Lean on Ayurveda

Ep 25 - Q&A: Ghee & Inflammation, Finding Harmony in a Harsh World & Overcoming Procrastination

• Vytaute Liutkeviciute • Episode 25

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In the final episode of 2025, we’re closing the year with a special Q&A, featuring questions submitted by my current clients. We explore everything from the truth about ghee and inflammation, to navigating the emotional weight of the world, to finding your way out of procrastination patterns.

In this episode, we cover:

• Is ghee inflammatory?
We look at what modern sources say, where confusion often arises, how ghee behaves in the body according to Ayurveda, the role of butyrate in gut health, and what the classical texts tell us about using ghee therapeutically.

• How to feel harmony in a world that feels harsh.
We explore the lens of Kali Yuga, the deeper perspective of yogic philosophy, how to hold both agency and surrender, and the two practices that can keep you rooted when the world feels overwhelming: rhythm and prayer.

• “I keep procrastinating. What do I do?”
A practical Ayurvedic take on procrastination. We differentiate between tamasic (inert) procrastination and rajasic (busy but avoidant) procrastination — and how to shift each one using sattva, rajas, or both.

End-of-Year Offering: Ayurvedic Holiday Support Sessions

For the month of December, I’m opening up something I rarely offer — single one-on-one sessions to support you through the holiday season.

These 60-minute focused sessions can support you with:

  • digestion and food rhythm while traveling or hosting
  • stress, sensory load, and overwhelm
  • emotional tenderness that often arises this time of year

We choose 1–2 priorities and build a simple, personalized support system so you can enter the new year feeling grounded, nourished, and clear.

→ Book your session here.

Resources Mentioned in this episode:

  • WebMD nutritional overview of ghee
  • Research on the anti-inflammatory effects of butyrate: Canani RB, Costanzo MD, Leone L, Pedata M, Meli R, Calignano A. Potential beneficial effects of butyrate in intestinal and extraintestinal diseases. World J Gastroenterol. 2011 Mar 28;17(12):1519-28. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v17.i12.1519. PMID: 21472114; PMCID: PMC3070119.
  • Charaka Samhita passages on ghee (ghṛta)
  • Simple Ayurveda Podcast ep 169: Time from a Vedic Perspective: A Deep Dive into the Yugas.

Learn more about my work: https://leanonayurveda.com/

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SPEAKER_00:

Hi and welcome to the Lenan Ayurveda podcast. Here we explore how the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda can help us gain a deeper understanding of our body and open the gateway to finally feeling better. Hello and welcome to the Linan Ayurveda podcast. This is Vitote, your host, and today we are on episode 25, the last one of the year. And it occurred to me a few weeks ago that it's been a while since I did a QA episode. So I wanted this last episode of 2025 to be one that answers your questions. And before we dive into these questions, all of which have been put forward by my current clients, a reminder that throughout the month of December, I am offering one-on-one single sessions for Ayurvedic holiday support. So these are single focus sessions, which I don't normally offer, but I'm making an exception for the end-of-year holiday season. And these single sessions are an opportunity for us to spend an hour together to create a support system for the specific challenges that you might be experiencing this time of year. So they could be related to food and digestion support when you're traveling or when you have lots of people over. It can be to do with navigating stress or sensory overwhelm that is relevant this time of year, or the emotional load that sometimes can come with the holiday season. So this is really personalized support that is adapted to what feels the most pressing for you right now. We will pick one focus or maybe two things to focus on, and we will build support for you around that so that you can step into the new year feeling more grounded and balanced and less drained by the swirl of events that the end of the year tends to bring for many of us. So if this kind of support speaks to you, then you can book your spot through the link in the show notes. Alright, over to the QA. The first question today is Is Ghee inflammatory? So this is coming from somebody who was told by their medical provider to avoid taking ghee as well as other dairy products in order to avoid aggravating inflammatory processes in the body. So first, before answering such a question, I want to say that nothing that I say in this episode or on this podcast should be taken as medical advice. And nothing that I say should be taken to replace medical advice of any kind. That being said, I also want to offer that it is good to also have our own discernment on board when dealing with the Western medical system. What I am growing into more and more in this world where we seem to be confronted with so many opinions and facts, and opinions that are disguised as facts, I believe it's so important to also do our own research in, you know, not across the board, but simply in areas that we deem important. Um so here's my two cents on the Ghee question as Ghee being an inflammation-causing agent, according to some medical professionals. So, first I want to say that Ghee is not a traditionally used product in our society. Okay, so it is normal that our doctors might not know everything about Ghee, right? We shouldn't expect them to. And also, our doctors are human, they've been exposed to what they've been exposed during their studies, during their medical experience, and that will always have you know a certain flavor to it. Um, and it might happen that they don't know something, and let's make that okay, right? Let's also allow them to be human and have that margin for human error, right? I'm saying this in general, not necessarily in relation to this gig question. And also let's remember that when we are compelled to take them as absolute authority, right? Let's also remember that that they are human and they are biased in their own ways, in the same way that we are biased in our ways, right? So it's not about not trusting, but it's about not putting everything into their hands and remaining an active participant in your healing journey, right? Except in circumstances where, for example, you are on your way to the operating theater, then trust is all you have, right? So the best course of action then is to surrender to the hope that everything will be fine, right? That is not the time to start, you know, doubting uh the competencies of um or the capacities of people who will be in charge of you for the next hours, right? So there are times to surrender our agency and you know, lean into the trust 100%. And there are also times when we can retain some of that active participation in our well-being, right? And it's more often that we will find ourselves in that um active participation, hopefully, right? So, when it comes to this ghee question, here is what I found in the relatively short research that I did exploring this supposed link between ghee and inflammation. So the first thing to do would be maybe to look at the composition of ghee. And so, according to WebMD, which is a website that um provides medically reviewed information. Okay, so they have uh professional doctors reviewing um the articles there, so there they say that a tablespoon of ghee contains 130 calories, so it's very caloric, it contains zero grams of protein, it contains 15 grams of fat, zero grams of carbohydrates, zero grams of fiber, and zero grams of sugar. So basically, a tablespoon of ghee, all it contains is fat, right? So when we clarify butter, we essentially make it go through this refinement process and we turn it into pure fat, right? So butter in itself contains um very high amount of fat, about 80% of butter is fat, and then it contains very low amounts of other nutrients, like trace amounts. Okay, so like protein would be zero point something grams, right? Um, and the same for carbs, for minerals, and it contains virtually no fiber or sugar, right? So when we boil it, when we use fire to turn it into something else, when we transform it under fire, it becomes this pure fat, right? Which is what ghee is. So I think that is where um the first misunderstanding may have happened that you know if a person is if a medical professional is not um familiar with this product, and um ghee is kind of clumped with um with other dairy products like with milk and and yogurt and um and others, it can be labeled as this inflammatory agent, right? Without the understanding that it does not contain the particles from dairy products that might be agents of inflammation in certain bodies. Now there is also um quite a lot of information out there about saturated fats being more linked to inflammation than unsaturated fats, and I think that's where perhaps there's another opportunity for confusion if we um just include ghee in this saturated fats category and again label it as inflammation-inducing. So a few things um here on saturated fats. First of all, when it comes to fat coming from an animal, whether it's of dairy or meat origin, in Ayurveda, there would be a lot of emphasis on how that product is consumed, right? So when we're talking about dairy products, dairy is never consumed in its cold state, right? So full fat milk would never in Ayurveda be drunk cold, it would always be consumed in its pre-digested state, which is with spices and warm, and that allows our body to um process it in a different way and absorb its nutrients because cold dairy, when it's consumed cold, it is incredibly hard for our digestion to break down, so it would make sense that um what is not broken down produces metabolic waste and causes inflammation. So Ayurveda, instead of like demonizing animal fat, it um places a lot of um emphasis on how can your body break this down? Can your body break this down? Here are the ways to consume it, which will help your body break this fat down so that it doesn't cause all these digestive issues that ultimately lead to inflammation. But anyway, coming back to um these saturated fats, saturated fats are by the way, fats that are solid at room temperature, right? As opposed to unsaturated fats, which are more of like um vegetable nature, like um you know, vegetable oils like um avocado, olive oil, these will be liquid at room temperature. So one of the things that might be overlooked in ghee as a saturated fat being of animal origin is that it contains certain um elements that are in fact anti-inflammatory. One such example is the presence of a certain acid that is called butyrate. I think I'm pronouncing it right. Um, it's spelled B-U-T-Y-R-A-T-E. And this particular acid, which is also present in butter, by the way, has been proven to have anti-inflammatory effects on the gut. So um there's probably more resources on this, but I am quoting just one sentence from um a study done at an Italian university. I will link it up in the show notes in case you want to go deeper. So it says at the intestinal level, butyrate plays a regulatory role on the transepithelial fluid transport, ameliorates mucosal inflammation and oxidative status, reinforces the epithelial defense barrier, and modulates visceral sensitivity and intestinal motility. So, in case all of these words sound very um uh overwhelming, let me um let me just say what I read in simpler Ayurvedic terms. Basically, like this is using my own Aurvedic language, okay? This is bringing the uncuousness to our gut, improving its lining, and regulating fluid balance, basically preventing dryness in our mucosa, right? And we know that when something is dry, it is not resilient. Human life is fluid-based, life is water-based, right? So when we have better regulated fluid in our gut, we have better barriers that make our gut more resilient. So this is just one example of how you know, just looking at the qualities of ghee so that emollient, um fatty, uncuous texture is what provides more internal lubrication, and lubrication is always good unless there's too much of it, which you know, in which case we would be dealing with kaffa type disorders. But for anyone who is suffering from inflammation, right, um, or is um suffering from vata type of diseases, we definitely want to create more lubrication in the body. And so when it comes to Ghee acting as an inflammatory agent and looking at the actual studies that have been done, the only link that I was able to find of Ghee actually being an inflammatory agent were studies that spoke about cases where ghee and butter were consumed in access. Okay, so this is not surprising, it is uh a fatty substance, and you know, a good amount of fat requires a good amount of acne, a good amount of digestive fire to break it down. If our digestive fire is not strong enough, or if our digestive fire is, you know, um like of regular strength, but we're feeding it too much of the fatty substance, it will start to die out and it will reduce our digestive capacity. And what is not digested will turn into metabolic waste and will cause inflammation if your body is prone to inflammation. Okay, so this was actually um there was an article that I came across um uh which was which looked very loud, it was from the Times of India that was citing different studies that were done on Ghee as being dangerous to health when consumed in access, right? Um, so that is the only reference that I found, but then again, I say this with humility, knowing that you know I could be proven wrong. So if you do come across evidence that Ghee is in fact inflammatory as proven scientifically, please send it to me and I will look into it with a lot of interest. And whenever looking at modern studies, um I think it's also good to keep in mind that um there are also studies that you know kind of contradict each other, right? I have definitely seen studies that say coffee is good for you and then coffee is not good for you. So I think um you know, just again keeping that in mind that um perhaps a study doesn't need to be our only authority, right? Um what I where I find authority personally um are the texts that have been written thousands of years ago. And whereas there we need to keep in mind that times are changing and the products to which we have access are changing too, right? That is the case of our dairy industry. Right now, for example, the dairy that you know um Ayurveda was advising is not the same that the dairy most people have access to right now in our western world, so we need to keep that in mind. But when it comes to Ghee, um I also looked at uh Charak Samhita, which is one of the Ayurvadic classic texts, and this is what it says about Ghi. So it's called Grita in Sanskrit. So I'm just gonna read um a few passages from it. Grita alleviates pitta and vata and is beneficial for rasa, so that's our lymph, shukra, that's our um reproductive tissue, and ogas, which is our reserve of vitality. It provides relief from burning sensation, right? So that is that inflammation, that inner heat, softens the tissues, improves voice and complexion. It is one of the four major lipids. So gritta, we have gritta, we have oil of sesame, we have muscle fat, and bone marrow. These four are considered the best sneha, so the best oiling agents. And among these four, gritta, so ghee is superior, as it possesses the qualities of samskara, so blending with other substances, having different properties without losing its own properties. And finally, when describing who is ghee for, this is what the text says. Persons having vata pitta prakriti or those suffering from vata pitta disorders. So that means that whether your birth constitution is vata pitta, or whether you're experiencing vata or pitta symptoms, including inflammation. Inflammation is a pitta symptom. Those desiring good eyesight, those who are wounded, emaciated, old and infirm, children and women, those willing to live long, those willing to have good strength, complexion, voice, nourishment, healthy progeny, luxurious lifestyle, good vitality, memory, intelligence, digestive strength, strength of sense organs, and those suffering from burning sensation, injury by weapon, poison, and fire should drink Gritta. Okay, so um when I read this passage, I think that it's probably all of us, right? All of us um want these wonderful things. Healthy progeny, nourishment, good voice, good complexion, good vitality, memory intelligence. That is because ghee feeds our deeper tissues. And things like you know, our reproductive tissue, our immunity, our resilience to life, and our vitality, all of these thrive when our deeper tissues are fed. Not a lot of concentrated nourishment actually manages to get to these deeper tissues, especially if we are suffering from inflammation and if we are suffering from digestive troubles. A lot of the nourishment is kind of lost along the way, right? So ghee helps that nourishment get there. So, in very simple terms, ghee nourishes the fire, preventing it from becoming too high. And when consumed daily, it allows for the sustained lubrication that happens internally, which is very, very beneficial for our overall resilience and vitality. And for if for whatever reason you still feel that ghee is not for you, whether you don't like the taste or whatever, you know, whatever the reason may be, if you don't want to consume it internally, you can still make it part of your life externally, so you can put it on your skin because our skin is also a digestive organ, right? It also digests whatever is on it, and so by using ghee on your skin, whether it's you know rubbing it into your belly or you know, um putting it on your hands when they feel a bit drier in the winter, you can still get some of those benefits. It might not penetrate until your you know deepest tissues, but it will still provide some of that lubrication, some of that nourishment on the more topical level, and some of it will be absorbed as well into your bloodstream. Alright, I think we are going to close the topic of ghee, although I could definitely talk about this for hours, and I want to move on to another question which um touched my heart. And the question is um, I feel confronted with a harsh reality outside, it has a lot of impact on me, it's making it much more difficult to feel in harmony with the world. Yes, I feel like we are definitely living in times that feel unprecedented and feel difficult in so many ways and feel very noisy. And from the Vedic perspective, there is actually um, if you're interested in um like hearing a different account of times that we're living in, I would really, really recommend a podcast that was recorded by my Ayurveda teacher Angela Berger and Robin Stamp, with whom I also worked previously, so I'll link that podcast episode in the show notes and it talks about the time period of Kali Yuga, so essentially this time period of chaos and darker times that is crystallizing little by little. And while we definitely want to recognize the difficulty of living in this time period, what is really helpful, at least for me, is believing that I have chosen to be here at this time. Right? So, yes, we could say that it feels overwhelming and hard to live in these times, but whereas that difficulty needs to be acknowledged, I believe it's just so much more empowering to shift our mindset to this idea that we had a say, like our souls had a say to be here during this time, to live in this body during this time, not a different time, this time, because there is specific work for us to do, right? And yet it can feel so tender at times, and and I definitely feel this too. But here, yogic philosophy can be incredibly helpful, and one idea that um I have taken on for sure, is you know that there are my actions, there are the actions of other people, and then there are the actions of the divine, right? There's like there are these three components that make up the present moment, the result of the present moment, and we can do what we can do, and beyond that, it can be a process of learning to surrender and to allow for things to unfold. So, personally, when I feel this way, when I feel helpless about the state of the world or you know, particular circumstances, I lean into prayer and rhythm. It's those two things that keep me afloat when when things become difficult to handle. And I think you know, finding a way to place that desperation for the state of the world into the hands of the divine can be a big weight off our shoulders because we can't carry that on our own, none of us can. She always tells us that there is also a divine purpose and order in chaos, and we must trust that. So there is um, you know, inside of Vedic tradition, dissolution, destruction is built into the architecture of the world. So we have the creation, we have the sustenance of the creation, the maintenance, and then we have the dissolution, right? So we can choose to see the chaos of the world as part of that solution that is built into the manifestation and it being a natural way of resolving something that is not working, right? And that is so that something else can be born from it, but of course, it's not easily done, especially when we see so much suffering around us. So I get that. And then this other part is working on your daily rhythm, right? This is the first line of medicine when we're working with vata, because a situation of desperation and helplessness is a situation where vata will be high, we will have that, you know, extra movement of thoughts that will feel very noisy and agitating, right? So then whenever this is happening in our heads, we want to come back to rhythm and we want to cultivate a rhythm that is sustainable, that um, you know, is aligned with the seasons, that is aligned with um the movement of the sun and the moon, as in, you know, we are eating at the right times, we're going to bed at the right times, uh, essentially that we're respecting our circadian rhythms, right? And um just making sure that we are creating that safety and that predictability for our bodies and our minds when things outside of our realm of competence might not feel safe, right? And then they might feel like there's a lot of unknown and insecurity. Then what we can do looking at like what our agency can look like is creating that safety for ourselves through a good and sustainable daily rhythm, making sure that you know we're taking care of ourselves, making sure that we're protecting our sleep, that we're protecting our energy and our nourishment so that we can do our bit, right, in this world and we can do what we came here to do. Why you know we can do the thing that we essentially chose to do. Alright, and another question on procrastination. I keep procrastinating. What to do? I feel you, sister. Um, here is where I would go with this. So, first, I would um check in what way you are procrastinating. So, are you procrastinating by not doing or are you avoiding doing the right thing and keep doing a bunch of other things that you don't actually need to be doing? Right? So these are like different ways of procrastinating, which would loosely translate as like kaffa related or vata related, right? If it's the first one, so if you're procrastinating, so you're not doing the thing that you're meant to be doing, and instead you're just not doing anything, like you're wasting your time. If that is the pattern, then the pattern can be seen more as tamasic. So tamas being the energy of inertia and stuckness, right? In that case, it needs to be remedied by action and movement, right? So we remedy tamas with the energy of rajas, which is movement. So in that case, make a cup of coffee and make a non-ambitious to-do list for the day or for the week, right? And maybe get a friend to keep you accountable, right? So if your patterns are tamassic, you want to remedy them with movement with rajas. Now, if you're creating busyness and you're basically, you know, instead of doing the thing that you should be doing, you are caught up in artificial doing, like you are grasping onto other projects and doing what you know is not important, but you're creating this busyness so that you wouldn't need to tackle the thing that needs to be tackled, right? If that is the pattern, then the pattern is more that of agitation of rajas, right? And rajas is remedied with the energy of sattva, the energy of peace and harmony. So the sattvic thing to do in your case would then be to stop drinking coffee, to take a break from your screen, maybe take a walk in the park in the forest, get some fresh air, be out in nature, and really distill what is to be done today. Okay, so removing extra stimulus from your life, and that will allow some space for you to understand what is to be done today or this week, right? And if your mind is telling you that everything is to be done, then either it is lying or you've procrastinated for too long, and now you have all the deadlines coming to you at the same time. Right. So in that case, giving yourself a really honest estimate of the time and energy resources that you do have, right? Um, and then really seeing what is to be done and what is not to be done, or to be done, but not necessarily now. So it might be that you don't get everything done in the end, right? By the end of this week, let's say it might be that you fall short of the perfect result that you imagined, you know, and this can be a good opportunity to soften. Um, especially thinking around, you know, now we are in this lead up to Christmas, and Christmas time can be a great um opportunity to try this on, right? Can it still be a good Christmas if I didn't bake the super duper cake that I know will take me two weeks of trying and testing to get done? Or if I didn't get the exact gifts I wanted? Can I meet myself with compassion this Christmas? Can I lean into what I was able to create? Right? So perhaps it's a happier partner, perhaps it's more time with my kids, but less perfect gifts or less perfect decorations, but more smiles. So there we also want to look at these patterns of perfection. Could it be that you feel you're always behind because you have this image that you need to live up to a perfect, like a picture perfect reality, and you always fall short, right? But with procrastination, the first place where I would start is to look at in what way you procrastinate, and then you know, when you understand whether your pattern in relation to this procrastination is more tomastic, then remedy it with action. If your pattern is more rajastic, so it's coming from more agitation, then remedy it with sattva, right? So that means removing stimulus, getting more grounded, and looking at your to do list with a fresh pair of eyes that are less stimulated. Alright, on that note, I want to wish you all a very beautiful Christmas. May we be compassionate and loving to our And our dear ones during this time, and may we remember to look less this Christmas at what others are doing, and you know how others are decorating and gifting, and may we remember what we truly desire for our own little tribe, right? The people that matter in our home, our own little gang of imperfect loved ones. May we find joy and magic in exactly that. I can't wait to come back to you in January, where I will have some really exciting surprise guests coming to the show. So I can't wait for you to discover who they are. I'm sure you will love them. And I wish you a beautiful day and a beautiful Christmas break.