5 Top Reasons to Include Superfoods in Your Breakfast. Choose these Ayurvedic Healthy Breakfast Options
We teamed up with guest blogger Polly Telegina (our pal and editor at Pure Himalayan Shilajit) to offer you this awesome blog on 5 ways you can supercharge your breakfast with Ayurveda. Read on to explore healthy Ayurvedic breakfast options and all their benefits. Enjoy!
Some people say breakfast is the most important meal of your day.
The foods you eat in the morning power you up so that you can have all the energy you need for your best creative time (before lunch).
It’s important to eat a rich breakfast filled with complex carbohydrates and protein. They help you anchor your adrenal health (especially if you drink coffee) and sustain your energy all morning long.
What’s one of the best things you can do to ensure that your breakfast is healthy? Add Ayurvedic superfoods to your breakfast!
Ayurvedic ‘superfoods’ have been a staple of Indian medicine for many thousands of years. They provide a huge number of health benefits.
How to Make Your Breakfast Pack a Punch
If you really want a breakfast packed with energy and nutrition, you should include Ayurvedic superfoods. They are the best healthy breakfast options ever! But what exactly are they?
‘Superfood’ is a term that can be confusing. But let’s make it crystal clear. It’s a word used to describe food and herbs that are incredibly powerful, nutrient-dense, and packed with health benefits.
Using the word ‘superfood’ applies to so many foods that are revered in Ayurvedic medicine. Ayurveda builds its whole system around maximizing nutrition, promoting longevity, and reducing disease.
Yet even amongst the ancient practitioners of Ayurveda (those who recognized the importance of not just a daily meal plan, but every bite that you eat), there are certain foods and herbs that stand out above the rest.
For example, you can infuse your breakfasts with simple herbs like turmeric and ginger (fresh or dried). They both provide powerful anti-inflammatory benefits.
Or, take Ashwagandha Root, aka Indian ginseng. Ayurveda treasures it as a powerful aphrodisiac and energy booster. It’s easy to add one or two teaspoons of Ashwagandha powder to hot cereals, protein fat balls, and warm tea with milk.
Shilajit health benefits include enhanced cognition and more motivation. Shilajit’s another superfood that’s so easy to add to what you’re already eating. We like to add it to smoothies or herbal coffee substitutes.
It’s easy to see why you’ll want to make a point of including these foods in your diet!
Photo credit: Toa Heftiba
Why Ayurvedic Superfoods Supercharge Your Breakfast!
Ayurvedic superfoods are fantastic any time of day, but they’re particularly effective when you use them in the morning. Why?
They Boost Your Energy
Ayurvedic superfoods increase your energy levels so you’ll be more motivated and productive throughout your morning. In fact, using Ayurvedic superfoods like Ashwagandha or Rhodiola can, in many cases, completely replace the “need” to drink coffee.
Superfoods can offer you the same kind of energizing stimulation, but without the crash and jitters associated with coffee. Even shilajit, a powerful mineral resin extracted from the Himalayan mountains, can be used for this reason. Shilajit health benefits provide long-lasting energy.
They Reduce Stress
Most Ayurvedic superfoods are in a class of food and herbs known as adaptogens. Adaptogens are substances that help the body adapt to stress.
Adaptogens have proven to be particularly useful in the west – where people are constantly exposed to extreme amounts of travel, communication, tight schedules, and screen time. Through work, raising children, attending school, and driving in traffic, so many of us live high-strung lives!
Adaptogens like Ashwagandha and Brahmi can help the body adapt to stress and prevent it from getting out of control.
They Enhance Intelligence
Another benefit of Ayurvedic superfoods is that many of them feed your brain – thereby enhancing your intelligence!
Many Ayurvedic herbs, such as Brahmi, Turmeric, and Gotu Kola, are known to enhance the function of the nervous system – including brain health.
By using these superfoods over an extended period of time, the brain is able to build new connections and restore old ones. This means that you’ll likely experience improved thinking better memory, and overall enhanced intelligence.
They Fight Anxiety
Lots of people struggle with anxiety every day. Social anxiety, general anxiety, and panic attacks can all make something as simple as going to work a living nightmare.
If you struggle with anxiety, Ayurvedic superfoods can help. Add Ashwagandha with ghee and cardamom to your morning oatmeal. Or make hot Gotu Kola Tea and take it with you to work. You may find that anxiety no longer touches you.
They Fight Pain
Ayurvedic superfoods are known to fight pain because they reduce inflammation. The most common herb used for this purpose is Turmeric – which, luckily, is ridiculously easy to include in your breakfast.
Mix ground Turmeric into scrambled eggs. Or have a Turmeric latte. Or simply boil fresh turmeric in water and drink it all day long. Turmeric shows a powerful ability to fight arthritis and tendonitis, which is great for people who work in jobs that require repetitive motion.
What are Your Ayurvedic Healthy Breakfast Options?
Healthy Breakfast Option #1
Energizing Superfood Cereal
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Preparation Time: 5 minutes, plus 24-hour soak time
Yield: Serves 2
1 ½ cups Raw Oat Groats or Raw Buckwheat Groats
6 cups Water
2 cups Hempseed Milk, Almond Milk or Oat Milk
2 Tablespoons Goji Berries
2 teaspoons Cacao Nibs
2 teaspoons Coconut Nectar
2 teaspoons ground Ashwagandha
½ teaspoon Fresh Ginger Root, minced
½ teaspoon Fresh Turmeric Root, minced
Cinnamon to taste
Soak the oat groats in water for at least 24 hours (and up to 48 hours). The longer they soak, the softer and more digestible they become. Drain the water and divide the soaked groats into two bowls.
Pour 1 cup of the hempseed milk over each serving and add (divided with half in each bowl) the remaining ingredients.
Healthy Breakfast Option #2
Superfood Breakfast Pudding
VP-K+
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Yield: Serves One
1 organic, ripe banana, peeled and broken into pieces
½ organic, ripe avocado
2 Medjool dates
1 Tablespoon water
1 heaping teaspoon ground Ashwagandha or Shatavari
1 teaspoon ground Maca
Combine everything together in a high-speed blender or food processor for about 30 seconds… YUM!
Healthy Breakfast Option #3
Ashwagandha Milk Tea
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Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 1 serving
One of Ayurveda’s premier reproductive tonic herbs, ashwagandha, is said to give men the “vital energy of a horse.” Wow!
This strengthening root is a renowned brain and immune-boosting herb that mends all types of debilitating conditions, including nervous system issues and tissue deficiencies.
Known as the “Indian ginseng,” ashwagandha is strengthening, revitalizing, and stress-reducing, and it helps produce ojas (vital reproductive fluids).
It’s also sattvic (i.e. balancing to all doshas), making it one of the best herbal remedies for men and women suffering from conditions such as weakness, old age, overwork, lack of sleep and exhaustion.
1 cup homemade Almond Milk or Oat Milk – you can find recipes for both of these in my cookbook, “The Ayurvedic Vegan Kitchen” [link to my shop]
1 teaspoon ground Ashwagandha
½ teaspoon ground ginger or turmeric root
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom or ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon molasses, raw honey, coconut nectar, or maple syrup, optional
Gently heat the Almond Milk over medium-low heat in a small saucepan until warm. Pour into your favorite mug. Stir in the ashwagandha, ginger, cardamom, and molasses to taste. Enjoy!
In Conclusion
Breakfast is an incredibly important meal. One of the best things you can do for your health is to kick up your breakfast a notch by including Ayurvedic superfoods in every meal.
- They’ll help improve all areas of your health, enhance cognition, improve mental capacity, and decrease anxiety and stress.
- They’ll boost your energy and can even help reduce pain. Ayurvedic superfoods are wildly beneficial for people of all ages.
Ask yourself this… Why wouldn’t you add Ayurvedic superfoods to your breakfast?
Need help or support? We’ve got your back! Click here for my Ayurveda Starter’s Guide – where you can learn to better understand your body through Ayurveda, grab Ayurvedic superfood recipes, and so much more!
