What are Chakra Foods?

We all have a relationship with food. Sometimes we eat our feelings. Other times, we eat for hunger, nutrition, or peer pressure. This practice is designed to help you eat for your energetic body.

The following list of foods and corresponding chakras are based on years of research, ancient healing traditions, and my ever-active imagination. The goal here isn’t to be ‘right’ about exactly which foods open and heal your specific chakras. The goal is to inspire you to create and enjoy plant-based foods that will help you think about and connect to your energetic body. When in doubt, just look at the color of your food if you’re not sure where it belongs. By becoming aware of your chakras while you’re eating and thinking, you’ll raise your consciousness and help to nourish them. Illuminating your energetic body is a subtle, yet profound shift.

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Root Chakra (Muladhara) - Presence

The energy of this chakra is Being Grounded and/or Being Present. These Root/Red recipes support new beginnings, our survival instincts, and our connections to the earth. Activities associated with the first chakra include walking, gardening, paying bills, and yoga. These recipes are designed to help ground you with hearty, earthy, colorful vegetables, and plenty of protein. Your Root Chakras will help you feel connected to the earth and will power up your sense of security and belonging.

FOODS: Root Vegetables & Protein needed to fuel muscles and organs (e.g. Beets, red quinoa, red lentils, tofu, etc)

  • COLOR: Ruby Red

  • INSTINCT: Survive and Thrive

  • ELEMENT: Earth

  • SENSE: Smell

  • LOCATION: Base of the spine, legs, hips, and feet, connecting to the earth

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Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana) - CREATIVITY

The energy of this chakra is Creativity. When we’re grounded and live in the present moment, we connect to our emotional and creative flow. This chakra is about finding acceptance and balance in life. These Sacral/Orange recipes are meant to spark your creativity, turn on your imagination, and help you embrace your emotions, no matter how overwhelmed you may feel at times. When you become the flow in your life, instead of going with the flow, you consciously decided to be a part of your current of life and aren’t just getting swept up by it. These recipes also support protein and other nutritional building blocks.

FOODS: Soups, Sauces, and Smoothies, which include orange-colored foods (sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, etc.) and foods that grow close to the ground, such as beans, legumes, and root vegetables and are often fluid and soupy.

  • COLOR: Orange

  • HUMAN INSTINCT: To Feel, Create, and Procreate

  • ELEMENT: Water

  • SENSE: Taste

  • LOCATION: Lower abdomen about two inches below the navel, between the hip/pelvic bones, womb/genitals, bladder, and lower digestion.

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Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura) - EMPOWERMENT

The energy of this chakra is Empowerment, which comes from the ‘gut’ and moves us toward action. The third chakra is located around the abdomen where core strength helps us move our limps, digest our food, and keeps our spines erect. Doing some movement daily and working toward our goals often helps us feel empowered. So will eating some of these dishes!

FOODS: Grains, Beans, and Vegetables such as yellow lentils, quinoa, couscous, cauliflower, sunflower seeds/butter, golden beets, parsnips, golden carrots, and garbanzo beans, etc. These recipes are hearty.

  • COLOR: Yellow

  • INSTINCT: Change your life for the better

  • ELEMENT: Fire

  • SENSE: Sight

  • LOCATION: Center core of the body, near the sternum and stomach region.

Heart Chakra (Anahata) - LOVE

The energy of this chakra is Love and Compassion, which comes from the chest and upper torso. This chakra is the mid-point between the upper and lower chakras, the hub of our bodies with our heart pumping blood throughout. It’s the balancing, emotional center of the human experience. When our hearts are open to yourselves and to others, we can use our bodies to energize and balance the upper and lower chakras from our heart centers.

FOODS: Green Vegetables such kale, lettuce, green beans, cucumber, celery, etc. These foods help to detoxify your body and bring healing on a cellular level. It’s like adding a little love to everything you eat, so eat your greens with every meal and see how you feel!

  • COLOR: Green/Pink

  • INSTINCT: Love and Compassion

  • ELEMENT: Air

  • SENSE: Touch

  • LOCATION: At your heart, your chest, your arms.

Throat Chakra (Vissudha) - EXPRESSION/VOICE

The energy of this chakra is Self Expression, which comes from the throat and voice area, but can manifest in any form of expression from dancing to painting. This chakra is the beginning of the more ethereal, upper chakras. When this chakra is blocked, you may find yourself feeling shy, self-conscious, or anxious.

FOODS: This is where the sweet stuff comes in since these throat chakra foods are comprised of fruits such as blueberries, blackberries, dates, etc. Colorful fruits like apples and oranges can serve ‘double duty’ and help to open both the lower chakras corresponding to their color, while their sweetness also opens up this higher chakra.

  • COLOR: Turquoise

  • INSTINCT: Communication - Express Yourself and Listen Closely

  • ELEMENT: Air/Ether (Energetic realm)

  • SENSE: Hearing

  • LOCATION: Throat, neck, mouth, and ears

Third Eye Chakra (Ajna) - INTUITION/IMAGINATION

The energy of this chakra is Intuition and Imagination, which comes from the area between the eyes in the forehead known as the third eye. This Chakra fuels inner wisdom, personal truth, creative ideas, and is the origin of \ visualization, which helps with manifestation. When this chakra is blocked, you’ll often become plagued with dark thoughts and bad dreams. Our thoughts and dreams are sometimes messages from our psyches.

FOODS: Higher up on the ‘sweetness’ ladder are foods like chocolate, cookies, candies, muffins, nut butters, and all the ‘goodies’ you want to order at a coffee shop.

  • COLOR: Deep Blue/Indigo

  • INSTINCT: To Understand, to Imagine, to Foresee, and to Intuit

  • ELEMENT: Spirit

  • SENSE: Extra-sensory Perception (intuition)

  • LOCATION: Forehead, between the eyes, the brain

Crown Chakra (Sahasrara) - CONNECTION

The energy of this chakra is Knowingness and Connecting to a high power, which is located at the top of the head and serves as an opening between divine energy and the physical and energetic body. This Chakra fuels hope, faith, and divinely-inspired love and compassion. When this chakra is blocked, we will often feel loneliness or isolation. Opening this chakra helps us feel connected to ourselves, each other, and a higher power.

FOODS: These ‘foods’ are lighter and include mostly of teas and tinctures, anything that can turn into a mist.

  • COLOR: Purple/Violet/White/Gold

  • INSTINCT: To reach for truth, live authentically, and connect to a higher Source

  • ELEMENT: Spirit

  • SENSE: All of them!

  • LOCATION: The top of the head