Traditionally sipped at fall and winter celebrations, mulling spices of home-brewed cider chase away the sharpest evening chill.
SERVINGS: 4
PREP TIME: 5 MINUTES
COOK TIME: 15 MINUTES
Preparation of This Healthy Recipe
To make homemade cider:
1. Chop and peel 4 apples and add to large pot.
2. Cover with water plus two inches.
3. Boil for one hour and strain through a fine sieve.
Alternatively start with organic store bought apple cider.
4. Bring 1qt of apple cider to a boil.
5. Brew with above spices 3-5 minutes before serving in a warm mug.
AYURVEDIC ANALYSIS
Spicy, sweet Apple Cider with Spices brings back nostalgic memories of easier times past. A few sips from a heavy mug invite tastes of spicy cinnamon, warm nutmeg, and exotic clove bring depth and complexity to sweetly sour apple juice.
Perfectly matched to the beauty of colorful autumn leaves and the coat of the red fox that appears between trees in quiet forests, hot apple cider’s inherent warmth chases away chilling temperatures. Spicy cinnamon, clove and nutmeg ignite your internal fire, even though the long arms of the sun no longer touch your face. Warm your hands around a full mug of Apple Cider with Spices and feel the warmth of your heart once again extend out to your fingers, toes, friends and foes.
Warm Your Fingers and Toes
With the cool winds of autumn beginning to blow through many regions, you may find your body feeling cold and congested, longing for warmth and comfort. Battling the cold may seem like a necessary evil as fall deepens into winter. Yet, a simple remedy for cold hands and feet may be as close as your everyday spice rack. Long relied upon for its stimulating effect on the circulation, cinnamon warms your blood and your body into coziness with its sweet taste and powerful punch. The warmth it brings to cold hands and feet has also been used for conditions like Raynauld’s Syndrome.
The body conserves on heat during cold winter months by bringing more blood into the core and allowing the temperature in your arms and legs to drop. Cloves pushes heat out to the exterior warming the skin. They are a strong diaphoretic and vasodilator bringing blood and heat back to the exterior of the body for cleansing and ‘sweating’ out a fever. Sweating just a little makes you feel healthy and revitalized in when it’s cold. Cinnamon also helps you sweat and feel warm through and through. It’s no mystery why spiced cider has been a warming go-to recipe in colder parts of the world for generations on end.
Immunity Spice Blend
Cider’s blend of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg strengthens your immunity. It’s pungent spiciness warms up the lungs and liquefies mucus congestion. You may have noticed that when you make tea with cinnamon, a thick, gooey substance settles to the bottom of your cup. This gooey property is called demulcent among herbalists and helps you expecorate any thick, kapha like mucus adhered to the bronchial tubes. Clove is an herb that causes you to break a light sweat, thereby eliminating bugs that may be circulating in your blood.
Balance Your Blood
Spiced Cider is a safer choice for those battling high blood sugar. Cinnamon is a popular garnish atop many desserts- while many of us choose cinnamon in sweets for its unique taste, this choice also reflects the body’s innate wisdom. Cinnamon regulates blood sugar and its stimulating pungency makes it the perfect spice to balance sweet apple juice.
The sour taste of apples cleans the liver, somatically experienced as a softening of the eyes. Malic acid, the constituent responsible for sour taste, has a particular affinity for liver cleansing and support. You will feel calm, balanced, warm, and relaxed after sipping a cup of this nourishing-yet-cleansing brew.
Keep Your Digestion Strong
Have you noticed it’s harder to relax when the weather is cold? The same thing happens in your digestive tract, which is lined with smooth muscle. When the weather is cold, your muscles contract. Even the smooth muscles of your digestive tract become tight, and digestion and elimination become difficult. Nutmeg is aromatic, astringent, and a sedative. It’s aromatic quality makes it ideal for improving digestion, while astringent quality helps bind the stool. Cloves soften the stools, which is helpful in cold weather when your muscles to contract, causing constipation. They are a carminative increasing hydrochloric acid in the stomach and encouraging peristalsis (peristalsis is the wave of smooth muscle in the colon that creates a bowel movement). It’s sedative qualities make nutmeg ideal in tonics (rasayanas), where nervines are necessary to encourage absorption of heavy foods.
Cloves are hot and pungent- their inherent warmth grounds Vata and keeps their delicate digestion strong. They are a carminitive increasing hydrochloric acid in the stomach and persistalsis. Sour cooked apples promote secretions in the digestion tract. Cinnamon rounds out this cider recipe by warming your digestive fire.
Calm Comfort of Tradition
Traditional mulling spices are the very essence of comfort on blustery nights. Nutmeg is aromatic, astringent, and a sedative and nutmeg grounds agitated Vata. It’s sedative qualities make nutmeg bring about a calm state of mind. Cinnamon “warms the heart,” making this the perfect formula for lonely winter nights.
WHY EAT AN AYURVEDIC DIET?
Eating Ayurvedically makes you feel nourished and energized. An Ayurvedic diet is tailored to your individual body type and the specific imbalances you are working with at any given time. Ayurveda shows you your specific body type’s needs and what should be favored in your Ayurvedic menu. Watch as you eat less but feel more satisfied because what you are eating truly nourishes you. Since Ayurveda believes all disease begins in the digestive tract, food is your first medicine. By eating a healthy diet that’s ideal for your body, you experience optimal health.
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Visit John Immel’s website, joyfulbelly.com, for Ayurvedic nutrition one tasty recipe at a time, and professional, clinically focused, Ayurveda training courses. John also founded the National Association of Ayurveda Schools & Colleges, and the American Association of Biocharacteristics Clinicians. Outside of clinic, John enjoys his Christian faith, and his family of 8 (6 kids)!
