Ayurveda can make menopause easier for women, here’s your perfect diet

Ayurveda can help women deal with menopause by easing the complications. To ensure your life isn’t interrupted by menopause, here are some smart diet choices you must make.

Menopause could be a tricky phase in a woman’s life, and ayurveda could help them sail through the years without complications. The key is to ensure you stick to your weight loss plans and overall fitness, and in this your diet plays the most important role. What you eat, without doubt, affects every phase of your life – from puberty to menopause. As women hit their late 40s and early 50s, menopause brings with it symptoms like loss of scalp hair, vaginal dryness, fatigue, and many more complications. To ensure your life isn’t interrupted by menopause, make a few changes to make in your meal choices. You could take help from ayurveda.

Ayurveda can help you if you are hitting menopause. Your diet plays a big role in making it easy for you.(Shutterstock)

“You find a lot of people saying that menopausal women should eat heat-inducing foods but Ayurveda doesn’t believe in that. In fact, Ayurveda recommends quite the opposite,” says Anjali Peswani, a Mumbai-based nutritionist and food consultant.

Here, she breaks down the type of foods that menopausal women should eat, according to Ayurvedic wisdom:

What to avoid

As a rule of thumb, cut down on spicy chillis, pepper, and spices like garam masala. Reduce your intake of packaged and processed foods. They are high on salt and sugar content, and are not a good idea for any age group. Ayurveda also asks you to focus on plant-based nutrition -- it doesn’t recommend any kind of meat as they produce more toxins and free-radicals in the body.

What to include in your diet

Say yes to cooling foods as the body is transitioning from vatta to kapha. Increase your intake of foods that produce more estrogen -- like soy milk, soy beans and prunes.

Fresh fruits and vegetables help eliminate toxins and clear your system. Begin your day with cooked apples, prunes or figs (high on iron). They will help reduce mood swings and make menopause easier for you. Throughout the day, munch on a variety of fruits - pick your favourites because there’s no restriction on any fruit. Even sour fruits like kiwi, orange and sweet lime are okay.

Make sure you consume lots of green leafy vegetables. (Shutterstock)

Load up on veggies as well. Feel free to favour your most liked vegetables but make sure you consume lots of green leafy vegetables. For instance, you can start including plenty of spinach, radish leaves, drumstick leaves (moringa), colocasia leaves (patra), and coriander in your meals. You can also whip up shepu/ suwa ki sabji (dill leaves), which is high on iron.

Ayurveda emphasises on the importance of spices. Cardamom, cumin, cinnamon and ajwain are generally beneficial in dealing with stomach issues. Also recommended are fenugreek seeds (methi), amaranth, nachni/ragi (finger millet) and black sesame (high on calcium and iron).

Another vital food group you should focus on are lentils. Once again, there are no restrictions so consume everything from whole green moong to red lentils to chana dal.

Eating healthy doesn’t need to be a boring affair. Be creative in the way you include all of these various healthy ingredients in your diet. For instance, you can add some lentils to your spinach soup - it’s transforms into a super healthy and filling meal. Mix some cumin and coriander in nachni bhakris and reap the benefits of spices as well as millet. And, if you’re not a fan of drumstick leaves, you also get moringa in powdered form. Mix it with water and drink it up.

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