Keep A Cool Head

I suppose it’s very easy to be underwhelmed by any fresh produce you may pick up in a supermarket. Subconsciously, you know that it tastes bland, and there’s not much that you can do to make it taste better, so you stuff it into the refrigerator drawer until it’s definitely past its prime and ready to be tossed into the garbage. Sound familiar?

But if you start a relationship with local growers by visiting their farms and the local markets where you can purchase their goods, you will catch on to seasonal availability and, hopefully, come to appreciate it.

Eating seasonally available food is one of the basic tenets of eating Ayurvedically.

Crisp, flavorful vegetables grow year-round in the South.

The beginning of summer gives us cucumbers and summer squash, lemonbalm and mints, and the powerfuls scents of night-blooming flowers.

The heat can make you feel crazy in the head. Cool it off by breathing deeply. The fragrance and taste of most flowers offers a cooling quality that will ease your mind if you let it. Confederate jasmine, tea olive, and angel’s trumpets blooms spill fragrance into the New Orleans night air. They are in season for a reason.

Your first insight into plant energetics begins with the question: cooling or heating?

Notice the refreshing taste of mint on your tongue and the cooling effect of cucumber slices in your water and you’ll be on your way to thinking with an Ayurvedic approach.