Advice on how to prepare your body properly for an Ayahuasca journey is everywhere – yet none of it agrees. Ask 100 shamans about the best diet before ceremony and you may get 100 different answers.

A loose consensus has emerged in recent years, but on a closer look the common guidelines are open to question. Let’s go through the mainstream advice with a critical eye.

The Prominent Perspective

One prominent retreat provider offers this advice on their “Ayahuasca Diet” page:

No red meat, pork, tuna or eel one week pre and post ceremony
No alcohol, beer or wine one week pre and post
No spicy foods like chili for two days pre-ceremony
No fermented foods one day pre and post
Limit salt and sugar three days pre and post
Eat mostly vegetables, legumes, grains and fruit

The reason given is a generic “Native Peruvian tradition” with no particular lineage named. Yet my own experience runs the other way – the shamans I dieted with in Peru ate eggs regularly, and now and then chicken and fish too. Even committed vegetarians desperately welcomed the animal protein after weeks in the jungle!

Clearly it is not as simple as blanket elimination rules. Let’s take the common restrictions one by one:

Analysis of Mainstream Ayahuasca Diet Tenets

Animal Foods

Reality: No single tradition exists! Different shamans offer different guidance. Vegetarianism drained me rather than sustaining me through long ceremonies. Eaten with some judgment, animal foods provide nutrients that are hard to get elsewhere. Eggs, red meat, lamb and fresh, unprocessed poultry are generally no problem. But fatty fish, which can carry toxic metals, call for caution.

Salt

Reality: This rule is probably more about helping the body purge toxins and keeping bathroom breaks down during ceremony. But going without salt for long taxes the adrenals of Westerners who are already low in electrolytes. We must mineralize before subtracting salt.

Alcohol

Reality: A justified no-no, because of the tyramines. Though curiously, elder shamans seem to drink beer between ceremonies without issue…The rules seem to loosen once you are inside the traditions.

Fermented Foods

Reality: Correct restriction! Aged/fermented items contain risky tyramines.

Spicy Foods

Reality: Wise suggestion – chili peppers, onions and garlic can overstimulate digestion and the mind. Their defense compounds provoke an “intensity” that is better avoided when you are after a reflective journey.

Sugar

Reality: Depends! Refined sugar devastates magnesium. But a little honey or fruit is no problem, as long as it is not eaten right before ceremony.

Pre-Ceremony Fiber and Fasting

Reality: Too much fiber means trip after trip to the bathroom. Light, soothing foods like bone broth and very little ripe fruit serve a long reflective session better.

Conclusion: What to Eat Before Ayahuasca

The guidelines get simpler:

1-2 days before, cut out the aged, fermented and spiced items, rich in tyramine, that may disturb body and mind. Otherwise feed yourself the easy-to-digest ancestral foods that honor the body’s own needs – eggs, ghee, gentle veggies, coconut, fruit. In other words, eat as you would for your best daily health, while keeping the load on your digestion low.

Tyramines in particular must be avoided, because they interact dangerously with the MAO inhibiting properties of the Ayahuasca vine. This can lead to a spike in blood pressure, headaches, nausea and other symptoms that take away from the experience. Fermented items including aged cheese, salty foods, some chocolates, wine, and overripe fruit are high in tyramines, so it is prudent to cut them out in the day or two before journeying with this sacred plant teacher, and for several days after.

The body knows how to ready itself when it is properly fed, on food free of industrialized muck. Trust that innate intelligence, and feed it good food. Then step into ceremony with faith in the medicines’ mastery, letting them guide the cleansing and teach at whatever pace your soul asks for.

At first I avoided animal products because of the fashionable propaganda. But plant-only protocols rang hollow. Once I took up Traditional Food principles that suited my constitution, the spiritual connections flowed freely. Layer by layer, amid vomiting and vision, the contaminants and falsehoods cleared to reveal the timeless truth within, eternally wise.

I’m still learning. But the basic Ayahuasca preparation diet is far simpler than the elaborate dogma regurgitated ad nauseam online: Consume what sustains you. Then surrender what already belongs to the Earth when She asks for it back. Don’t fear the rumblings of the body that mirror the shifts in your energy. The roiling and the release are a cleansing, and they uncover a peace long veiled beneath the churning surface of passing perception.

I welcome your own experience with the best ways to prepare our sacred vessels!