Volume III · Part II · Chapter 16
Milk, Curd, Buttermilk and Ghee
The Ayurvedic Kitchen
About 2 min read
Dairy is central to a vegetarian Ayurvedic diet and especially valuable after 55: it provides complete protein, calcium and vitamin B12. But each dairy food has very different properties, and the rules for using them are among the most precise in Ayurveda.
| Dairy food | Rasa / virya | Dosha | When and how | Avoid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milk | Sweet / cooling | ↓V ↓P ↑K | Boiled with a pinch of turmeric, cardamom, dry ginger or nutmeg; warm; morning or bedtime; alone or with sweet grains | Cold milk; with sour fruit, banana, salt, fish; with a full salty meal |
| Curd (dahi) | Sour / heating | ↓V ↑P ↑K | At lunch only; fresh, not over-sour; with a little ghee, honey (unheated), sugar, amla or moong soup, as Charaka advises | At night; heated; daily in large amounts; in spring, summer and autumn in excess |
| Buttermilk (takra) | Astringent-sour / mildly heating | ↓V ↓K | Thin (1 part curd to 3–4 water), churned, butter removed, spiced with cumin, ginger, salt; after lunch | Very sour; for guests with burning acidity, choose sweet thin takra |
| Ghee | Sweet / cooling | ↓V ↓P | 2–3 tsp per day spread across meals; on rice and dal; in tadka; in golden milk | Excess in high LDL; in fever or heavy ama; equal parts with honey |
| Butter (fresh) | Sweet / cooling | ↓V ↓P | Small amounts; for making ghee | Old or salted butter |
| Paneer | Sweet / heavy | ↓V ↓P ↑K | Fresh, soft (soak in warm water); at lunch or breakfast | Stale; very large portions at dinner |
Charaka's rules for curd#
The Charaka Samhita (Sutrasthana 7) gives unusually specific advice on curd, which the kitchen follows: curd should not be taken at night, should not be heated, should not be taken daily in excess, and is best taken with moong soup, honey, ghee, sugar or amla. Taking it otherwise is said to provoke fever, skin problems, bleeding disorders and other Pitta–Kapha disorders. In practice this means: curd and raita at lunch only, never in hot curries that are boiled after curd is added (kadhi is cooked from curd mixed with besan and water, and is classically treated more like buttermilk), and buttermilk rather than curd for most guests.
Making ghee and why it is special#
Ghee is the only fat that Ayurveda calls agnivardhaka — it kindles digestion — while also cooling Pitta and lubricating Vata. It is yogavahi: it carries the properties of the herbs and spices cooked in it into the tissues. Old ghee (purana ghrita, a year or more) is considered medicinal in its own right. The kitchen makes ghee weekly from unsalted white butter (recipe in Volume I, Chapter 6). Modern guidance treats ghee as saturated fat; the kitchen reconciles both by using ghee as the main cooking fat in small, measured amounts and seed oils for the rest (Volume II, A3).