Every person walking and talking on our planet earth, irrespective of their faith looks forward to at-least one annual festival to celebrate with their family and friends to keep their life filled with colours of hope. Mine is Diwali, the festival that signifies the victory of good over evil and light over darkness. This auspicious festival not only brings light of diyas and lamps, colours of rangoli in our life, but also mouth watering varieties of sweets and savouries for our taste buds.

Ever since I embarked on the journey of healthful and soulful eating, the three miscreants that were principally out of my kitchen team as players on bench, were the Refined Flour, Sugar and Refined Oil. But then festivals like Diwali are those times when you need all hands on deck, so you end up using refined oil for frying and consuming some amount of sugar in the sweets ordered from shops or being gifted by friends and family. For me, I take it as an occasional and permissible cost which you cannot avoid on festivals, after all it is the time when you celebrate with your family and friends and having those moments of joy just trumps over everything else.

Now that festivities are done, our heart filled with moments of fun and frolic, it is time to come back to the reality of getting the house back in order. And with this I mean our body, which is home to our soul. Now it is time to detox the body by increasing the intake of water, other fluids and keeping our body hydrated. Start with having lukewarm water as the first thing in the morning and if possible try consuming it throughout the day.

Now, there are people who do not like drinking water as is and thus end reducing their water intake. For them infusing lemon slices, cucumber slices, orange peels, cinnamon, fresh turmeric slices, or even ginger slices can be a super cool solution. Lemon, honey in lukewarm water is a good option as well. Make sure that It should just be lukewarm because as according to Ayurveda, heating honey or adding honey to hot water can change the properties of honey, hence is a strict “NO”. (You can read about Honey and its various benefits in my blog “As Sweet As Honey” in the Health Bites Section)

If you are now ready to take it to next level, then I have a recipe of a very effective infusion to share, which will relieve you of side affects like bloating and acidity which may occur due to sinful(may want to read joyful to avoid being on guilt trip ). 

• To prepare this infusion take 1 ltr of water and add 1 tsp of cumin seeds, 1 tsp of coriander seeds, 1 tsp of fennel seeds, 1/2 tsp of ginger powder and 1/2 tsp of turmeric powder. 
• Boil it till it reduces in quantity and then let it cool and enjoy it sip by sip throughout the day. 

This infusion is very effective if you have gas, bloating or acidity issues and will rejuvenate you if you are feeling tired, demotivated or just lacking energy.

If you are a tea person, then herbs infused tea like Chamomile tea, Lavender tea, Hibiscus tea, Rose tea, Lemon tea will help you as well. The hot water as base is also beneficial for cough, cold, good sleep, blood pressure, digestion etc.

Fasting is another way to detoxify your body. But in this case, fasting does not mean just leaving grains and stuffing all non grain fried items. Fasting for detoxifying means taking break from the heavy meals and including lots of fruits and coconut water. You can have Daliya, Khichdi, Curd Rice as they go easy on your stomach and ensure that your system does not have to work overtime to digest.

There is a very popular saying “You are what you eat” but I believe that “You are what you can digest”. So make sure that you have a good gut health and your stomach is happy. There are also other things like chewing your food properly, eating on time, and proper sleep, etc that can help in detoxifying your body. 

So apply these simple remedies for a smooth and happy digestive system and do some serious kickass kicking off toxins out of your body. After all its a temple where your soul resides, and take my word, you would not like to share it with toxins.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu…