According to Ayurveda, food is meant for nourishment and is to be consumed based on bodily needs rather than by the dictates of taste value of the eatable. Diet is considered a more significant modifier than even drugs, which are secondarily resorted to when dietary correction is insufficient. Thus food is to be consumed with awareness and choice and the right diet is the primeval requirement for a disease-free state.

Charaka Samhita asserts that ‘when properly used even a poison becomes a good remedy and even food can become a poison if improperly used’. Mindless overindulgent food intake with little concern for its nutritional value is today acknowledged as the primary causative agent (thus a poison!) in numerous chronic ailments thus currently validating the medical wisdom of ‘yester centuries’.

Ayurveda places great emphasis on diet, because proper assimilation of dietary constituents is essential for the maintenance of health and improper assimilation results in intermediary products of digestion with toxic properties called ama. Ayurveda stresses prevention of the formation and accumulation of ama through appropriate diet and the use of therapies to improve digestion. It also considers various dietary factors that trigger or eliminate certain diseases. Since dietary constituents are believed to influence drug action, Ayurveda also prescribes special diets or abstinence from specific regular food items.