Sorting Trash in the Gut

Aug 13, 2022

By watching the patterns of nature and the patterns by which waste evolved through its cycles of existence, Ayurvedic wisemen came to understand the gut and how it processes food. Ayurveda was brilliant to observe how trash developed from home to street, and was taken away and processed to maintain harmony in a city. These wisemen used the metaphor of trash to understand the gut's processing of food to stool (poop).

The concept of mala is incompetently translated as trash, toxin, or waste. Mala is a segregated product of completed metabolism still functioning in the body either to provide space, warmth, moisture, osmotic flow, or as a carriage of other products. Sweat, feces (stool, poop), and urine are the three malas of the body human. Mala is similar to garbage sitting in a garbage bag but still in the house. By the way, if you are new to Sanskrt, learn your short a and long a, and don't mix up mala ("muluh") which means waste, with mala (māla) which means district or area, and mala (mālā) which means garland!

Unlike mala, aama is the product of incomplete digestion, like uneaten food sitting on a plate in the sink. These two concepts have an inbuilt wisdom that the healthy body will efficiently extract every part of food that can be used only if it needs it. What is not needed is then quickly sent down and out to the bin for proper disposal. Only the food that is fully analyzed by the gut's wisdom and then processed to remove every usable needed part is ready to proceed out. Half digested food has not been fully assessed and tends to linger in the gut. This half digested food is like the projects sitting on someone's desk, neither finished nor unfinished. They create clutter and eventually litter the space. Ama is the clutter. Papers that are ready to go out as trash but still sitting in the wastebasket are like mala.

When processed food is fit to be sent out of the body, the body releases it with ease. When food is still half undigested, the body in its efficiency holds on to it, but gets confused over time as to how much, when and how to extract the remaining nutrients. Ancient physiologists understood that food that was not fully processed by the various stages of the gut would not be sent downward and outward as stool properly. They would linger as residue and build up, creating obesity, metabolic issues, and gut diseases. Mala that was not removed would eventually become ama.

To achieve this, ayurvedic physicians corrected course regularly from imbalances caused by weather changes, work duress, phases of life such as childbirth, hard travel, and long pujas, and life events that rattled the mind, creating disattention between mind-senses-body-hormones and gut regulation. They gave remedies that would help the person rekindle the agni, get rid of the mala. Many warnings and guiding prescriptions were developed by the wise physicians. The metaphor of extracting trash was used to understand how the body's awareness had digested the food and thus which kind of incomplete digestion was causing the imbalance. Wasteful incomplete unextractable additives as that found in modern food products ruins the environment of the gut.

This elegant understanding of gut physiology runs through all the texts of ayurveda. Unfortunately, many of today's ayurvedic doctors learn modern gut physiology which keeps changing its logic as its science develops. They mix the theories and concepts of modern gut physiology with ayurvedic metaphors and lose understanding of the pure patterns of nature, unconsciously creating indiscernable waste of wisdom during their teachings and practice. Find an ayurvedic physician who understands the gut, and you will find someone who can help many tough diseases resolve.

Everyday Ayurveda

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