Our Ayahuasca Diet 101 Guidelines: Benefits, Can’s & Can’ts, & Integrating Your Dieta
By Rachel Griffin
Congratulations! You’ve researched which Ayahuasca retreat or plant medicine ceremony is suitable and you are ready to drink Ayahuasca. During your research, you might have encountered the terms “Ayahuasca Dieta” and “Ayahuasca Diet.” You might be unclear about what that is or why your guide might require these dietary restrictions.
This article sets out to clarify some of your questions about the foods you are recommended to eat during a dieta, behaviors to pause, cut or build, outline the benefits such as a better ceremony experience, describe the challenges that arise from facing your coping mechanisms head-on, and will also give you some guidance on how to support and be supported in and after your Ayahuasca experience.
What is Ayahuasca?
Ayahuasca’s history and healing, spiritual and mystical benefits have been around for thousands of years, guarded by indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest who combined the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the Psychotria viridis shrub (also known as Chacruna) into a psychoactive brew containing organic DMT and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). DMT is the alkaloid that causes the visions and portals to the other worlds you witness in an Ayahuasca ceremony.
Ayahuasca’s healing properties are gaining popularity in the Western world in recent decades due to a thriving interest in alternative medicines and disillusionment with modern pharmaceuticals and antidepressants. Research and personal anecdotes have shown that Ayahuasca and other plant medicines are effective for many modern conditions, such as anxiety, depression, and addiction.
Unlike traditional therapy, an Ayahuasca ceremony is a holistic and ritualized experience led by a curandero or facilitator. Traditionally, participants sit in a circle at night and share the Ayahuasca tea in ceremonies that usually last up to six or more hours. Participants experience visions, revelations, and insights that are later integrated and interpreted into actionable healing steps. Some people find these experiences enlightening and rewarding, and others find them frightening and disturbing, so it is crucial to be prepared.
Preparing for Ayahuasca: Our Dieta Ayahuasca Guidelines
Working with the medicine is an intense, sometimes dramatic experience, so the steps and routines you commit to in order to prepare for Ayahuasca are critical. After you’ve been appropriately interviewed to determine if you are a good fit for the setting and container, coaches from Plant Medicine People will begin to educate you about the importance of taking an Ayahuasca dieta seriously. Requiring interviews and offering dieta coaching are important markers of high-quality retreats.
Prepping a dieta prepares your body, mind, and spirit for the intense time ahead by starting the process of detoxification. Your goal will be to reduce exposure to toxins and stimulate sensory experiences to be more open to the messages you are about to receive. It puts your body in a calmer, cleaner, and more transformative state and builds a stronger relationship with the plant spirit you are about to connect with intimately by making you more sensitive to receiving the medicine.
Committing to the dieta preparation puts you in a state that can more efficiently receive the blessings and lessons, as it gives you a head start on purging toxins early. The medicine won’t have to work as hard to purge you of the foods, habits, and behaviors that keep you from expressing your best life, and you set yourself up to enjoy the ride much more if your body is well prepared.
Each facilitator is different, but Plant Medicine People follows a strict Vegetalista diet, which offers the best Ayahuasca preparation diet. This means eating healthy dieta recipes and ingredients, high in plant-based organic foods, and avoiding alcohol, caffeine, and other drugs. We also require that you avoid most processed foods and request that you prep and cook your meals from scratch to avoid preservatives and other unwanted ingredients.
Difference Between an Ayahuasca Diet & a Dieta
A dieta is different from a diet. While they both fall under regulations and best advice, a diet governs the food you eat and its possible interactions with the brew. For example, Ayahuasca contains MAOIs, which can often dangerously interact with certain foods and medications.
An Ayahuasca diet has dietary restrictions that require you to eat foods low in the amino acid Tyrosine, which, combined with MAOIs, elevates blood pressure. Foods to avoid are cured and processed meats, aged cheeses, and fermented and pickled foods. It is also smart to avoid alcohol. Don’t be frightened- it would take a lot of tyramine to cause a physical reaction, but it is still worth respecting the millennia-old rules regarding food.
A dieta, on the other hand, is a strict agreement to prepare and cleanse the mind, body, and spirit for the ceremony through behavior changes and lifestyle modifications that include food choices. Entering a dieta is a holistic way to enter a respectful relationship with the medicine in anticipation of the intense experience you are about to enter. Doing so shows respect for the plant spirits, removes negative energies, and shows sacred commitment and devotion to the process.
Benefits of Following the Dieta
As you can see, following an Ayahuasca diet and dieta is more than simplifying food choices a few days before the retreat in anticipation of what might happen during a purge. It is meant to center you on your goals and show your commitment to participating in the ceremony. Some benefits of following the dieta include raising your sensitivity to new sensory experiences and recognizing your reliance on coping mechanisms, and limiting habits in the face of new uncomfortable experiences. What a gift! Take this gift to develop a chance to create new habits and patterns in your life.
Challenges/Risks of Following the Dieta
As with any shift to simpler and healthier habits, committing to a lifestyle change via an Ayahuasca dieta can be challenging. First, we recognize that it’s hard! It’s meant to be. Changing our food preferences, our cooking habits and facing down restaurant temptations in our busy lifestyles can be tough. It is also emotionally taxing when our coping mechanisms, such as consuming caffeine, processed sugars, and other dopamine-producing foods, are reduced.
The challenge of addressing addictive behaviors in sexual activity, recreational drug use, excessive screen time and social media and socializing are significant, especially when we use those coping mechanisms to ward off inner demons. A dieta is more than just food changes; it is a commitment to changes in holistic behaviors that can result in withdrawal physically and emotionally when we upset our habits and routines.
Speaking with your doctor about any prescription and OTC medications you are taking is critical. There is a lengthy list of contraindicated medications, and you will need to learn which ones are restricted and how to taper off those healthily. This is especially important with SSRIs.
These Ayahuasca guidelines and requirements surrounding behaviors, perspectives and consumption aren’t meant to frustrate you. Not committing to this can make an intense experience that much harder. The guidelines are millennia-old best practices rooted in traditional Amazonian cultures. They teach that the plant spirit guides offer healing to those who respect them through this preparation for meeting the medicine. Not following the rules is a sign of disrespect and can stunt your experience resulting in less effective healing and insights and a considerably more challenging physical and emotional experience.
And the plant spirits agree that following the Ayahuasca diet at least a week prior to your experience will support your healing process immensely.
Ayahuasca Diet Restrictions: Foods, Drugs, Behaviors, & Triggers
Food
So, what CAN I eat in an Ayahuasca diet? A dieta is a bland, plain, simple diet of rice, potato, plantains, and proteins limited to chicken, fish, beans, and eggs. This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your new meal plan! Try these exciting, enjoyable ones by signing up for our newsletter.
In addition to the limits on processed foods due to contraindications with MAOIs, the dieta requires you to refrain from:
Excessive spices, like salt
Oils, like canola & other seed oils
Spicy foods
Fried foods
Dairy products
Aged cheeses
Cured, red and processed meats
Pickled and fermented foods
Energy drinks
Refined and synthetic sugar
Certain vegetables or fruits that are either too sugary (like grapes) or too strong in flavor (like garlic and onions)
Drugs and Chemicals
Additionally, it’s ideal if minimal chemicals are used on your physical body for at least 1 week before a ceremony. Chemicals affect your natural detoxification abilities, which the dieta is working hard to do. Chemicals include those found in non-organic soaps/shampoos, deodorants and perfumes, lotions, bug sprays, sunscreens, and more. Avoid them if at all possible.
Prescribed pharmaceuticals are also EXTREMELY DANGEROUS when combined with drinking Ayahuasca. While food has the unlikely but present possibility of interacting with the brew and MAOIs, combining pharmaceutical drugs (including herbs and OTC medications!) can be life-threatening, especially for high-risk or severe heart and blood pressure conditions.
If you haven’t already informed your facilitator about any prescription drugs you are taking, do so. You must work with your prescribing physician to ween off at least 2-4 weeks before participating in any ceremony (depending on the drug, dosage, frequency, and length of time you’ve been taking the drug - this time period might be longer.). This is especially relevant with antidepressants such as SSRIs, as you risk developing a dangerous condition called Serotonin Syndrome caused by too much serotonin in the brain. This can lead to confusion, seizures, coma, and death. Cough medicines, insulins, and natural herbs are also medications to avoid.
As far as recreational drugs go, just don’t. You are here for ceremonial healing and to honor your physical body. Unfortunately, most recreational drugs are toxic, used for recreation rather than healing, and divert you from the goals you set out to achieve. This list includes alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, MDMA, DMT, Ketamine, and GHB. Even if used in a therapeutic setting, please refrain from all of these substances for at least a week before sitting with Ayahuasca.
Behaviors
A dieta is more than Ayahuasca dietary restrictions. It is also important to temporarily pause some behaviors and coping mechanisms you use to face challenging, uncomfortable, and unfamiliar experiences. These include behaviors such as:
Sexual activity
Doom-scrolling the news
Excessive media consumption
Partying
Energy vampires and social activities
As for behaviors to try on, things like yoga, meditation, writing, or time by any natural form of water are absolutely wonderful. Taking mindful walks in nature can help you better connect with yourself and the plant world. As you do so, start thinking about your intentions. What are your goals and motivations for attending? Continue to reflect on your commitment to the dieta and the retreat. Reduce stressors such as being around emotionally draining people; you’ll need to save that energy for your journey.
Triggers & Challenges
Our modern world presents numerous coping mechanisms to get through each day. We are addicted to coffee (caffeine) to keep us competitive, recreational drugs (or plant medicines taken recreationally) to keep us happy, and alcoholic beverages to help us relax. Now that you’ve taken the first step to commit to healing, now is the time to look inward and deconstruct the reasons you look to those coping mechanisms in the first place and cut them out for 30 days.
When To Begin The Diet for Ayahuasca?
As soon as you know you are about to embark on this beautiful journey, why not start the process immediately with a few easy changes you know you can make? The sooner, the better, as we get what we give. That said, there’s no need for months of preparation unless you truly feel called.
As you near the one-month mark, it’s time to start reflecting on your preparation. Three to four weeks before the retreat, you should know what changes must be made and start doing them if possible.
Two weeks before is a great time to commit to making even more lifestyle changes.
One week before the ceremony, you should be in full dieta mode and have weened all restricted foods, chemicals, and medications out of your body.
Why is it better to start a food and behavior dieta earlier rather than later?
Changes are hard; you might need a longer time to build traction and success to work through potential backstepping.
The purpose of the dieta is to start cleansing your body and mind. Ridding your body of poisons and heavy foods will put you in a better physical state at the retreat to be more effective and to reduce unnecessary purging. Reducing distracting and unhealthy behaviors earlier will better put your mind in a more receptive and relaxed open state.
You will get more out of your retreat experience if you are already set up for success of having a month of cleansing behind you. Do your homework in advance, not during ceremony.
Setting your mind to honor the spirits and your intentions earlier is a sign of good faith to the plants that you are serious, and it’s psychologically powerful and supportive.
What Can You Eat on Ayahuasca Ceremony Days?
As we’ve mentioned about acceptable foods during your four-week preparation dieta, on the day of the ceremony, you should eat a healthy breakfast with plenty of protein and food energy, and then a limited amount of food the rest of the day. Stop eating about six hours before ceremony time.
Discuss with your facilitator if showing up to a ceremony after fasting is right for you. You want sufficient energy to handle the taxing experience you are about to embark upon. Still, you also don’t want a full belly that would prevent absorption of the medicine or cause excessive purging.
We do not recommend excessive fasting before an Ayahuasca ceremony.. You might not be physically and energetically ready to handle the roller coaster ride that awaits you, making connecting with the plant spirits more difficult. Most facilitators say a 6-hour fast beforehand is a healthy balance.
We encourage light water drinking in ceremony. So make sure you’re hydrated in the days leading up to ceremony, even in the hours before the experience. However, once the ayahuasca ceremony opens, go gentle and listen to your body and the medicine when it comes to drinking water. And once the ceremony closes, make sure to rehydrate.
Integrating Your Ayahuasca Dieta After Ayahuasca Ceremonies
The Ayahuasca retreat is over; now what? You did an excellent job with Ayahuasca preparation, and now it is time to practice integrating the lessons and insights as a continued part of your healing as you return to your lives through meaningful post-ceremony self-care. This will ensure the process continues aligning with your goals and intentions.
Continue to try to make healthy eating choices; reduce processed foods, refined sugars, caffeine, and alcohol consumption. Eat whole foods, fresh fruits, veggies, and approved proteins, and stay hydrated! Make healthy sleeping and exercise choices. Going on long walks and hikes in nature and engaging in yoga and meditation is an excellent way to do this; it will tire you out to ensure a good night’s sleep and will continue to connect you to plant spirits and teachers.
The world is full of temptation and old habits. This is why Plant Medicine People includes integration afterward to keep you in alignment with your goals and intentions and to keep yourself accountable to a built-in support system. This is a positive and good thing! Your reactions which resort to coping mechanisms when triggered into old habits will present a mirror and opportunity for reflection.
Eight Other Ways You Can Prepare for Ayahuasca
In addition to preparing for Ayahuasca through diet, behavior, and lifestyle changes, there are multiple ways to complete your preparation.
Read up on blogs and journals with advice for a successful dieta.
Watch YouTube videos by reputable and knowledgeable facilitators and coaches.
Learn who the important plant medicine facilitators and coaches are and read their published material.
Contemplate your intentions and goals.
Reflect upon your motivations and how to best respond to uncomfortable and unexpected situations.
Reflect on how these positive goals and desires best reflect what you seek to complete or experience.
Have reasonable expectations; keep an open mind to what might happen, and don’t write the story in advance! Being mentally prepared will set you up for tremendous success.
Come into the process with an open mind and heart, and be willing to include supportive friends and family in your growth journey.
Closing the Ceremony on The Ayahuasca Diet
Don’t be discouraged if this all sounds daunting. Understand that the dieta is just one component of the Ayahuasca ceremonial experience. However, it’s an important commitment to ourselves and that of ayahuasca as we show the plant spirits our willingness to show up for them and ourselves by following the dieta restrictions.
The decision is yours to take accountability, do your own research, and be honest with all your pre-ceremony responses.
A dieta isn’t meant to cramp your style. Based on ancient wisdom, the purpose is to cleanse your body of toxins well before the actual ceremony. Don’t wait for the ceremonial purging as the time to clear out toxins; use that time to be open to the guidance of the spirit world. This way, your ceremony experience will be more open and receptive to the guidance meant to be shared with you from your plant spirits.
A dieta is more than just changing your food consumption choices. It is a holistic approach to preparing your mind, body, and spirit to the teachings of the plant medicines. It will include behavior changes such as facing your coping mechanisms head-on in order to lead to a healthier lifestyle and more effective retreat.
About the Author
Rachel Griffin has a degree in History from the Univ. of Colorado at Boulder, and her extensive experience in community organizing has shaped her values to see the bigger picture of our actions. Her connection to the Plant Medicine community began when multiple stars aligned. After repeated emotional traumas, synchronicity reconnected her with her old friend Kat Courtney - they went to college together as Freshman. Faced with a crossroads; she could keep struggling to craft a life that was not meant for her, or make much-needed changes in her perspectives, actions and goals to get through a challenging dark night of the soul. She chose the latter, through the portal of healing plants. She hopes to bring a voice of relatability and experience by sharing her healing journey with those in need of a comforting space.
