By Setareh Kiumarsi
Imagine you’ve been fasting all day. Iftar time arrives, and you’re feeling famished. A colorful and inviting spread of all sorts of dishes is laid out before you. Your brain starts coming up with all kinds of rational justifications: after so many hours of hunger, your poor stomach deserves to eat whatever it wants, right?
But now shift your focus to your digestive system.
A healthy, balanced digestive tract works like a pot over a steady flame. There’s a balanced fire underneath, with just the right amount of warm water and oil inside, bubbling gently. This “pot” is ready for raw food to be added, which it will then cook, digest, absorb, and eliminate efficiently. That digestive fire underneath the pot is made up of bile and digestive enzymes. The warm fluid in the pot is your saliva and gut mucosa, which surrounds the food, softening it and allowing enzymes to act upon it for proper digestion.
When you fast, your digestive tract remains empty for many hours. The fire underneath the pot keeps burning, and in the absence of food, it evaporates all the moisture. Now imagine pouring a large, heavy meal into that dry pot, say, a big piece of red meat or chicken with a big plate of rice, some bread and cheese, a few bites of halva, and a pile of pastries.
Not only will that food fail to cook in the pot, it will burn, turning into toxins and undigested phlegm. The food just sits there like a stone in your gut, causing indigestion, acid reflux, poor sleep, and irritability for the rest of the night.
So What Should We Eat for Iftar?
Let’s recap. During a fast, the mucous lining of your digestive tract dries out, making it harder to digest heavy meals.
To rehydrate that digestive lining — to bring some “water and oil” back into your digestive pot — it’s best to break your fast with something sweet, like 1–2 dates or dried figs, and a glass of warm water. Then follow that with a bowl of soup.
Sweet foods and soup are moistening. They soothe the digestive lining. Your soup should include light vegetables (like carrots, parsley, or zucchini), a protein source (such as chicken, quail, turkey, or lamb), and a small amount of grains (like rice, vermicelli, or bulgur).
If you’re vegetarian, you can add some yogurt to your soup instead of meat.
About 30 minutes later, you can eat a light dinner maybe 3–4 spoonfuls of rice or a piece of whole-grain bread with a little protein and some steamed vegetables.
But be careful not to overeat!
Isn’t the whole point of fasting — aside from the spiritual aspect — to cleanse and rest the digestive system? Don’t forget: your main meal of the day should have been your pre-dawn suhoor (for more on suhoor from the Ayurvedic perspective, check this post).
A Simple Digestive Routine for After Iftar
After dinner, prepare a flask of hot water with lemon and honey. Drink half a glass every 20 minutes throughout the evening.
Before bed, drink a cup of warm digestive lassi. You can find the recipe for it in the Iranian-Ayurvedic cooking section of the Ananda website. This soothing drink helps you sleep calmly and deeply.
Try to avoid milk-based foods like milk or rice pudding during iftar. You’ll likely be eating other things too, and mixing milk with other foods in your digestive tract tends to produce toxins. (For more on mixing milk with other foods, check out our article on food combinations.)
If you really want to drink milk, make sure your iftar is light and has been fully digested before bed. The best approach is to drink a cup of warm milk right before sleeping. Add two pinches of cardamom, one pinch of rose petals, and a teaspoon of honey — and sip it slowly.
Wishing you a peaceful and accepted fast.
Please be sure to credit the author, Setareh Kiumarsi, when sharing or republishing this article, which was written with love and the hope of well-being for all.
