Having a slow or even poor digestion? Feeling heavy after a meal? Not feeling hungry at all? Besides chewing thoroughly, at least 20 times per bite, a good routine before your meal is a ginger appetizer. Fresh ginger has pungeant and heating qualities and in moderation is balancing for all doshas and initiates the digestive process.
You can prepare and consume the appetizer 10 – 15 minutes before the main meals, meaning lunch and dinner. It will increase saliva production in your mouth and prepares your digestion system for what follows. The stomach increases acid production and the pancreas get ready with enzymes so when you eat a full meal everything goes smoothly. It is especially helpful when you can’t take your time to eat slowly and peacefully, even though you should do that primarily to help yourself if you have long-term symptoms of indigestion like bloating, bad breath and irregular bowel movements.
How do you prepare it? Grate some ginger on a teaspoon, add unrefined sea salt or mountain salt and squeeze some lemon juice on top – ready to eat! The amount of ginger and salt depends on how you feel after swallowing it. It is quite pungeant in taste so if you start to feel excess heat or burning from the appetizer, make it smaller. If your ginger is not organic peel it before consuming.
