I’ve been talking a lot lately about how to fuel big athletic efforts using Ayurvedic wisdom, and this recipe is my favorite example yet. “Eating Ayurvedically” for sport is about so much more than just macronutrients. Under this philosophy, finding foods that best fit our bodies and our efforts includes using seasonal ingredients, including all Six Flavors, aligning our individual doshic constitutions, and honoring our digestive states — a tall order for a snack, to be sure. But we can make it more easy than that.
Perhaps the most important guiding principle of Ayurvedic medicine is the notion that opposites balance. And so, the foods that we would choose for our athletic endeavors would serve to balance out the qualities of our bodies, minds and beings during those activities. And this is actually quite a bit more easy….but you’re never going to get that from some “bar.”
There are a few reasons – from a simple, sports performance perspective – that rice cakes are such an exceptional endurance food. First, rice is so easy to digest. Foods that have at least a 20% moisture content are superior snacks for our endurance efforts because at this hydration rate, we don’t need to consume additional liquids to digest them easily. There are other reasons too; when our efforts stretch beyond 2-2.5 hours, we need to fuel not just our effort, but also all of the other things our bodies are doing while we perform. Our hearts still need to beat, our lungs to breathe, our cells to regenerate, and so on. For this, and to maintain satiety, we need to consume fat and protein in a digestible format, and this is very easy to achieve with a rice cake. Lastly, the abundance of sports foods or foods that serve our bodies well while in motion is sweet. This isn’t surprising – sweet flavors are the most nourishing and nutritive for our bodies. But, while rice is a sweet food, the creation of the rice cake allows us to weave in all of the other Six Flavors that bioenergetically serve the body. This means we can have a savory snack, instead of just sweet. And this – when we’re really out there for a day – feels like we’ve hit the jackpot.
Ayurveda presents a few more ways that rice cakes are an optimal fuel, only these are a bit less familiar to most athletes. These ways have everything to do with balancing with opposites, and this speaks directly to the qualities (or gunas) of our activity, mental function and physical activities while we’re moving. The chart below lays out all of the qualities (or gunas) of the doshas. These are the same qualities that we’re working to balance with our foods during sport.
Above, we can see that vata dosha is comprised of space and air, and as such this is the dosha that governs all movement and action. Suffice to say that this dosha elevates when we’re doing something active, specifically something challenging over many hours. Our activity itself is an act of wind, and our movement serves to dry, the body, make it alight, and often these efforts are quite “rough” or challenging. These activities are also acts of pitta dosha – governed by fire and water elements. The focus, determination, and intense qualities required to complete our efforts with success are driven by pitta dosha. Pitta is sharp, hot mobile, and so, we know that when we go out for a long endurance effort, we’ll be building the quantities of vata and pitta doshas in our bodies and lives.
So, how do we eat to balance this out? Both vata and pitta dosha are mobile in quality, vata is rough, cold and clear. Pitta is sharp, hot and light. And so, using the principle of balancing with opposites, we know we need smooth, warm, cloudy foods that are soft and heavy to even out the rough, cold, clear, sharp, light qualities of our activity. And in this realm, these rice cakes come to the rescue! The ingredients of these rice cakes are literally ready to balance our bodies out: rice is sweet, dense, heavy and cloudy — just what we need in this case!
Additionally, we can make these rice cakes even more suitable for big activities because, by including all Six Flavors, we have a “sport food” that doesn’t just balance out the qualities of our activities, but also helps our bodies to get all of the bioenergetic benefits our bodies require from our food WHILE we’re training, racing or just moving. Unlike that stale energy bar, or the supersweet gel or chew that just serves to provide us with energy while we’re in motion, these rice cakes are actually like a balanced meal that you don’t have to wait until you’re done riding, running, hiking or skiing to benefit from!
Za’atar is a spice blend with origins in the Middle East, used widely across countries in dishes that border the Mediterranean Sea. The blend typically includes cumin (bitter), coriander (sweet), thyme (pungent) , sesame seeds (astringent), sumac (sour), salt (salty) and aleppo chili flakes (pungent.)
How do these rice cakes include flavor? Easy. The ingredients themselves cover all of the flavor bases, but that za’atar spice mix itself is balanced by all Six Flavors. (Head explosion!) We have Six Tastes (or Flavors) we can perceive and there’s an ingredient in these rice cakes to meet all three…again, so much more than your average energy bar can say!
Making these rice cakes, and adjusting the flavors for your dosha and state of digestion is an optimal way of using this ancient wisdom to fuel your modern sport. The recipe and notes below give you all of the details you need to make a batch for yourself, whether you have a big ride, run or hike coming up, or if you’re just looking for a sound way to have quick, make ahead meals that truly satisfy.
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