Food for love

The foods you eat definitely have the power to notch up your love life, writes Shonali Sabherwal.

In this excerpt from her latest book The Love Diet, the microbiotics expert writes about the character and personality of the foods we eat, and guides us in order to eat right and keep our love life strong and happy.

Food is energy as well and has a yin and yang attached to it. All foods can be categorised according to the type of energy they carry. For example, eggs are condensed, compact, and have concentrated energy (yang) as compared to vegetables which have an expansive quality (yin) about them.

The energy we receive from the food we eat directly impact the energy in the chakras and the responses we have towards our partners in life and during sex. When men and women eat a lot of eggs, butter, chicken, and meat, the accumulation of fat and cholesterol throughout the body may cause them to lose conductivity of the forces of heaven and earth, impacting their ki energy.

Yin & Yang foods

Yin: sugar, spices, coffee/tea, medications, fruits, chocolate, alcohol, dairy,
honey, oil

Yang: meats, eggs, chicken, cheese, saturated fat, salt

Balanced:

vegetables, nuts, fish, beans, whole grains
Sugar, too much fruit, coffee, chocolates, alcohol, and medication have expansive effects on the mind and the body. You must have heard phrases like ‘on a coffee or sugar high’. These foods generate quick bursts of energy, and simple sugars (honey, refined sugar, processed and refined white flours) will always make your blood sugar levels crash after first going up, causing mood swings, energy lows, and cravings.

Plant foods (what we Indians term as vegetarian foods) cause balanced yin
energy. Whole grains bring in steady supply of sugars for normal brain activity and an infusion of vitality.

Your blood has a pH – potential of hydrogen which is a measure of the
acidity or alkalinity of your blood – balance to it. You can swing between
being acidic and or being alkaline. An excess of both is not good for the body.
The foods that don’t assimilate and make for bad blood, veer too much towards acidic.

What you need to be is closer to neutral, where your pH will slow down your body’s ability to retain energy which will impact your vitality in sustaining a healthy relationship with your partner. Being too alkaline can cause you to be very weak, impacting energy levels.