Incorporating Ayurvedic Wisdom into Everyday Eating with Kate O’Donnell [EP# 1002]

 

This Week’s Episode Special Guest: Kate O’Donnell

Summary: 

Kimberly interviews Kate O’Donnell, an Ayurvedic practitioner and author, about the principles of Ayurveda and its application in modern life. They discuss the timeless nature of Ayurvedic practices, the importance of food energetics, and how to incorporate these principles into busy lifestyles. Kate shares practical tips for balancing the doshas, the significance of digestion in overall wellness, and how to cook with spices to enhance health. The conversation emphasizes the connection between food, consciousness, and self-care, making Ayurveda accessible to everyone.

 

About 

Kate O’Donnell is the author of three Ayurvedic Cookbooks, including The Everyday Ayurveda Guide to Self-Care, The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook: A Seasonal Guide to Eating and Living Well and Everyday Ayurvedic Cooking for a Calm, Clear Mind: 100 Sattvic Recipes. She is a nationally certified Ayurvedic Practitioner and the founder of the Ayurvedic Living Institute.

Kate began to travel in South India at age 20. More than a dozen extended trips to India and twenty years studying the wisdom traditions of the sub-continent support Kate’s practice of Ayurveda.She also specializes in Ayurvedic education, cooking skills, and cleansing programs, offering on-line programs, occasional in-person workshops on the road, and professional trainings. Her offerings aim to help others come closer to their true nature.

 

Guest Resources:

Website: Kate O’Donnell 

Book: The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook: A Seasonal Guide to Eating and Living Well

 

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Episode Chapters

C00:00 Introduction to Ayurveda and Kate O’Donnell

02:48 The Timelessness of Ayurveda

05:56 Understanding Food Energetics

08:59 The Flexibility of Ayurvedic Practices

11:58 The Connection Between Digestion and Consciousness

14:59 The Role of Food in Yoga and Ayurveda

18:00 Engaging with Food and Nature

20:59 Practical Tips for Balancing Vata Energy

24:02 Managing Pitta Imbalances

28:04 The Impact of Diet on Emotions

29:46 Balancing the Doshas through Food

31:35 Digestibility and Food Preparation Techniques

33:20 Incorporating Spices for Better Digestion

37:12 Practical Tips for Integrating Ayurveda into Daily Life

44:05 Traveling and Maintaining Ayurvedic Practices

48:05 Streamlining Cooking for Busy Lives

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• Glowing Greens Powder™
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KIMBERLY’S BOOKS

• Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart
• The Beauty Detox Solution
• Beauty Detox Foods
• Beauty Detox Power
• Radical Beauty
• Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
• You Are More Than You Think You Are 

OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY!

• Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance [Episode 878]
• How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877
• How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger [Episode #873]
• How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo [Episode #867]

 

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Transcript: 

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:00.6)
Hi everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our very special guest here with me today. Her name is Kate O’Donnell and she is an author, international presenter, Ayurvedic practitioner, the founder of the Ayurvedic Living Institute. So you might guess that we’re talking about Ayurveda today and she is celebrating the 10 year anniversary with her revised edition of the Everyday Ayurvedic Cookbook.

a seasonal guide to eating and living well with over 100 recipes for simple, which we love, healing foods. Kate, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Kate ODonnell (00:39.681)
It’s my pleasure, Kimberly.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:42.178)
You know, there’s so many things that I’m excited to chat with you about. Arivada is one of my favorite subjects. But I just want to say congratulations for having this amazing book and reiterating it and re- you creating it. But the foundation, just like Arivada has been around for thousands of years. And I love how timeless this is, you know, in a world that’s always sort of grasping for

the next pill or the next fad or what can we do that’s, you know, we’re missing something. I love that this is taking us to the roots and keeping it again, really simple, foundational for busy working moms like myself and busy people in general. And yeah, so it’s just, I love that, you know, this rebirthing of something that’s so timeless.

Kate ODonnell (01:37.039)
Me too. Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. It’s something that for myself, you know, there were so many fads as I was growing up, you know, and I sort of started a vegetarian diet when I was 16. I was on my own there trying to figure out what to eat in my family home. So I took an interest in cookbooks and learning about cooking and it just

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (01:45.431)
Yeah.

Kate ODonnell (01:58.659)
There was so much information, and it’s even more so now. And so when I found Ayurveda and I was already a yoga practitioner, and I thought, this makes so much sense. It all goes together, and it’s all thousands of years old, so they’re not going to change their mind in five years about whether avocados are good for me or not.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (02:09.079)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (02:18.094)
Well, it’s funny because I was reading your book and I loved how because, you know, there’s many different ways to use Ayurvedic principles and to interpret them. But you mentioned that you don’t use a lot of onions and garlic because they’re so rajastic. And if I look back in my books, Kate, because I had a food focus on my first three and then still, you know, as it continues to evolve spiritually and emotionally, there’s still always been that cornerstone of food. But my second

book, which is called the Beauty Detox Foods, had onions and garlic in so many recipes. And I was freeing myself from calorie counting and I was working on digestion. And it was at that moment after that book was published, I started studying Arubato myself. And then if you look at all the recipes I created after that, there isn’t a lot of onions and garlic because while some of us may need some of that extra, you know, oomph,

a lot of us in this modern world living in urban centers, having a lot of overstimulation. I found in myself how much it supported me in feeling centered, which is a testament to how powerful food is as a medicine when we realize it really, every food has an energetic quality to it.

Kate ODonnell (03:37.431)
Right, right. And onion and garlic are the, sort of feed our excitability and our passions, which can be a good thing if we’re channeling it well. But I think your point, Kimberly, is that we are all pretty excited already. So maybe we don’t need foods with those qualities. And it’s not to say that onion and garlic is not included in the pharmacopoeia of Ayurveda. mean, it’s there. It’s absolutely part of the diet.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:44.108)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:54.176)
Exactly.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (04:02.86)
Right.

Kate ODonnell (04:05.793)
It’s just about having that knowledge of when we want to eat more of that and when we want to eat less of that. What I was finding is that so many of my students didn’t know how to cook without using onion and garlic as the flavor foundation. Right? So that was what I was trying to like, how do we flavor our food without using those like every single time we cook something?

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (04:12.812)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (04:21.548)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (04:29.986)
Yes. And what I love, so your book has a lot of information about Ayurveda in the beginning, and then it goes into the recipes. And what I love about Ayurveda and how it’s presented here as well is it’s not, you know, hard, rigid rules. It feels nourishing when you even read about Ayurveda, the seasonality, the balancing of energy. Can you just explain, you know, from your standpoint, Kate, just

you know, your approach to Ayurveda and how it can help someone who’s already really busy, but just start to bring in a deeper level of, I’ll say, self-care.

Kate ODonnell (05:12.845)
Right, by I think putting some of our attention on the energetics of our food. So that’s where Ayurveda’s so much information, like in the early part of the text about the energies of foods, whether they make us hot or cold, whether they slow us down or sort of make us lighter and faster.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:34.989)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (05:36.565)
And so we sort of the average person with a little bit of that knowledge, you know, like we already talked, brought up onions and garlic, right? So onions and garlic, they’re, they’re hot. You know, they get you moving. They get you excited. They get you passionate. They’re great for libido.

That’s one of the ways we might use them. They’re great for kicking colds. That’s why so many of our medicines will use onions and garlic. But if somebody is feeling overheated or having trouble falling asleep or is feeling really irritable, maybe we want to reduce onion and garlic at that time. So with a little bit of the knowledge of how a food affects the body, then you know.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:52.034)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:56.792)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (06:05.208)
Right.

Yes.

Kate ODonnell (06:20.045)
And it’s not to say, you know, I think what we want to do so much of the time, Kimberly is, you know, what is Ayurveda say about almonds? Are they, are they a yes or a no? You know, and it’s, it’s all, the answer is always, well, this is what almonds will do in a body. Is that what you need or is that not what you need? And so we can gravitate towards things that we need and away from things that we don’t at any given time.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (06:38.423)
Great.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (06:44.194)
Yes, and I love, know, everybody is so unique and everybody’s Agni, their digestion is unique, their blueprint is different and their goals are different. So I remember at a certain point, Kate, I was actually a raw foodist for a couple of years and it worked really well for me for a time. And then I was learning about Argue Veda and then I was like, you know what works really well for me almost every night for dinner, my family eats, you know, we have a lot of

Kate ODonnell (06:47.236)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (07:11.816)
soup and stews and very warming foods. But what works really well for me and has for years is to have the glowing green smoothie in the morning. Now I still have my hot water with lemon and ginger first. I don’t drink it super cold. I drink it room temperature. And my Ayurvedic teacher, Vidya J, actually prescribes green smoothies. And he also says don’t drink them too cold. So there is this flexibility.

because life is infinite that I really appreciate about Ayurveda where you can take it to match your own constitution. And, you know, whilst Ayurveda says, you know, eat mostly raw foods in the spring, if something’s working and you’re adding other elements to help digestion, you know, for me, I noticed in my body and many others having raw foods and cooked foods can still work really well.

Kate ODonnell (08:02.999)
Right, right. Yeah. And this is one of those examples where people might hear some rule, you know, like Ayurveda says, don’t eat raw food, which is not true, but Ayurveda will say that raw food may be harder to digest. So going into it, you know, if it say it’s a time where we’re really stressed out or we’re really busy or we’re grieving, you know, so the, all the body’s prana, you know, our energy may not be present for the digestion. So during a time like that,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (08:12.706)
Great.

Kate ODonnell (08:31.265)
Maybe we have soup, you know, instead of a raw thing, you know, and smoothies are, you know, again, you hear that Ayurveda says no smoothies, you know, but honestly, if we, if we go back in time to the beginning of the word smoothie, smoothies always had yogurt and bananas in them and ice cream. Do you know, do you remember that when the smoothie first became a thing?

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (08:33.868)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (08:54.898)
well then there’s like, you know, Jamba Juice and these smoothie king and places that have a lot of unhealthy ingredients. I thought you were gonna say, Kate, smooth because it’s blended in effect. is pre-digested. So it’s not like trying to break up these really huge raw leaves in your body, you know, in that sense.

Kate ODonnell (08:59.119)
Yep.

Kate ODonnell (09:16.727)
Exactly. That’s so true. It’s so true. I, you if you look at my books, you’ll find a lot of smooth recipes. Like I do a lot of blender soup. It’s the same idea, you know? So if a person’s taking greenery that is very voluminous when it’s in its raw form and we sort of, you know, we churn it, you know, we grind it down in a smooth form, you’re definitely going to find that the absorption and the bioavailability of the nutrition there is like,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:24.269)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:32.897)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:38.967)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (09:45.901)
tenfold of what it is if you’re sitting there chewing and chewing, trying to get all this voluminous leaf, you know, into your gut in a, cause once the food goes into your belly, it turns into that liquid, you know.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:58.12)
Right, exactly. Exactly. And again, a lot of people in the modern world aren’t chewing well enough or eating or taking the time to even put aside, you know, I’m guilty of it myself. I’m pointing to my desk because there’s times where I do have to, you know, I drop the kids off at school and only have so many hours until I pick them up and bring them to activities. So I try not to eat while I’m working. But

That’s where smoothies have also helped me as well. just, I bless my food, I try. But the truth is none of us are going to be perfect all the time. So we wanna have the knowledge. We wanna utilize some of these seasonal practices and spices, but it’s not about being perfect.

Kate ODonnell (10:44.489)
Not at all. Not at all. It’s so funny when I hang out with my Ayurveda friends, someone will pull out something crazy. Yeah, someone will have, let’s say, a big smoothie with bananas in it. And they’re like, this is so delicious. And someone will say, well, you have a good ugliness. You can handle it. Because we take good care of ourselves. That what we want to indulge, we’re up to the task.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:02.434)
Wait.

Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:09.059)
Yeah.

Kate ODonnell (11:10.317)
You know, and I think that’s important that we, you put all this money in the bank every time you do self care for your digestion. And then sometimes you want to do a withdrawal, you know, take some of that money out and enjoy. So it’s like, I’ll have cheesecake or something. And before I was working with Ayurveda and really working on my digestion, I went through many years where I couldn’t eat that stuff. You know, I couldn’t eat like a big dessert or ice cream Sunday or something. I can totally eat that now.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:22.893)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:33.517)
Yeah.

Kate ODonnell (11:38.807)
I don’t crave it like I used to. still don’t eat it much because it doesn’t sound good. But if I wanted to, I would process that. And I have confidence in my body’s ability to digest whatever goes in. And that’s because of all the good work.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:49.164)
Wait, wait.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:58.526)
One, the other thing I love about Arjuveda is it takes it out of this reductionist approach, which is how many grams of protein are we eating, calories, no sugar. And a lot of the recipes are using some of these really classic Arjuvedic ingredients. For example, I love the, know, the OJUS building with dates and ingredients with, know, recipes with dates, which was, you know, when I gave birth.

To my sons, I had a lot of those date smoothies to just build up again. Honey, we actually have a little farm in Hawaii, Kate. I have honey almost every day now, raw honey, just a little bit, which works really well for me. So for me, getting out of the numbers, which feel really restrictive and understanding that, again, we’re energy and food is energy, is really powerful healing because I think we get led away from

what’s truly well, if we’re just trying to pack in the protein, having all the, you know, the processed bars all day and the protein products, and now we’re not really getting nourished with nature.

Kate ODonnell (13:09.249)
I agree. I agree. It’s like the further that our food comes from nature, the further we each come from our own nature. That’s the Ayurveda teaching. And so the more that we are connected to food in its natural form, you know, so taking like, you know, a bunch of kale and putting it in the blender and making a smoothie out of it, that works because it’s still kale, you know? And I think

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:18.125)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:32.291)
Yeah.

Kate ODonnell (13:35.447)
We’re outsourcing what we’re doing with the numbers is we’re outsourcing our consciousness. You know, we’re not inhabiting our body and saying, I just ate that. How did that feel? saying, I just ate that. had this much protein. So that means it’s good. You know, so it’s an awareness practice of the body. And that’s where we get our information from. It’s not something someone else is feeding us from the outside.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:47.266)
right?

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:51.404)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (14:02.882)
Well, I love this quote. Speaking of that reminds me of a quote that I underlined on page six, which is good digestion results not only in a glowing healthy body, but in a glowing consciousness as well. And I think what’s so powerful about yoga, Ayurveda, just the whole lifestyle is that we recognize that everything affects everything else. So I did start very

heavily focused on food in my wellness journey and became a nutritionist. But then it was like, wow, questioning old ideas, trauma coming up, feeling my feelings, emotional wellness, emotional resiliency, spiritual growth, all these amazing things happened. And I don’t think Kate, unless I had really cleaned up my digestion and started really nourishing myself, I’m not sure I would.

be where I am today and I’m really grateful for that. So can you talk a little bit about that line because we know digestion is food of course, but it’s also senses and everything else and this consciousness that you’re talking about.

Kate ODonnell (15:13.847)
Yeah. I think it’s one of the places where, you know, something you and I have in common is we’re both very much involved in yoga as well. You know, it’s like the yoga of food. So I was practicing yoga for years before I got into Ayurveda, but I started to think like, and I noticed as a teacher as well that the foods my students were eating weren’t really supporting the yoga. You know, a lot of the. At that time I was in Boston. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (15:21.079)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (15:37.774)
Where do you teach,

Okay.

Kate ODonnell (15:43.585)
Yeah. I was, you know, and it was like a daily, I was there every day with the students and I was just like, wow. So we’re doing this practice that is to sort of evolve the state of the consciousness in the body, through the body, you know, where we’re working towards being our, the true self, you know, we want that Purusha, that true self to shine.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (15:59.276)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:05.165)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (16:08.695)
And so when the body is bogged down, this is something we’ll hear from yoga as well as Ayurveda that when we’re bogged down with sort of a sickness or a stagnation or any kind of imbalance in the body, it’s like a crutch, know, or it gets in the way. It’s like a wrench in the gears of our evolution. And that really spoke to me because I thought, this makes, this is so great because I’m very practical person. I thought, well, I’m eating.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:30.231)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (16:38.551)
all the time anyway, so this may as well support the yoga, know, the, the, the evolution and what I really feel is like the purpose of life. Like I want my food to feed into and be a part of that journey, you know, towards being a fuller person, you know, a fuller expression. So the, that’s what I found in Ayurveda is that the, because the food in, in the, the food builds the body and the body is the microcosm of

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:43.18)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:54.616)
Mm.

Kate ODonnell (17:07.811)
the macrocosm. So the idea is that, you know, nature and the world around us that nourishes us and that supports us is composed of the same building blocks as the body. So I’m just like a figment, you know, I’m made of the same stuff as that cloud, that tree, that squirrel. So when I eat food that comes from nature that I can recognize as natural, you know, it didn’t come out of a pill or

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:09.378)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:22.979)
Yes.

Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:34.571)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (17:37.795)
You know, so it’s a piece of nature that comes into my field. You know, I’m looking at it, I’m smelling it, I’m tasting it. You know, I’m engaging with it in the same way that I would sit on a mountain top and enjoy the view. Like, I am truly like that about my food. It’s like a sacred experience when I am with it.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:54.317)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (18:00.215)
And so I’m engaging all the senses. I’m smelling it and I’m feeling the different textures, whether it’s smooth or hard, crunchy. So I’m engaged with all that. So my whole consciousness is absorbed in the activity of being one with nature in that time while I’m eating. And then when the food goes into the body, it’s transmuted by the fire element. Just like when you’ve

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:17.294)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:25.248)
Yes. Yes.

Kate ODonnell (18:30.063)
practice yoga and you get this little, you know, sometimes the fire comes on and you get this little pocket of a release, you know, or a little flame is, is like ignited in your core. It’s the same thing with the food, you know, it meets the fire element in the body. And then the, that nature from out there is transmuted and becomes the tissue of my body. And so I become one with nature. And according to both yoga and Ayurveda traditions, that’s actually what we’re going for.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:54.456)
Mmm.

Kate ODonnell (18:59.597)
That’s like, that’s the state of fulfillment, santosha, happiness. And so the denaturing of the self, you know, it’s happening to us from our food in many cases and not only what we eat, but also are we paying attention? Are we present with the food? Is the consciousness present? Are we paying attention to our food? Cause when you are, you know, you get that link where you get, you get linked into the flow of nature.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:13.474)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:23.308)
Great.

Kate ODonnell (19:28.911)
through the activity of eating the food.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:31.694)
It’s so beautifully stated and again, emphasizing how simple this can be because I think one of the reasons that we do get denatured or choose the denatured option is convenience, cost, because we’re busy, but with simple practices and I can say for myself, you know, because I cook very simply, I use a lot of one pot meals, but there’s certain principles that you can learn.

and you teach in your book as well. So it’s not necessarily taking more time, maybe a little more planning to make sure that you have the ingredients stocked in your fridge and your pantry. But I mean, it’s just so much infinitely healthier. It feels so much more fulfilling. It’s so funny because I was at someone’s house. It was my son’s friend’s house and we were in the garage and I was just looking at all the boxes of the

stuff that I think came from like, you know, I don’t know, just bulk, like bulk protein bars and bulk protein drinks and all the things. And I was like, wow, like, you know, just, you know, how easy it is to get that stuff. And the information that a lot of us are fed is that, the numbers add up. But then you think about energetically how, you know, the potential. And I can just say this, I get so

Worked out because of my personal experience from feeling really, you know, just hung up on numbers and calorie counting all day to this, let’s say this blossoming feeling, you know, this just more light coming in, more joy, and we don’t get there from just the numbers.

Kate ODonnell (21:16.585)
No, yeah, I think that’s what you’re pointing out with the question of consciousness. No, yeah. So again, mean, when the, you make your simple one pot meal and all your senses show up at the table to taste it, you know, and smell it and really be there for it. It’s the most delicious thing. Simple food is delicious when you show up for it, you know, so I think sometimes we’re not there, you know, we’re driving and eating and you don’t even know you

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:22.187)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:33.005)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:42.605)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (21:46.509)
and so you don’t necessarily feel satiated by your food. So you’re wondering, what else can I eat? Because you didn’t notice it going in.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:50.349)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:54.312)
So let’s go practical for a moment, Kate. And you talk about the different qualities and how we have all these energies inside of us, but sometimes we can get imbalanced. So in late, we’ll talk about Vata for a minute. So let’s say an imbalance. We can talk about Vata for six hours, but we know that those of us that are living in the modern world, sometimes we can get spacey. Sometimes, and this is my tendency, I have a lot of Vata energy in my body.

sometimes we can get just feeling grounded. So for anyone listening to this, what are some simple foods, spices, even go to recipes that you talk about in your book if you’re just wanting to feel more resilient and grounded and clear.

Kate ODonnell (22:43.483)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, this is a great example of where cooked foods, things that are served warm and that are a little bit dense because this vata is the, it’s the air element, an air and space, you know, so it’s very light and it’s also dry and it can cause like a contraction in the body, you know? So when we put, it’s like you want to put your body in a bathtub.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (22:51.158)
Yes.

Right.

Kate ODonnell (23:09.643)
That’s the feeling. So you want your food to feel like a, like a bathtub, you know, where you’re just in the, I call it the cosmic bathtub where you’re like soaking, you know, your consciousness and your tissues in nourishment. And so if we’re looking for something grounded, I’m always sending people towards a, a soup or a stew. And it could even be oatmeal, you know, like grain, you know, that’s served warm. And there’s something about density. So naturally occurring fats, that’s

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (23:30.446)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (23:38.901)
Okay.

Kate ODonnell (23:39.511)
That’s what brings that calms that lots of because what does dry and so the opposite. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So if I’m making a soup, for example, I’ll make sure it has some fat in it. You know, like I’ll add ghee or any kind of a good cooking oil to it. I use coconut milk a lot.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (23:44.046)
So oils, whole fats, seeds, nuts, avocados.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:02.625)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (24:03.407)
Yeah, and I make soups with coconut milk and I’ll even do like a warm milk kind of a drink. Like you suggested the date smoothies. It’s a great postpartum treat. You know, with something like that, especially if somebody, let’s say it feels like they’re too busy, you know, so, Hey, let’s soak some almonds and we’ll throw them in the blender with some dates, some water, and then some warming spices. So that’s the other trick. That’s really easy. I have a recipe for a, like a sweet spice mix.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:12.951)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:29.752)
Mmm.

Kate ODonnell (24:32.919)
It’s cardamom and ginger and cinnamon. so I’m always in, put that in your oatmeal, put that in your date shake, you know, just get that in the food because it warms up that coldness. And that’s going to make a person feel kind of like cozy, comfy, grounded, soft.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:36.781)
Ugh.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:50.52)
Do you mean dried ginger or grated ginger, fresh?

Kate ODonnell (24:54.511)
It’s so in the recipe, it’s powdered. So it goes together with, so it’s ginger powder and it goes together with the cinnamon and the cardamom. So those three powders, you can just kind of mix them together. keep them in a little jar and then I sprinkle that. Little less cardamom. So it’s like equal parts, equal parts, cinnamon, ginger powder, and then a half part or even a quarter part of the cardamom powder. Cause it’s a super strong taste. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:58.892)
Okay.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (25:09.595)
Okay, they go one to one to one ratio. Okay.

Kate ODonnell (25:24.013)
Yeah. Yeah. But it’ll just make anything that you eat feels just really cozy and grounding. And so it’s like, yeah, and it’s just easy to make, easy to have around. Yeah. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (25:31.49)
Beautiful. And there’s, yeah, the recipes.

So then let’s say fiery. Now, let’s say we have a lot of pitta feeling super agitated, super stressed, burned out, anxious, insomnia, like classic, like, you know, pitta overload.

Kate ODonnell (25:54.137)
So these folks, back to the onion and garlic, you know, a great example of kind of, yeah, yeah. laying off the really stimulating, really hot foods, you know, that helps right there. And pitta types, they’ll do great with things that are kind of calming, things that calm the system. like fennel.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (25:57.1)
Right. And the hot sauces, the chilies.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:06.338)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (26:17.039)
It’s a great example. And even I’ll recommend carrying fennel seeds around, like in a little container, like a little old mint tin, you know? So you just put fennel seed in there, yeah, and just chew them after a meal, and they’ll settle any kind of acid indigestion really simply. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, cooking with fennel and using mint and coconut, coconut water and coconut meat, those are all really balancing for our Pitta friends. And they’re the ones who can…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:17.261)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:24.846)
Huh, I’m chewing them.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:32.556)
Wow.

Kate ODonnell (26:46.831)
eat raw food pretty decently, you know, a lot of the time. But the problem there is because the fire is burning, a person might not feel satisfied. So again, the meals need to have fats. They need to have good fats, not like fried food. Fried food will absolutely aggravate that pitta, make a person feel crazy. But again, back to coconut and ghee and avocado and almonds. Almonds are revered in Ayurveda. I know a lot of almond milk, you know,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:50.103)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:55.213)
Hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (27:13.676)
Yes, very sadvic, very centering.

Kate ODonnell (27:17.711)
Yeah, yeah, nourishing and balancing, clarifying, easy to use, you know, so I’ll recommend soaking almonds. And then it’s, you know, it’s the skin of the almond that might has, you know, it’s got its own pesticides. So those can be a little bit inflammatory for some people. But once you soak the almond for, you know, six, eight hours, that skin will just slide right off. And they’re a great snack. So that’s a good snack.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (27:43.79)
Mmm

Kate ODonnell (27:44.543)
our fiery friends who will you kind of want to kill someone if they if they don’t eat on time. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (27:51.956)
Yes, and just that tendency, especially in the modern world, it’s just on all the time so it can start to feel like, you know, reactive.

Kate ODonnell (28:04.845)
Right, right, absolutely. And that’s a great example of what eating a lot of hot sauces and chilies and onions and garlic and drinking alcohol, a lot of coffee, all these acidic foods, they’re gonna make that reactivity increase. A person will feel like it’s harder to manage their irritability and their anger and harder to stay calm when they’re eating a lot of those stimulating foods.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (28:13.198)
Ugh.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (28:27.286)
Yeah.

was not great for the people that are working late at the office and then going to get beer and tacos after work with lots of hot sauce.

Kate ODonnell (28:39.073)
I know. it’s a funny thing. know, Ayurveda teaches that when you’re dosha, you know, when you’re out of balance. So if your fire is out of balance, it has this funny effect on you that it’ll, it will start to cause cravings for fire. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (28:52.778)
Right, right. I know that because of my vata, I love dry crackers and pretzels and really crunchy dry things. Yeah, anything that’s just that salty dry. So then let’s go to kaffa. So let’s say an excess, which is really, I have a lot of people that I work with, which are so…

Kate ODonnell (29:03.233)
Yeah, right, right, popcorn.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (29:17.784)
kaffa and balancing for me, Kate, it’s really nice, not only just from food, but to balance your work colleagues as well, with everybody’s energy. You can’t have a room full of pitas, Or vatas, we just kind of floating away. But kaffa and excess, you know, can be a little bit, you know, maybe slothful or lethargy or down energy. So how do we lift that energy from foods and recipes and spices?

Kate ODonnell (29:25.133)
Yes, yes, yes.

Right.

Kate ODonnell (29:46.115)
Yeah, mean, cup of types are that constitution can be moist or damp, you know, which is a little heavy and, and the fire tends to be low. That’s what makes a stagnation. A person feel kind of sad and slow. So we actually, unlike our pizza types with cuppa, we, want to increase the, the spices. It doesn’t have to be, you know, hot sauce and chili, but spices that

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (29:53.526)
Okay.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (29:58.414)
Mmm.

Kate ODonnell (30:14.985)
increase the digestive fire. So cumin is a great example. Ginger is a great example. Again, our cinnamon, you know, we have a lot of these sweet spices that are a little bit warming too. Turmeric is fantastic for kapha types. Yep, exactly, exactly. And you know, these are the folks who do better with lighter food. So sort of less…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (30:31.502)
Beautiful, some black pepper in there.

Kate ODonnell (30:40.511)
meats, wheat, dairy, those are the really kind of heavy foods that our light people need lots of, but cup of types actually need less fats and less dense food, you know, and they need more like vegetables and fruits, you know, and light things. It’s a great constitution for a vegan diet, the types, they’ll feel the healthiest people I know, Kimberly, are vegan cup of types.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (30:51.201)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (30:56.194)
Mm-hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (31:01.688)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (31:09.646)
Well, know, as a vegan vata, but has been balancing it for years, what I love about these recipes and arugaveta as well, and all my arugavetic teachers have actually been plant-based, but incorporate ghee, so they’re not eating meat. That emphasis that you mentioned, so for me, having lots of lentils and coconut oil and coconut milk and those heavier foods.

because it worked to clean me out for a while, but when I was a raw foodist, I started to have a lot of nuts, but not necessarily the soupy element, and I started to feel like too dense. I don’t know, it just wasn’t digesting as well. you know, again, whatever particular diet you follow, what’s beautiful about this eating is that you can add more of this or adopt more.

Kate ODonnell (31:50.287)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:03.534)
to create that balance that you talk about in Arubita, which is so key.

Kate ODonnell (32:08.845)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think we talk a lot about the digestibility of a food. So that’s where almonds, for example, you’re talking about eating a lot of the nuts. I was raw for six months. I lived in San Diego at one point and it was, know, like, yeah, yeah. And everyone was sort of doing the raw thing at that time. And I was so windy. I had so much gas because I couldn’t break down. I was trying to eat all these raw vegetables all the time.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:13.28)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:21.358)
it’s nice and warm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:27.063)
Yes

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:30.615)
Right.

Kate ODonnell (32:37.667)
But something like the almond, if I were to eat almonds just out of a bag, just some of like raw almonds, they would feel, they would sit in my gut like a brick. Yeah, yeah. But if I soak it and blend it, make it into a milk or a smoothie or use it as a base for a soup, then the almonds digest great. So it’s the same food, but the processing is different, and whether we serve it.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:49.234)
Right. So heavy. yeah, the time.

Kate ODonnell (33:07.457)
in a moist form or you it warm. So the almond itself is not necessarily the problem. It’s maybe that we just needed to process it a little bit into a form that digests well for each of us.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (33:08.876)
Great.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (33:20.524)
Right. So there’s so many, I love the everydayness of this, but one more kind of overarching principle when we’re eating grains, Kate, do you recommend, like even if there’s grain in your soup or you’re eating a grain meal, talk to me about pairing it with oils and fats and the dryness, the potential dryness of the grains.

Kate ODonnell (33:44.725)
Yeah, that’s a great point. That’s a great point. When like a great thing to do is when you make, you’re making quinoa or rice or whatever, you know, put a teaspoon of oil in it. Ghee, you know, ghee or avocado. I’ll actually, I’ll put it in at the end. So I’ll cook it and then you know how you fork it up and fluff it up at the end. Then I’ll add the teaspoon of oil at that time.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (34:01.962)
Inside when you’re cooking it you mean or afterwards

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (34:09.783)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (34:14.765)
So the oil is not sort of being heated and cooked so much. Yeah. So it works well for people who are using oils that are lighter, that don’t have the same high heat tolerance, like an olive oil, for example. I wouldn’t want to like boil that. So I would add that at the end. I make, you’ll find a lot of recipes in the book for sauces and dressings that have oil in them. You know, so you could add something like, you know, a few tablespoons of that and

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (34:17.687)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (34:27.874)
Okay.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (34:37.322)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (34:42.361)
fork it into the grain. it’s like every grain dish in my house becomes like a pilaf where it’s got like.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (34:48.238)
Yeah, so tell us why philosophy wise for Arubeda.

Kate ODonnell (34:53.313)
It’s about the moisture, as you say. And different grains will have different qualities, something like oats. They’re a little gooey on their own, whereas millet, for example, is very dry. Yeah, I can’t go near it. It’s like, yeah, it’s too dry. It’s too dry. So the amount of oil that we add to it might be more.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:04.195)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:08.386)
I know I love millet.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:12.558)
Too dry for you.

Kate ODonnell (35:18.637)
You know, and sometimes, I do this wonderful thing with red rice where I’ll cook it with half water and half coconut milk. That’s delicious. So I’ll cook grains with half water and half coconut milk to get that fat in there. Yeah, it’s delicious. It works really well, especially with rices. Yeah. Yeah. And so that’s about it is, as you say, about the dryness and, know, unless it’s a glutinous grain, it will probably be dry. And so.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:18.796)
bright.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:26.222)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:31.084)
Wow.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:36.224)
Okay, that’s a great tip.

Kate ODonnell (35:45.771)
Easy, easy thing to do is to keep whatever cooking oil you’re using and just put a spoonful of that in the grain before you serve it. It also makes the grain taste better and have a better texture as well. So the mouth feel will be improved by putting a little oil in it.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:56.61)
Wait.

Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (36:05.09)
You know, I’m listening to you and I’m listening to you, but I can feel my heart. You know, as time goes on, my last book was about heart coherence, Kate, and it’s just, you know, I listen and speak from my heart now. When something resonates so much, I can feel my heart leap up. And you’re talking about this with the grains and my heart’s like, yes, yes, like this ring’s so true. This feels so good.

And this is something that I can feel like I really need right now. you know, it’s amazing how these tiny little things can change your whole energy and your whole day. And so because your book is so power packed, let’s say someone’s listening to this and they’re like, I am brand new to what they’re talking about. And I love the idea of holistic healing. I love this idea of RU VEDA.

But how can I just bring it in a doable way into my family life? I also have kids and my husband doesn’t know about Argue Veda. So what would you say to that person? Because I’m sure she or he is many people listening to this.

Kate ODonnell (37:12.431)
You know, yeah, I I hear you. I mean, I created that book for my students, you know, for these people who I heard the stories every day. You know, I heard the stories of why I don’t use my Ayurveda cookbook. And a lot of it did have to do with people feeling overwhelmed. So I mean, first,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (37:32.372)
Yes, it’s foreign. It’s too difficult or different.

Kate ODonnell (37:36.961)
Yeah, yeah, or they don’t know what their constitution is. I hear that all the time. And, you know, the seasonal effect is actually more important in Ayurvedic medicine than, I love chai. So I think the seasonal effect is a nice way to work with your family, you know? So the recipes are divided according to the season.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (37:42.478)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (37:48.814)
I’m drinking chai by the way, that’s not coffee.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (37:58.786)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (38:02.489)
So without even reading the front matter, a person could just open to the season that we’re in and cook for the family using those recipes. Because what I’m doing with the recipes is providing the qualities that bodies will thrive on during a certain season. And so if a person lives in, a place where it’s summer all the time, they can enjoy the summer recipes and learn about what are those pits of pacifying foods and spices.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (38:26.358)
Right.

Kate ODonnell (38:31.151)
And I do think, like, let’s say somebody’s like, I just want to do one thing. I just want to do one thing. I would say go into the spice mixes. For every season in the extras, there’s a spice mix. And so it’ll be, you know, turmeric, cumin, coriander, fennel, something like that. And you mix those spices together, keep them in a jar and use those in your cooking.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (38:40.779)
Right.

Kate ODonnell (38:56.247)
And then you’re getting, because spices have concentrated qualities and digestive effects. So you’ll get like more bang for your buck, you know, from a cumin seed even, than you might from what vegetable you choose to put it on. So if, if folks just kind of rotate their spice mix and cook with that seasonally, it’ll help us reduce onion and garlic for one thing, because there’s so much flavor in the spices. And it’s a great way to improve your digestion.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (38:56.43)
Mm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (39:01.623)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (39:24.941)
So whatever you do end up eating will digest better because these spices go in there and they’re like these little powerhouses, you know, that kind of like zing zing, shazam, you know, they help break down the food into its bioavailable parts. So you don’t have to think about it. You just add it to the food and it’s working.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (39:25.262)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (39:40.608)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (39:46.466)
We talked to us, Kate, a little bit about if people aren’t used to cooking with, you know, seeds, cumin seeds, can you talk to us about cooking this, you know, the spices and the seeds in oil first and then adding it in and how that helps.

Kate ODonnell (39:58.721)
Yeah. Yeah. So what I did, Kimberly, in the book was I invited people to, to make a spice mix. so you just dry roast the spices. let’s say you’re going to work with our, our Holy Trinity, which is cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds. So we’d put equal parts of those, a tablespoon of each in a pan, a dry pan, and we’d roast them for about three minutes until you can smell them. And that’s the dry roast. And you just.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (40:15.468)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (40:25.592)
Hey.

Kate ODonnell (40:26.209)
let it cool and then grind it into a powder. And that goes into a jar that then lives on your stove or in your spice cabinet. And so that’s like the number one easy way. And I find people use it. You sprinkle it in your soup or put it on this, put it on that. And the dry roasting, that’s where we open up the spices. Because the spices are kind of dormant. They’re like seeds that are in a dormant state. And so we open them up with a little heat.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (40:39.811)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (40:50.37)
Right.

Kate ODonnell (40:55.671)
So the dry roast will do that. And that’s easy because it’s already done. So if you just seasonally, know, once every three months, you make a fresh batch, you’ll have that, that potency. The other way that will work with the spices is to, to also keep some whole. So say again, Holy Trinity, we want cumin, coriander, fennel. So let’s say you’re making like a lentil, lentil dish or a grain pilaf. And so you take your cooking oil.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (41:05.432)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (41:13.773)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (41:23.803)
and you saute the spices in the oil, just until you, again, until you can smell them. So it only takes a couple of minutes. So say we were gonna make the grain, like back to our grain dish, you know? So if I were, so say I make a pot of red rice, which is Ayurveda’s favorite rice, by the way, the red rice, for those who can find it. So I’d cook the rice and then five minutes before it’s done,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (41:35.149)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (41:41.505)
Mmm.

Kate ODonnell (41:48.141)
I’ll put some ghee in the pan with half a teaspoon of cumin, coriander, and fennel seed. And I’ll saute those until I can smell them, just three minutes or so. And then I’ll pour them hot into the grain, take the grain off the heat, and then toss it all around with a fork. Same thing with the lentil soup, so you can make it all that way. I just saute in the oil, and then you add it in. So most of my recipes, Kimberly, are going to have

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (42:03.138)
Mm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (42:07.222)
Yes. Yes.

Kate ODonnell (42:16.911)
a spoonful of the spice mix and a tempering of the whole spices in oil. And then you get that like full flavored, delicious. It’s so satisfying. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (42:19.246)
Got it.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (42:26.252)
Yes, it makes a big difference. I do that when I make kichiri. So I add them in at the end and it just, it feels very alive, the spices.

Kate ODonnell (42:37.483)
It does, and they are, you know, it’s like, again, we’ve, when you cook them in the oil, it opens up the spices, they bloom, you which I love that word, you know, they bloom in the oil. And so they, like, we’re rendering their qualities and their medicines, because they all have these little bits of oils in them. And, know, that have this quality, one is sharp. And so it helps break down heavy food. One might be cool.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (42:46.019)
Great.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (42:56.248)
Great.

Kate ODonnell (43:03.967)
So reduces acid. One might be a carminative that sort of takes down the gases produced in the digestive process. And so we put all of those things into the oil and then the oil infuses the food with all those qualities. And so that digestive mixture, you know, that happens in your stomach, that moves into the small intestine, that moves out into the tissues of the body, it has digested optimally because of this one extra step.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (43:31.086)
Mmm. Mmm.

Kate ODonnell (43:33.795)
that we did, which was to saute some spices for two, three minutes and then add them in. it will, people will notice a difference in things like bloating or acid indigestion. And also that feeling of like, you know, sometimes you feel heavy after you eat that will be less when you use the digestive spices. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (43:52.28)
right.

What do you do, Kate, when you have to eat or travel and you’re away from your Ayurvedic foods?

Kate ODonnell (44:05.794)
I bring teas. So yeah, I’ll bring cumin, coriander, fennel in tea bags. I’ll bring ginger tea bags, especially if the food is heavy. Ginger tea is really, really, really, really helpful. So I’ll always have some tea bags in my suitcase. I will also, I will travel with Ghee.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (44:08.695)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (44:19.383)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (44:29.891)
little bit of, like a little jar of ghee, because for me, again, I have a dry constitution, so the good fats are really important. I’m kind of in trouble if I don’t get those. And so I’ll bring ghee and then, you know, I could order say rice at a Thai restaurant, you know, and then I’ll fork a little ghee into it. And I have been known to travel with the spice mix as well. So then it’s, you know, wherever I am, I can kind of find some.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (44:37.752)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (44:53.026)
Yeah.

Kate ODonnell (44:56.271)
cooked, you know, grain or a lentil soup or something and add a little bit of the spice into it. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (44:59.734)
Yeah, again, just having the knowledge doesn’t mean, you know, it allows us to not feel isolated because we can eat in different restaurants, modify things. For me, our digestive enzymes help a lot too. I take those right before I eat. So yeah, there’s lots of things that, again, back to not being perfect, but just, you know, when we can and we’re cooking at home, which for me is, you know, 90, now at this point almost, you know, 98.

98 or 99 % of the time I’m making the meals for the family. We don’t eat out very much anymore. Whereas when I lived in New York City before I had kids, you know, I would eat out as well, it’s my life. Life just keeps evolving and shifting, you know.

Kate ODonnell (45:45.869)
Yeah, it does. But you the great news is that, you know, in the first, let’s say 10 years of me working with, with my digestion, because I got into Ayurveda because I had digestive problems. that first, first five years were kind of hairy. Like I couldn’t digest a lot of things and I had to have my ghee in my suitcase and my spices, you know, and then it started to change.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (45:57.858)
Mm-hmm.

Kate ODonnell (46:11.755)
And so now I don’t like, it’s okay if I don’t have it, I’ll be okay, you know? And if I don’t feel isolated because I can go out and eat whatever that is that everyone’s eating, I do find that I eat smaller amounts of it though, like something that isn’t like my home cooked amazingness, you know? I’ll eat it, but maybe a smaller amount of it.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (46:16.813)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (46:28.044)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (46:37.015)
And I don’t, for me, Kimberly, I’ve learned over the years, I’ve been restrictive and I’ve been perfect, end quote, know, been there, done that. And it actually caused more anxiety and more sensitivity in my digestion to be that way. So I find that it’s important that I kind of get out there.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (46:48.802)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (46:58.191)
and be with my friends and eat whatever we’re eating or have a drink. It’s not happening all the time, but if it happens so often, like it in itself is a form of nourishment. And because I’m healthy, I can do it and it’s okay. don’t, yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (47:10.828)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (47:15.872)
Exactly, exactly. There’s a resiliency that allows you to not feel like, I’m on this tightrope and if I take one step off, you know, all is doomed. That mentality that creates restriction and stress and incoherence in and of itself.

Kate ODonnell (47:20.207)
Exactly.

Kate ODonnell (47:31.597)
Yeah, yeah. And I know it well, you know, I’ve lived it. So I understand, I understand it. And I think on the healing journey for many of us, there may be a handful of years where we do have to walk the line in order to heal the gut. But the good news I want everyone to hear is that that will pay off, you know, and then you can move into a time in your life where you don’t have to be so careful all the time.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (47:46.413)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (47:51.394)
Great.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (47:57.45)
It’s true. Well, so nowadays about how much time do you spend in the kitchen for your for your own prep? Not when you’re, you know, preparing something for a group or student, but just for your own self.

Kate ODonnell (48:05.069)
Yeah.

Kate ODonnell (48:10.347)
It’s honestly less and less. I would say I’m like streamlining and streamlining it quite a bit. I do a lot of one pot meals, same as you. And I do a lot of kind of prep, right? So in the morning, in the morning, I’ll soak something or I’ll soak the night before, you know, the bean and the grain. I do a lot of bean and grain mixes, different kinds. And you’ll find recipes in my books for all different iterations of that.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (48:22.572)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (48:31.777)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (48:37.383)
yeah.

Kate ODonnell (48:37.903)
You know, it’s like bean, grain, vegetables, spices, ghee. That’s kind of like my flow, you know, and I’ll, I think the trick for me is just to be prepared. So if I soak it the night before it cooks really fast, you know, I use a pressure cooker. So I’ll pressure cook, you know, a soup with chickpeas. And this time of year, I love celery. You know, so I’ll chop up a whole head of celery, throw that in with a vegetable broth and some chickpeas. You know, I might blend it.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (48:50.7)
Great.

Kate ODonnell (49:07.649)
and make it into like a blender soup. I make a lot of dosa, so I might have a dosa batter with like a chickpea flour and water, and that’s in the fridge. It’s got some spices in it, and I just fry that in ghee. And that’s like my side dish. So I would say in general, I’m not spending more than a half hour on a meal, and that’s how all my recipes are developed, so that they should come together within half an hour. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (49:14.435)
Hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (49:24.012)
Yummy.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (49:33.774)
That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much, for sharing some of your wisdom. There’s so much power packed in this book. I love it. I think it’s a great book to keep in your kitchen and sort of flip through and see what calls to you and also layer on top the seasonality and the different doshas and body types.

For me, I don’t use a lot of recipe books, but I love to see an inspiration and something new. And then you get really comfortable with it. It becomes absorbed into your repertoire. And I think this book is so great for that. So congratulations on 10 years of inspiring students everywhere to eat more Ayurveda. Tell us where we can get your book and also learn more information about your work.

Kate ODonnell (50:26.157)
Yeah. So Heal with Kate is my website. So I do have a Ayurveda podcast for our podcasters. There’s also a link there where you can find the book. Of course you can find the book anywhere you find any book. you know, walk into your local bookstore, I think is the best way to find the book.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (50:40.429)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (50:45.069)
Yes.

Kate ODonnell (50:46.027)
But I have an online library of cooking classes and seasonal self-care classes. I work a lot with Ayurveda students and mentorship and things like that. So it’s all the info is on heelwithkate.org.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (51:00.042)
wonderful, Kate. Well, thank you so much. And we will link everyone in the show notes at mysaluna.com to Kate’s book and her website. So you can also click there directly to try out some of these delicious recipes. So inspiring. Thank you again so much for joining us. And thank you everyone for tuning in. We’ll be back here next week for our next show. And remember our once a month top tips.

Kate ODonnell (51:18.083)
Thank you.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (51:26.582)
around our Four Cornerstones show we have on Thursdays as well. So see you all soon. Till then, sending you much love. Take great care.