Foods you must avoid eating in dinner! Don't eat these foods in dinner!

In  this blog,  i am going to share with you five foods that you must avoid at dinner and the best foods to eat, so without any further delay let's get started.

Hello friends, welcome to Healthy Sapians. 

Dinner is the most sensitive meal of the day, one might get away with an unhealthy bite during the day but post sunset when the digestive capacity of the body reduces wrong foods can seriously sabotage health goals. 

Not alone junk food even the healthiest of foods can cause indigestion over a period of time. 

Wrong dinner options can cause gain in weight loss of skin glow, hair fall, disturb sleep, lethargy and even chronic health problems.

Here are five foods that you should absolutely avoid during dinner along with healthier alternatives.

1) Leafy Vegitables

When it comes to iron and essential micronutrients leafy vegetables are powerhouses, being such nutrient dense foods they aren't so easy to digest and ayurveda suggests that they must be avoided in dinner. Shocked!

Well, a food may be a superfood on paper but if consumed at the wrong time it can turn into a nightmare. Consuming green leafy vegetable curry for dinner can make you toss and turn in bed the whole night.  It may cause gas headaches and diarrhea.

 However if you want to consume green leafy vegetables after sunset first ensure that they are cooked and not raw.  Secondly when it comes to leafy vegetables, less is more.  let's say  you plan to have chapati for dinner so while kneading the dough add a few leaves of green leafy vegetable to it.  Similarly a few leaves can be put in dals, soups, rice pulao etc .

Avoid having them as a main course. So foods like palak paneer, saag,  aloo methi are best if consumed in lunch, this way your digestive system won't be overloaded and you will get the maximum benefit from green leafy vegetables.

2)  Salads

Want to lose weight? "Start eating salads for dinner".  How often this advice is thrown at you, but you need not torture yourself as salads are not an ideal dinner food in fact it's the exact opposite of eating right.

Salads are cold in potency it requires a lot of heat to get digested which is compromised in the absence of sun, with digestive juices being diluted hopping on salad is like throwing wood in a burnt out fire.

This is the reason people who eat salads for dinner are more prone to gas bloating and other digestive disorders.

 If at all you can't do without having salad, firstly keep the quantity low, secondly avoid cold watery vegetables like cucumber radish and beetroot. Rather prefer hot natured options like carrots turnips tomatoes and capsicum. Also do not forget to add further heat to them in the form of spices, this will meet their cooling effect to some extent. 

Although it is most wise to consume vegetables in the form of a soup. During dinner soups are not only packed with nutrients but are also much easier for the body to digest. 

Tomato soup, corn soup or mixed vegetable soup, they are not just tasty but also filling one can add roasted makhana to add calcium and crunch to them. 

Sprouts should absolutely be avoided for dinner. No doubt they are among the most nutrient dense foods on the planet but eating them for dinner you are doing more harm than good,  this is the reason ayurveda presses so much on the right way of consuming food.

Sprouts are not just raw but heavier to digest than salads, so strictly keep them limited till lunch time. 

3)  Curd 

No doubt curd is a storehouse of protein and essential micronutrients but that doesn't mean it can be consumed at any time of the day.

According to ayurveda curd is a strict no after sunset that's because post dusk our body's temperature naturally dips. Curd being cool and mucus forming if consumed for dinner it blocks the subtle channels and may become the reason for cough, sore throat, runny nose, sinus fever and constipation. 

Although if on a certain rare occasion you can't do without curd ensure that you reduce its cooling properties by generously adding black pepper in it. An alternative can be spiced buttermilk which serves the purpose definitely not ideal but still better than curd and even lemon can be added guilt-free to pulses to experience that tangy flavor that all curd lovers crave.

4)  Fruits

Fruits are the most hypernic foods that are ideal for the body and mind, however not for dinner. The two being raw can give a tough time for the stomach to digest. 

As per ayurveda mucus-forming fruits like banana, cold nature fruits like guava citrus fruits like orange and watery fruits like watermelon should strictly be avoided for sunset.

A fruit is best consumed before 5 pm, although if you wish to have a piece of fruit after sunset prefer hot natured fruits mango, pineapple, musk melon, lychee papaya and dates are naturally hot in potency, however the lesser the better. 

Also one should make it a point to always consume a fruit before and not after a main meal. Some people mistakenly consume fruits after a meal as a sweet dish, this is bound to cause digestive problems, of course some fruits like mango are an exception.

Fruit juices are even worse. Being cooler than fruits and devoid of fiber, drinking them post sunset is simply asking for trouble.

5)  Heavy food

Heavy food doesn't necessarily have to be outside food, although if you want to dine out lunch time is surely a wise decision.

 Overeating healthy food can cause trouble too especially post sunset. However there are certain foods and combinations that are intrinsically heavy to digest let me quickly share three such foods. 

First beans , it is best to avoid chickpeas, black chana and kidney beans for dinner. You can instead have lentils khichdi with an equal amount of hand pounded rice. Moong dal is among the top dinner options, yes rice can be taken at night just make sure to add heating spices like bay leaf and black pepper in it.

 Second is roti and rice together , do you often eat wheat roti and rice together? well it's too heavy for dinner, it is an ideal food to gain weight but should be kept limited till lunch time.

Third combining two protein dense foods like lentils and paneer, for dinner is like tripling on a bike you might have to pay for it later.

So these were the five foods that one should strive to avoid having in dinner.

In a nutshell dinner should be eaten like a popper light and easy to digest. Dal rice chapati with dal or a seasonal curry and soups are ideal food should be cooked and spiced well to make up for the absence of sun. 

Most importantly dinner should be eaten no later than 7 pm, of course one can have a glass of milk 30 minutes before going to sleep at night however if on a certain day you have a late heavy dinner rather than regretting it start the dinner with ginger salad after dinner drink about 50 ml of hot water, water should be so hot that you are forced to drink it step by step, then go for a walk this will greatly help you.

Ayurvedic scriptures point out that if one just learns to eat dinner the right way, sleep quality will improve skin luster will be back here problems will subside groggy mornings will be history and one more need many doctors in life.