So SWIM is currently doing the Aya diet in preperation for a ceremony this weekend.
No he is aware that the diet is recommended for health reasons i.e tyramine and maoi dont mix and may produce adverse reactions.
But does anybody know of or have experience with dietry things which may work in synergy with mama aya.

Iv read on here about chocolate or more specifically theobrmone can help, which i find curious as alot of aya diet say not to eat chocolate!!

Does anyone know of any others?

No need for special diet for aya IMO, the MAOIs contained in the caapi (or syrian rue) do not cause adverse reactions when combined with tyramine-containing foods. The MAOI diet (when aya is concerned) myth has to cease at some point...

By the way, which aya diet do you refer to? I have seen plenty of "aya diet" bollocks floating around the web. I wouldn't believe them the least.

Well having looked into it a bit more, it seems that there is some general confusion.
There is the diet, which is more to do with the saftey side of things i.e basically a low tyramine diet.
And then there is the dieta, which is what the shamans adhere to and has more spiritual connotations i.e tuning the body into the plant spirit.

http://forums.ayahuasca....pbb/viewtopic.php?t=7851

I agree totally. I would personally go for the shamans' spiritual diet (whatever that means) if I were to follow any aya diet.

On the other hand, I have been ingesting tons of MAOI forbidden food, like salamis, freshly fermented ales, and cheeses, all together with massive doses of extracted harmala alkaloids. And I felt no side-effects at all.

I have to stress however that some caution is necessary; I was also afraid about MAOIs and certtain food combinations. I experimented myself and found that (at least for my body) the dietary restrictions are not important.

That is to say that it is good to have a cautious eye; some people may get adverse reactions due to individual sensitivities. But I have never heard or read something like this.

Additionaly, according to the "individual sensitivities" argument, one may even get adverse reactions by combining a MAOI-friendy food, like rice with harmala alkaloids! (not that I have ever heard about such a thing either, hahahaha)

Agreed, Definitely no need for a supreme shaman diet or fasting approach.. Protein is great for the body. Especially in preparation for an energy filled trip (Working with the vine&rue). Just avoid eating anything too heavy on the day of. Apples, strawberries, & oranges can help the induction as well as many other fruits.

..and definitely would avoid fish

Why do you say that?

I know there seems to be alot of conflicting info out there, but i read somewhere that fish (fresh water) is actually quite good, as it contains essential omega oils which can help with any fear and anxiety which may prevent itself suring the ceremony.

Also, even on the stricer dieta, it believe one of the only animals there are permitted is a small boney fish found in the amazon, a bit like a sardine!!!

Try Cacao Nibs they have the highest levels of antioxidants according to the ORAC scale, Cacao beans contain 10,000 milligrams (10 grams) per 100 grams of flavonol antioxidants. This is a 10% antioxidant concentration level. Its as raw as chocolate can get without all the added unnecessary sugar which is added to commercial chocolate.

Much Peace

if i can add my 2pence worth i would say go ahead with your aya and dont take to mutch notice of the diet or dieta,imo aya can lead you to your own type of dieta,for some this may be all out fasting and for others it could just mean cutting out some of their bad living habits.ive read the reason for the spiritual dieta is to make you more sensitive to aya,but for me i learned i just cant work with psychedelics on a whole unless im being true to myself in my beliefs,and that for me is my own form of dieta which funnely enough i learned thru aya.and by the way,if i just apply these rules on the run up to a session it feels like ive cheated or soemthing.for me dieta is a path to a better well being and if i dont work on it aya just doesnt work with me.this is the hard facts for me anyway,and what a relief it was to learn after 15 years of using plants i was about to give up.

Hmmmm,
Thats an interesting response lemmy, and tbh, it makes sense to me.
It does kinda seem like cheatin if you diet before the ceremony and then go back to eatin your usual stuff after. I make sense being true to oneself and stuff, but then theres part of me which wants to respect the plant spirits and so i feel obliged to at leat emulate a similar kind of diet to that of the people who have been drinking aya for centuries.
It would be interesting to see what the diet would be like if Aya was as well established in the western culture as it is over there!!!

yes soulman it would be intresting to see how the diet would be,and also how the whole shamanic cerimony would be once it became weseternised,i wonder if folk would try and keep it close to how they do it in south america or if they would change the way its done and make it more of a western cerimony.

Lemmy so true there shouldn't be any reason to only adopt a special diet for aya other than for respectful reasons, or for MAOI reasons as well.
We should all eat healthy and with thought every day to look after ourselves and live a better life. That is after all what enthogens teach us in the fist place is to love, respect and take great care of oursevles.

Much Peace

Its funny you should say that man, coz the ceremony i participated in this weekend was what I guess you could call western.It certainly didnt resemble other "authentic" ceremonies I have experienced with a Peruvian shaman.
The guy who was holding the ceremony is a really good soul. He holds them for free as he is concerned with raising peoples vibrations for our impending changes in consciousness.
We took a small amount at first just to allow the Maoi's to work, during which time we did what he called tonning. He had a wooden box which played a single chord and we hummed along. During the ceremony he played chants, some icaros, some medatative stuff, some pyshchedelic trace. Later on he used a crystal singing bowl tuned for the heart chakara. It was lovely, but interestingly seemed to bring on purging for quite a few people. He also did some drumming and played the flutey wind pipe thingy which also made a lovely sound.

Also, the way it was offered was periodically small amounts. I found this way, it wasnt too stong and overwhelming staight away, you could work up to your desired does which made the experience more controllable and pleasant.

All in all it was a lovely time

since drinking much Ayahuasca in Brasil i can say theres is no need for the diet, not at all....wheter the food has thyamin or not..
Some friend told me, that J. Ott somewhere wrote that he consciously eat all kind of food that should be prevented before doing reversible MAOI, then he did the MAOI and there were no negative side effects. I don`t know where Ott mentions this, but after my experience it is reliable.

On the other hand i remember the Documentation "Other World World" from Jan Kounen, there he claimes to have gone in to shizophrenic states, after he broke the diet that was ordered by the shaman. Kounen says they had to rebuild his Psyche after that.......just besides...

Maybe in some ritualistic conditions an diet is necessary, regarding to my own experience it is not.

On the other hand, Diet has purifying effects and could influence the state of set & setting ...




It reads nice anyway

Yeah to be honest, even when posed with the question "how important is the diet", the guy holding the ceremony said it was an individual thing. Some may need to diet more than others. It all depends on how toxic your lifestyle is.

Aya helps remove toxins both physical and emotional, so if youve been on a western diet, which is full of preservatives, additives and all kinds of other shit, the purge may be a little more violent (or so they say)

SWIM never follows any diets at all.

SWIM's daily diet is filled with food forbidden on the normal MAOI diet. He never has any reactions at all. He even eats such food during the experience.

The MAOIs in aya are only RIMAs. RIMAs are not complete MAOI compounds. They are reversible and short acting and primarily effect only MAO-A metabolism and not MAO-B. So a diet is not needed. This is a fact.

Harmala alkaloids are only RIMAs. This idea that a special diet is needed is just plain wrong. I wish people would stop spreading this misinformation.

That doesn't sound wise to me. The harmala alkaloids are RIMAs, which are safe to use with normal dietary tyramine levels, but are not known to be safe when used with excess tyramine. I’ve seen other RIMAs have warnings about taking them with mega doses of tyramine because even though they are RIMAs they do slightly affect MAO-B for a short time. While it’s not enough to cause problems with normal dietary tyramine levels, it could be dangerous with mega doses of tyramine.

Yeah, I too have read several reports which state people got headaches and prickly sensations all over their body when they didn't follow the diet or ate non-compatible foods. And yet it seems some people think its ok to just eat whatever you like.

I guess at the end of the day, it comes down to the individual. Not everyone react the same and some people may be more sensitive to certain things. Its just handy to know if you are sensitive or not