Real Ayurvedic Golden Milk

These days, golden milk has become quite a trend. You find it on every menu as a healthy coffee alternative, next to chai latte, matcha latte and hot chocolate.

Unfortunately, often times it has nothing to do with health but a lot with refined sugar…

Turmeric is one of the main ingredients in this recipe and considered a superfood in current diet trends. But turmeric milk is known in Ayurveda since thousands of years for its nourishing, anti-inflammatory and revitalizing effect on the body – but only if you know who to incorporate it correctly.

Turmeric is a blood tonic, carminative, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, hypolipidemic, cholagogue, alterative and anticarcinogenic.

The rasa (taste) of turmeric is pungent, bitter and astringent.

It’s virya (energy) is heating and it’s vipaka (post-digestive effect) is pungent – not optimal for an already fiery Pitta dosha.

Turmeric is best used wisely in homecooked meals or beverages.

When consuming turmeric, too much of it can be drying and heating. Which will increase Vata and Pitta dosha and may even lead to increased inflammation. Therefore, the safest way to use it is by incorporating it in your meals.

Knowing how to prepare Ayurvedic golden milk or turmeric latte properly is key to reap its full benefits. Plus, this one is delicious!

Find my all-time favorite and quick Ayurvedic recipe below, scroll further down to see alternatives for each dosha.

Makes 1 big cup or 2 smaller ones, takes 5 minutes to make.

INGREDIENTS

-       1 ½ cup of your milk of choice

-       1 tbsp ghee or coconut oil

-       1/2 tsp ground turmeric

-       1/4 tsp ground cardamom

-       1/4 tsp minced or ground ginger

-       pinch black pepper

-       pinch rock salt

-       1 tsp of honey 

INSTRUCTIONS

Besides honey, add all ingredients in a pot, stir on middle heat for a few minutes and pour into a cup to drink. When heated over 45°deg celsius honey turns toxic, make sure you add it in the end when cooled down.

Lazy version:

Put all ingredients into a milk frother, which will mix and warm the beverage as well as froth the milk.

Just make sure the beverage is not burning hot, when you add honey. My milk frother does not heat over 40 deg celcius and therefore it’s fine to add everything into the frother at once.

From an Ayurvedic perspective, raw or biodynamic cow’s milk would be best in this recipe. If you like drinking cow’s milk, try this recipe with biodynamic milk and ghee. They are incorporated in an Ayurvedic diet because they are rasayanas – natural rejuvenators, they build ojas, strengthen your immunity and increase vitality. But please make sure you only buy milk of farmers that treat the cows correctly and leave their horns. Their horns are a part of their metabolism, I can go more into detail about that in another post and this is essential for the recipe to be healing!

However, you can always also use a plant-based milk and coconut oil instead of cow’s milk and ghee.

We use a fat like coconut oil or ghee in this beverage, as it helps the body to absorb turmeric. Spices are lipophilic, meaning that the medicine is absorbed from the spices into the fat. Since the body loves the sweet taste of fat, the healing properties are absorbed deeply, into all seven layers of the bodies tissue. Turmeric’s bioavailability will also be enhanced with a pinch of black pepper. Without it, the body does not recognize the turmeric, it simply goes through your body.

Please find alternatives for each dosha here:

Vata: raw, unhomogenized milk (nourishing), 1 tsp of ghee (lubricating and nourishing), instead of honey you can use jaggery (it is warming raw cane sugar), skip the salt (salt + raw milk is not a good combination in Ayurveda)

Pitta: instead of oat milk you can use coconut milk (cooling), instead of 1/2 tsp turmeric add 1/4 tsp of turmeric or none at all (due to its heating nature) and enjoy a warm cup of milk, use fresh ginger rather than ground ginger, as a fresh one is not as heating, you may also add more cardamom (as it is cooling for Pitta), you may sweeten with maple syrup as it is more cooling than pungent honey

Kapha: nut milk (extractive) or rice milk (tri-doshic), substitute maple syrup by using honey (slightly pungent, drying in nature)

In the evenings you can add a pinch of nutmeg, it is a sedative and will help you with insomnia.

Once you get familiar with your spices – which should always be organic – I encourage you to experiment developing an intuitive feeling for what your body needs. You can then switch up the spices you use for when creating any beverage and dish.

When measuring your spices according to your intuition, most likely it will be the right amount for what your body needs in that moment.

Intuitive cooking is the best medicine for your body, mind and soul.

However, if you are feeling heated, fiery, aggressive, moody angry etc. your Pitta dosha might be quite high. In that case, please contact your Ayurvedic practitioner of choice to see if turmeric latte is a good choice for you. Consuming it one time will not do harm, but then it might not be a daily option for you.

If you have found this helpful, please let me know and get in touch!

Much love,

Lisa