Podcast Intro:

Good food warms the souls of those who eat it. Families take joy when good food is served at the table, and it is further magnified when it happens during special occasions. But there is a common misconception about good food, good food means expensive! That’s not true at all! 

Anyone with a working kitchen, the right ingredients, and the passion to serve good food at the table can create something spectacular. It is the time of year when people recreate family dishes passed down through the centuries. But what if you were to reimagine how these delicacies are made? Learn how to make healthier versions of your favorite Christmas treats by listening to this podcast!

What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• What are the triggers and rituals of people in the holidays
• Why it is vital to practice drinking hot water added with spices before eating huge meals
• How you can reinvent desert to be digestive friendly
• Why people should enjoy their meals as they should be and not be too complacent with what society’s been meticulously weighing and scaling food.

Links/CTA:

• Kate O'Donnell Yoga 
• Talya's Kitchen
• Ayurvedic Living Institute
• Ayurveda Every Day with Talya
• IG: @ayurvedawithtalya
• YT Channel: Ayurveda Every Day with Talya
• Dosha Quiz: Talya's Kitchen
• Ayurveda Starters Guide

Highlights:

• Cate talks about her mom cooking treats during holidays
• Cate talks about giving out some of the produce from her herb garden 
• Cate talks about cultivating their own healthy rhythm with food and nourishment and digestion.

Timestamps:

• [6:07] - Family Routines on Holidays and Food
• [11:46] - Benefits of Drinking Hot Water
• [19:48] - Connecting the Family
• [28:09] - Skin and Self-care
• [37:35] - Combining Art, Science, and Tradition
• [41:53] - Cultivating a Healthy Rhythm with Food

Quotes:

• “Anytime you add in any social factor to eating, you immediately change it from how it is when you’re just by yourself, like quietly meditatively chewing your bites, tasting your food, and having that presence. But the other thing that I think people struggle with is just eating too much or being tempted by everything else that’s there. And so kind of managing their plate during a holiday meal.” - Talya
• “The green is always missing. It feels like an incomplete meal to me without something bitter. This bitterness is a digestive and cleansing taste, which is just so refreshing with all the brown food.” - Kate
• “I often find that with tradition, there’s a weightiness of the past, and there’s a beauty to that, but then there can also be a pathology, it just be strong about it. With that where it’s like that was important then because they were working a farm, and those were new things on the horizon, like excess flour and excess sugar was like really new to at least in the American economy, within the last 100 years.” - Cate
• “I find the more people have rules around food, the more people are like trying to measure things or the more they’re telling themselves not to eat something that are their trigger foods that they’re like it creates this really false dichotomy. That, to me, is just like a residue of consumer culture. Instead, it is like, how do you really merge with the food because this food will become your body. So don’t have an antagonistic relationship to it like “be all in.” - Cate

Guest: Kate O’Donnell 

https://www.kateodonnell.yoga/about

Kate O’Donnell is the author of three Ayurvedic Cookbooks, including The Everyday Ayurveda Guide to Self-Care, The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook: A Seasonal Guide to Eating and Living Well, and Everyday Ayurvedic Cooking for a Calm, Clear Mind: 100 Sattvic Recipes. She is a nationally certified Ayurvedic Practitioner and the founder of the Ayurvedic Living Institute. An authorized Ashtanga yoga instructor, she teaches yoga in Boston and Portland, Maine, and still travels to India annually for study.  

Kate began yoga by accident in South India at age 20. More than a dozen extended trips to India and twenty years studying the wisdom traditions of the sub-continent support Kate’s understanding of Ayurveda and Yoga.

After years of dedication to the Ashtanga system, Kate has experienced great benefit from this practice and was authorized by her teacher Sharath Jois to teach the Primary and Intermediate series of Ashtanga yoga. She teaches week-long mysore immersions annually in Portland ME, Boston, and abroad.

Kate also specializes in Ayurvedic education, cooking skills, and cleansing programs, offering online programs, residential immersions and training, and individual consultations.  Her Ayurveda and yoga offerings aim to help others come closer to their true nature.

Guest Bio: Talya Lutzker

https://www.ayurvedaed.com/about-talya/

Talya Lutzker is a Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner, cookbook author, yoga teacher, and one of the most accessible Ayurveda teachers online today.

She helps people heal and integrate the practice of Ayurveda into their daily life. She's the founder of The Dosha Remedy, The RAD Cleanse (Radiance Ayurveda Detox), and Ayurveda Starter School.

Since 2003, Talya's created Ayurvedic lifestyle and nutrition hubs for her audience. Drink up deep nourishment for the heart and soul of who you are at Ayurveda Every Day with Talya - https://www.ayurvedaed.com/