Try this delicious vata balancing Tulsi chai tea. It is a great addition of any holiday party and will fill you home with the most wonderful fragrance.

Boil in 6 cups water, for 15 minutes:

• 2 teaspoons cardamon seeds (or 10 cardamon pods- cracked open)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon chips (or 2 cinnamon stick- broken)
• 15 whole cloves
• 15 whole black peppercorns
• ½ inch ginger root-chopped or grated

Add 1 cup whole organic milk (or oat milk) and bring back to boil. Turn off heat and add 3 tulsi tea bags and steep for 3 minutes. Stain and serve. Add to taste honey (for vata or kapha) or maple syrup (for pitta). Yum!

While dried ginger controls and balances all three doshas (although in excess it may increase pitta), fresh ginger can increase pitta and is forbidden in conditions when pitta is high (such as heavy bleeding, inflamed skin diseases, and fevers). Ginger inflames the appetite, intensifies the digestive fire, relieves bloating and abdominal distention due to gas, prevents motion sickness, and (with rock salt and cumin in water after meals) relieves chronic diarrhea.

Chia, Salvia hispanica, a member of the mint family, is familiar to most of us as a seed used for the novelty of the Chia Pet, clay animals with sprouted Chia seeds covering their bodies. Little is known, however, of the seeds tremendous nutritional value and medicinal properties.

Endurance Food
For centuries this tiny little seed was used as a staple food by the Indians of the south west and Mexico. Known as the running food, its use as a high energy endurance food has been recorded as far back as the ancient Aztecs. It was said the Aztec warriors subsisted on the Chia seed during the conquests. The Indians of the south west running form the Colorado River to the California coast to trade turquoise for seashells would only bring the Chia seed for their nourishment.