Cooking in a Tiny Kitchen, and Learning Ayurveda From Gurus

In this episode:

• I answer a listener question: How to eat healthy with a tiny kitchen?
• Interview with Dr. Robert Svoboda + Dr Claudia
• Interview Prashanti on Enlightenment + learning + tejas

Listener Question: Maximum Health, Minimal Kitchen

My kitchenette has a mini fridge, hot plate, and microwave. What appliances should I invest in?

• Sell the microwave or use it for storage space if it’s built in.
• Get the nicest blender you can afford. Vitamix is my favorite. It’s great for soups, smoothies, salad dressings, and can even be used as a mixer.
• A dutch oven to sit on your hot plate can double as a place to soak and cook grains. Le Creuset makes amazing cast iron pots.
• If you wanted to branch out further, rice cooker is great for soups, stews, grains. Most of them have the advantage of having a timer so you can set your quinoa to be hot and ready when you get home.

What are some basic everyday recipes I can make without a lot of space or equipment?

• Get in a food rhythm for the season you’re in and your body type.
• For me now that it’s freezing in Idaho I make green juice or a green smoothie in the am for nutrients. I make a pot of veggie or veggie and bean soup for the day, and cook a grain in the rice cooker. Today’s was quinoa.

No garden, no problem!

• Sprouts contain an incredible amount of nutrients, and take up almost no space.
• Alfalfa and clover are the easiest. You can also sprout lentils, quinoa, a flat of sunflower seeds.
• If you wanted to get fancier with it, here’s an indoor gardening guide I posted.

I talk to Dr. Robert Svoboda and Dr. Claudia Welch about:

• Learning from gurus and spending time with mentors influences thought process enormously!
• The deeper enlivening principles of learning ayurveda.

What we menton is:

• How a teacher helps us to think about the nuts and bolts and make them your own.
• How to be in the presence of the person you’re trying to help.
• If you want to know what’s going on, keep quiet and pay attention.
• If your confidence comes from theoretical knowledge, you’ll never feel confident enough. Things are proven and disproven all the time.

I talk to Prashanti about:

• How to get out of your own way to take action.
• What to do when you feel like you’re distracted and not getting anything done.
• Pure consciousness and diving into the self.

What we mention is:

• Surrender all the little things and surrender even ourselves, in favor of purpose.
• Meditation is where the magic happens.
• Feeling less separate.

Show Highlights:

• 4:45 There’s mixed research on microwaves, but they totally creep me out.
• 7:32 Cate’s recipe for rice cooker quinoa
• 11:32 Tips for having a good sprouting system
• 12:40 Different ways to eat sprouts
• 18:00 How to think about things
• 22:15 The Art of Medicine
• 28:15 Death bed perspective
• 31:58 Consciousness wants us to awaken as much as we want to awaken.

Links from the Conversation:

• Yogahealer.com/Food
• Indoor gardening guide

Bios:

Dr. Robert Svoboda

Dr. Robert Svoboda is the first Westerner ever to graduate from a college of Ayurveda and be licensed to practice Ayurveda in India. During and after his formal Ayurvedic training he was tutored in Ayurveda, Yoga, Jyotish, Tantra and other forms of classical Indian lore by his mentor, the Aghori Vimalananda. He is the author of twelve books including Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution and the Aghora series, which discusses his experiences with his mentor during the years 1975 – 1983.

Dr. Claudia Welch

Dr Claudia Welch is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, an Ayurvedic practitioner and educator, and the author of several books including Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Life: Achieving Optimal Health and Wellness Through Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine and Western Science and, How the Art of Medicine Makes the Science More Effective: Becoming the Medicine We Practice.

Dr. Welch lectures internationally on Oriental and Ayurvedic medicines and Women’s Health, bringing a depth of knowledge and a sense of joy to her presentations. She has served on the teaching faculty of The Ayurvedic Institute, Kripalu School of Ayurveda, Southwest Acupuncture College, and Acupractice Seminars.

Prashanti de Jager, PhD(cand), MS, EMT

Prashanti was raised as ‘Dirk’ in West Michigan by his precious kind loving parents, Dirk and Jantje, who had immigrated from Friesland soon after WWII. After earning degrees from the University of Michigan, Prashanti moved to India in 1990.  He thought he would go for 3 months but stayed a decade.He became fully immersed in Advaita, at the feet of Sri H.W.L. Poonja, and steeped in the Vedic Sciences, including Ayurveda, Vastu Shastra, Yoga, Jyotish, etc.

Traveling all over India training as a Yogi, Ayurvedic Clinician, Ethnopharmacologist, etc, and living in North India he started to treat hundreds of sick locals and foreigners that came to him with a diverse spectrum of health issues. He founded an Ayurvedic herb company in 1993 in North India where he grew, wildcrafted and processed the herbs by hand.  As the reputation for these herbs grew ‘Organic India’ emerged to serve the demand in a socially responsible and environmentally sustainable way. www.organicindia.com

Favorite Quotes from the Conversation

• “When you stir fry, you actually seal the nutrients inside.” -Cate
• “When people bring up ayurvedic cooking, for me that brings up visions of mung beans and spices from India. I don’t know, it feels sort of exotic.” – Cate
• “At the heart of it ayurvedic cooking is about living in your body and your eco-system.” – Cate
• “Sprouts will have 300x the nutrients that the grown plant will have.” – Cate
• “Having a mentor or guru multiplied my ability to gain a grasp on ayurveda.” – Dr. Svoboda
• “[Diagnosis] is about you being quiet enough that you can allow things to come to you, and you can perceive in a quiet space inside yourself what is going on inside that person.” – Dr. Svoboda
• “We keep thinking that the answer is more theoretical knowledge… but you need time to develop.” – Dr. Welch