We rarely pause to ask what our body needs from food right now. Not in theory, but in season. Not by category, protein, fat, carbs, but by rhythm. Nature has always spoken in seasons. Our ancestors knew it intuitively. Summer was not just hotter; it was lighter. Winter, not just colder but heavier. And food adjusted itself accordingly, milk thickened, curd thinned, ghee increased, buttermilk diluted. Not because someone told them to do so, but because the body demanded it.
Today, dairy is seen as a constant. A product with a fixed shelf life, nutritional label, and year-round supply. But real dairy, living, breathing, changing with the cow, the climate, the soil, is deeply seasonal. And our relationship to it once was too.
In summer, when the digestive fire weakens and the body feels dull and heavy, dairy was never meant to be thick or dense. Milk, if taken at all, was boiled with cooling spices like cardamom and fennel, often taken at night, not cold from the fridge. Curd, freshly set, was whisked into thin buttermilk, tempered with cumin, coriander, and mint, not eaten in scoops with sugar or rice. Ghee usage would go down subtly, not because it was bad, but because the body didn’t need as much insulation or internal oiling.
Come monsoon, digestion gets trickier. Ayurveda calls it a damp season. Kapha rises, digestion staggers. Fermented foods are kept to a minimum, and curd is avoided or taken very cautiously. Ghee, however, makes a gentle return, not in excess, but as support. A small spoon in warm meals to help rekindle agni, to steady a sluggish system in the face of environmental dampness.
Winter is different. The fire is high, appetite surges, and the body welcomes density. This is the season for richer milk, for warming haldi doodh, for thicker ghee in morning rotis. Even Ayurvedic texts describe winter as the time when the body can handle and even benefit from heavier foods. The cold outside makes warmth within desirable. Ghee is no longer a garnish, it becomes fuel. It insulates joints, softens skin, nourishes the tissues. It's not indulgence, it’s alignment.
And then spring arrives. The body begins to clear itself out. Kapha loosens. It’s the natural time for cleansing. Heavy milk and curd start to feel “off”, and rightly so. Lighter foods, less fat, less dairy, especially cooling dairy, become ideal. Buttermilk might return, diluted further, spiced again, a digestive aid rather than a main course. Ghee may reduce. Not because someone advised “detox,” but because nature already programmed it into the cycle.
But to eat like this today would be considered “complicated.” We want certainty in food: eat dairy or don’t. Drink milk or skip it. Ghee: yes or no? Curd: probiotic or problematic? What’s rarely asked is: when? Or how? Or which kind?
In traditional Indian kitchens, there was no such confusions. Milk came from cows that ate what the land offered that season. Their milk tasted different in mango season and mustard season. Ghee smelled more earthy in winter, more floral in spring. And the humans consuming it adapted, often without language to explain it, but with bodies that knew.
This isn’t romantic nostalgia. It’s biology and seasonal intelligence. The body doesn’t want sameness; it wants synergy.
The uniformity of modern dairy, standardized, processed, year-round has made us forget that milk is not a static product. It’s a fluid relationship. It changes with the cow, with the air, with the soil. And when we tune into that cycle again, our own rhythms return. Digestion improves, immunity strengthens, moods stabilize.
There are a few producers, still relatively quiet, still rooted in the old ways, who understand this. Their milk doesn’t taste the same every day. Their ghee isn’t always identical in texture. And that’s the point. Seasonality is not a flaw in dairy. It’s its original intelligence.
When we return to seasonal dairy, whether it means less curd in spring, more ghee in winter, or no milk at all for a few weeks, we're not just eating differently. We're listening again. Not to trends, but to temperature. Not to calories, but to cues. Our body has never forgotten what the season requires. We’ve just been too busy to ask.
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