to find out how to implement the other seven limbs of yoga into your practice to truly open your heart space. 

Have you ever questioned the value of your heart? Probably not. The heart is known for being the powerhouse of the body, as vital as the brain. The heart muscle plays an integral role in our physical health; we wouldn’t survive without it. However, we value it for more than just its physical function. Our language and its metaphors—heartfelt, heavy-hearted, light-hearted, broken-hearted, having the heart of a lion, and so on—show that our culture associates the heart with psychological, emotional, and even spiritual importance.

Banyan’s Community Relations Manager, Erin Douglas, shares her weight loss journey in this blog post. Along with her partner, her dog Jasper, and her supportive community of Banyan friends and coworkers, Erin’s journey to lose fifteen pounds has already shown results! See her checklist and more in this article.  

Seeking shelter from winter’s elements is a natural tendency for most beings, and, ultimately, keeps us alive. Discover ways to make the most of your time spent inside this winter, and how to stay attuned with nature with the help of Ayurvedic herbs, diet, and lifestyle tips that will help you stay warm and balanced.

When we find ourselves reaching for food in moments of crisis or energetic overwhelm, we are witnessing a confused attempt at love—an unintelligent craving based on intelligent underpinnings. Your body can feel that it’s off kilter and is simply trying to restore a sense of equilibrium. Recognize the intelligence and beauty in the impulse (without judging yourself), while acknowledging what your body really wants: the restoration of balance that’s possible only when we’re willing to address the underlying cause of the problem. Read this article for more insight on the topic of emotional overeating from an Ayurvedic perspective. 

For many of us, black pepper is so popular we’d be surprised to find it missing from any dining experience. But have you heard of black pepper’s close relative, pippali? Here in the West, it doesn’t get as much recognition, but pippali, or Piper longum, is among the most celebrated herbs in the Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia and has been for centuries.

Since you know your body better than anyone else, you can make health promoting decisions to bring your body back into balance via diet and lifestyle modifications. As Ayurvedic practices become daily routines, they become second nature to you.

Winter is the optimal time of year to pay close attention to the care of our skin, since the skin is drier and ready to absorb all the nourishment we are willing to give it. Moreover, while it is important to take care of our skin from the outside we all know beauty comes from within, literally, making internal self-care just as essential to healthy, radiant skin. Learn how to keep your skin healthy during this challenging time of year with these easy Ayurvedic tips.

This recipe for a super easy ginger pickle will not only give your agni the boost that it may be looking for, but it will also align well with those healthy diet goals you are setting.