Have you ever heard the phrase “she eats like a bird"? Well, it can be a very good thing to eat like a bird. A bird is very selective in each bite because its beak can’t really shovel in too much food at one time. The bird has to look at what it wants to eat on the ground and then very skillfully peck at it with its beak.

Think about how you eat. Are you shoveling food in your mouth or carefully choosing each single bite? If you practice yoga, you may be familiar with pigeon pose, eka pada raja kapotasana (more literally: one-legged king pigeon pose). Kapota means pigeon. In Ayurveda, we teach about khale kapota, which is one of the three ways food and herbs are selected to be utilized by the cells and tissues, meaning pigeon-pecking selection process. In this process, the cells use their own intelligence; they carefully choose the nutrients they want and leave what they don’t want. So let your mouth set a good example for your cells. Eat what you think your body needs. Be choosy. Eat like a pigeon.

Peck away!