Asafoetida or hing aids digestion

Ayurveda hails the process of digestion as a ritual yagna that transforms what we eat into a life-sustaining elixir — anna rasa, the quintessence of food. Lifestyles that include wrong food and irregular eating habits are distorting this process and causing indigestion.

Inefficient digestion renders the body vulnerable. The markers for good digestion are a clear burp, energy, timely natural reflexes or urges, lightness of body and onset of hunger and thirst.

Indigestion is, in contrast, marked by heaviness, lethargy, constipation, stickiness in saliva, burps that taste of a meal long after it is over, excessive yawning, headache, aversion to food and stiffness of hips and lower back.

There are many causes and types of indigestion based on eating habits, lifestyle and psychological factors. These include:

Drinking excessive amounts of water

Irregular eating and sleeping habits

Not chewing food thoroughly

Eating food that is not compatible with season, body type or habituation

Suppressing urges like hunger and thirst

Eating when in a state of stress, usually due to anxiety, depression or anger

Most of these can be identified and even remedied by avoiding the causative factors.

Healing Herb — Asafoetida or hing

Hing is primarily used for flavour but there is a lot of history and science behind this traditional culinary additive. It is basically an aromatic gum resin obtained from the plant Ferula foetida that grows as a wild herb in Punjab, Kashmir and Afghanistan.

Ayurveda included hing or asafoetida in its pharmacopoeia more than two-and-a-half millennia ago and evaluated its medicinal values that include anti-kapha and vaata activities that make it an effective digestive stimulant, carminative, flavour enhancer, mucolytic, anthelmentic and pain-reliever. It is also suggested that it be fried in ghee before use in food or medicine as consuming it raw can cause nausea.

Methods of use:

For regular cooking, a dash of hing should suffice

To prevent flatulence and colic and improve appetite and digestive efficiency, a simple formula known as hingvashtaka churna where one part of hing is mixed with seven parts of a combination of powders of dry ginger, black pepper, ajwain, powdered rock salt, cumin and kaala jeera is to be eaten with hot rice and ghee at the beginning of a meal

The same formula can be added to a dilute and well-churned glass of buttermilk

Generally fasting clears the backlog of undigested food. After fasting, it is recommended that a drink made of channa sattu (roasted gram powder) be taken with a seasoning of fried hing, jeera, rock salt and lemon juice, which stimulates the process of digestion and improves bowel clearance.

Reach Dr CM Pradyumna,

ayurvedacharya, at t2@abpmail.com