Organic Kitchari Packets

Description

Our Organic Kitchari Packets are made with 100% USDA certified organic ingredients! Kitchari (pronounced kitch-a-ree) is widely considered India’s most traditional comfort and healing food. It is easy on the stomach, nutritious and a complete balanced cuisine in itself. It is considered the core of Ayurvedic nutritional healing.

Organic Yellow Mung Bean Kitchari is a delicious and creamy blend of organic long grain rice, organic split yellow mung beans, and a proprietary blend of gentle organic whole herbs and spices that support detox and digestion. Ready in just 20-30 minutes, it can be enjoyed as a main entrée or a side dish.

Serving Size: 1 cup

Servings Per Pack: About 3

Ingredients: Organic Long Grain Rice, Organic Split Yellow Mung Beans, Spice Blend (Organic Coriander, Organic Cumin, Sea Salt, Organic Turmeric, Organic Mustard Seed and Organic Fennel).

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Cooking Directions

1. Rinse rice and mung beans with water 3 to 4 times. Drain.
2. In a medium saucepan add 4 ½ – 6 cups of water, spice blend, and the rice/ beans mixture and bring to a boil.
3. Cover and reduce heat to low. Stir occasionally.
4. Simmer 20-30 minutes or until rice and beans are tender and soupy.
5. Stir lightly and serve hot.

Note: If you experience gas or bloating, next time soak the rice and beans overnight before rinsing.

Meal Options

When doing a cleanse program, do not add any ghee or other ingredients. If you are not cleansing, the following is optional: Garnish with freshly chopped cilantro leaves and 1 tsp of clarified butter (ghee). Serve with plain yogurt. Vegans can opt to add flaxseed oil or extra virgin olive oil. Add any fresh or frozen vegetables, including carrots, peas, green beans, potatoes, spinach, kale, broccoli, or cauliflower.

Why White Rice?

For kitchari, white rice is used because the husk has been milled off to make the rice easier to digest. While brown rice may be used – and will actually supply more nutrients – the husk makes brown rice much harder to digest. During cleansing, a time of already compromised digestion, this can irritate the intestinal wall and cause digestive gas or abdominal discomfort.

Traditionally, farmers would bring their rice to the miller and have the rice de-husked based on their needs. If someone was sick, elderly, or there was a baby in the house, all of the husks would come off, making white rice for the ease of digestion. Brown rice was used only if digestive strength was optimal or when funds were short, as it was expensive to have the rice prepared and de-husked.

Typically, long grain white rice was used over short grain rice because it was believed to be more nutritious. Even without the husk, it was considered a more stable food than short grain rice. Recent studies show that long-grain white rice tends to have a Glycemic Index of about 56, while short-grain white rice tends to have a Glycemic Index of about 72. (1)

Why Split Yellow Mung Beans?

According to Ayurveda, split yellow mung beans are the one type of beans or lentils that will not produce gas. To be called kitchari, the rice has to be cooked with a legume. Recent studies have shown that they do create less flatulence than proteins derived from other types of legumes. (2)

Traditionally, that legume was split yellow mung dahl beans. These are the only legumes that are classified as “vata balancing” in Ayurveda. Split yellow mung beans also have their husk naturally removed. When they are split, the husk, which is very hard to digest and gas producing, naturally falls off. This process naturally renders them much easier to cook, digest, and assimilate.

Mung Beans and Dietary Fiber

Mung beans are an excellent source of dietary fiber, which is used by the bacteria of the gut to produce butyric acid – which is also present in ghee (a type of clarified butter central to Indian cuisine and Ayurveda). Butyric acid is a Short-Chain Fatty Acid (SCFA) preferentially used by the intestines as a fuel source, even over glucose. (3)

Dietary Fiber and Satiety

A single meal that has high dietary fiber helps in producing satiety hormone known as cholecystokinin. In one recent meta-analysis of acute feeding trials, dietary pulses, like mung beans, provided a significant increase in this hormone due to their high dietary fiber content. (4)

A Perfect Protein

The combination of rice and beans has been a staple around the world for 10,000 years, and for good reason. You have probably heard the term complete protein, but let’s take a minute to really understand what that means.

There are 20 amino acids that combine with one another to make the proteins the body needs. Ten of them, the body can synthesize on its own. The other ten, called essential amino acids, the body does not make, meaning we must get it from our foods. Animal proteins are “complete” in that they contain all ten essential amino acids, but plant foods need to be combined to make a complete protein.

Rice, like most grains, is very low in the amino acid lysine. As a result, if you live on grains alone, you will likely become protein deficient. Legumes and lentils, and especially mung beans (5) have lots of lysine, but they are generally low in methionine, tryptophan, and cystine. Fortunately, grains are high in these three amino acids.

So the marriage of rice and beans, as found in kitchari, has been providing the ten essential amino acids and making complete proteins for cultures around the world for thousands of years. For cultures that have subsisted on a plant-based diet, this marriage is often what allows their diet to be nutritionally sustainable.

General Disclaimer:

This product is processed in a facility that also handles tree nuts and sesame seeds. Store in a cool dry place.

 

References:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2584181/

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23426879

3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705355/

4. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.20782/full

5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4220456/