Food for the inner you

'You are what you eat' isn't just granny's favourite saying. It's one of the key underlying principles of Ayurveda. Ayurvedic diets, contrary to common belief, do not prohibit meats or wines. Rather, they stress moderation, and selection of foods in harmony with your body type.

Ayurveda also gives us the unique idea of food as medicine. The ancients believed that a person's diet had the power to cure many ailments, large and small.

Dishes like this bowl of sprouted gram work with your therapy to produce a healing effect.

A dispensary of taste

Kalari Kovilakom's pure Ayurvedic kitchen is a shrine to ideas first outlined by the ayurvedic physicians of more than a thousand years ago.
Foods are prepared in brass, iron or clay vessels only. And chef Nayaranan Kutty weaves his pure vegetarian magic with only the minimum of oil and almost no chillis.

You may find your first meal at Kalari somewhat bland, specially if you're a curry lover or a steak-eggs-ketchup-and-mustard kind of person. But within a day or two, something strange happens. Your palate softens, becomes more sensitive. Suddenly, the subtle flavours of pure spices and fresh tropical vegetables begin to come to the fore. Each meal becomes a medley of subtle textures and aromas, rather than the taste assaults most of us are used to. Even better, you need to eat less and less to feel completely sated!

Fresh air for starters

A meal in Kalari's pillar-framed, breezy dining area usually begins with tumblers of lukewarm, herb-medicated waters, your serving being based on your body type and our physician's recommendation. This helps to prime the stomach, readying it for the food to follow.
The highlight of the meal is next, a gleaming brass thali. It arrives covered in a banana leaf section, sliced to fit, and offset by rows of glistening katoris, or cups.
Working with your treatments in mind, chef Narayanan conjures up a harmony of tastes. A raw sprout and onion salad may be balanced with a creamy dish of the local bitter gourd. And a mound of the steaming, fibre-rich red rice could be complemented with a thick lentil and dry jackfruit combo. Whole wheat chapatis or dosas (Indian unleavened breads) could be served up with a piquant, low-spice sambar.

As with all the treatments at Kalari, our diet programmes are designed to stay with you long after you leave.
Based on your ayurvedic body type, our physicians create comprehensive lists of foods that favour you and those that don't.
So if you can choose to be a little more conscious, you can easily carry your new-found sense of well- being into all your future meals.