Nidhi Bhanshali Pandya's
The Ayurvedic Nutrition Certification Program
Ancient framework · Modern context · Learn from the Sanskrit sources ·
Apply it to your own body, your kitchen, and the people you feed or guide
8–10 Months · Classical Sanskrit Texts Decoded · Modern Nutrition Science ·
Mentored Practicum · Original Research · NAMA PACE-Listed
Cohort Begins Wednesday, October 28, 2026 ·
Two paths available: study for yourself, or train to practice.
You've Read More About Food Than Most People Ever Will,
And It Still Doesn't Add Up
- You know which foods are "for Vata," but not why the same oats settle you one week and sit heavy the next
- The advice keeps turning over: more protein, more plants, fasting, something else
- One headline about seed oils can unsettle a week of cooking
- You're feeding different needs out of one kitchen
- The food you actually eat, from sourdough to your grandmother's grains, is on no list you were given
- You've studied some Ayurveda, or food keeps coming up with clients, and you can't fully explain your answers
That's not a lack of effort. You were handed lists. The classical texts were never written as lists, and somewhere between the Sanskrit and the shopping list, the method was lost. This program teaches that method.
Lists Tells You What To Eat.
Classical Texts Teach You
How To Think About Food
Open the Ashtanga Hridayam and you'll find a way to read any substance, by its qualities (gunas), elements, taste, potency and post-digestive effect, and then the person about to eat it.
Take rice - A nutrition label gives you a glycemic number and a verdict: eat less. The texts say rice is sweet, cooling and moist, and heavier when freshly harvested. So you choose an older grain, add ghee, or pair it with beans, which are dry and light where rice is dense.
No food is good or bad. Every food can be read, and once you can read it, you can adjust it. That shift is the whole program, and a method doesn't expire when the next trend arrives.
By the end, you can read
any food, read any person,
and bring the two together
Any food, even ones the texts never saw:
Oat milk, aged cheese, something bottled last year: you'll work out what it does. Then you'll:
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Change it with soaking, heat, fat, spice, culturing, storage and pairing
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Combine it, knowing the reasoning behind the 18 classical incompatible combinations
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Time it, because the same food is different at breakfast and supper, across seasons and ages
Any person, starting with yourself
You'll take an intake, read agni (digestive fire), ama (undigested residue), history, constitution and current state, and decide what's needed: support, cleansing or nourishment. Then you'll recommend real food, in their own kitchen and culture, watch what shifts, and adjust.
On the Personal Path, that's you and everyone you cook for. On the Practitioner Path, it's real clients.
You won't need a food list again. You'll know how one is written.
One Program. Two ways to take it
Same verses, same live lessons and Friday calls, same teacher. The difference comes after Part B.
🧍♀️The Personal Path
For your own life, and the people you cook for
Stop second-guessing every meal, cook for a household with different needs, and keep your footing when the next headline lands.
You take all of Parts A and B, the Self-Practice Lab, the Friday calls, the guest lectures and Food for Common Conditions. There's no thesis and no practicum. You finish with a certificate of completion.
$3,500
October 28, 2026 - May 12, 2027
👭The Practitioner Path
For the work you want to do with others
Everything in the Personal Path, plus an original thesis presented to your cohort, and a client practicum with five real people.
Live Friday office hours run until mid-June, then independent work through August, with Nidhi mentoring your cases. You graduate as an Ayurvedic Nutrition and Lifestyle practitioner.
*Waitlist rate, held until midnight on 9 October. From 10 October, the Practitioner Path moves to its standard rate.
$4,000
October 28, 2026 - August 12, 2027
Comparison Chart
Not sure which path yet?
Start on the Personal Path and move to the Practitioner Path any time before Part B ends on May 12, 2027, for $1,000.
First The Source Texts, Then Your Own Kitchen,Then The People You'll Guide
Live online from Wednesday, October 28, 2026:
21 lessons, a revision class, and three reserved weeks held for extra topics and guest lectures, so nothing important gets rushed.
Both Paths:
October 28, 2026 to January 27, 2027
You'll study Nutrition as the classical physicians taught it, from the Charaka Samhita, Ashtanga Hridayam and Bhavaprakash Nighantu, translated live. Dense at first. Within weeks, the gunas turn up in your kitchen.
- The doshas across a lifetime, a day and a single meal
- The ten pairs of qualities, and how to read any substance
- The six tastes, tasted for yourself
- Grains, pulses, dairy, oils and spices, including quinoa and oats
- Timing, preparation and the 18 incompatibilities
- Agni, and one meal's journey through the body
A revision class brings it together.
Both Paths:
February 3 to May 12, 2027
Part A becomes daily choices for you, your family and the people you'll guide.
- Real meals from cuisines around the world, and a kitchen set up to nourish
- Modern foods, and a five-part tool for reading anything new
- Macronutrients, iron, B12 and calcium, mapped to the six tastes
- The six seasons, with gentle seasonal cleansing
- Personalization: intake, cravings, emotional eating, and ways out of the deprivation, binge and guilt cycle
- Lifecycle nutrition: first foods, menstruation, PCOS, perimenopause and menopause
- Rasayana, Ayurveda's rejuvenatives
- Food for Common Conditions
Practitioner Path:
Late May to August 2027
This is where what you've learned becomes your own work.
- Your thesis: research a question you choose, from traditional cuisines through Ayurveda to comparing dietary systems or building a food protocol for a specific condition. Work alone or in a small group, and present your research to the cohort
- Your practicum: work with five real people. You'll take each person's intake, understand their history and agni, and create an individual food roadmap, with Nidhi's guidance throughout.
Part C Opens with live Friday sessions, until mid-June, then moves into independent thesis and practicum work through August. By graduation, you'll have original research and real experience applying what you've learned.
New This Year:
The Self-Practice Lab
Before you guide anyone else, you become your own first case. Over two weeks, you'll:
- Keep your own Food-Mood-Poop journal
- Take yourself through the full intake
- Read your own agni, ama and Inner Climate®
- Design your Phase 1 rhythm around a few anchor habits
- Choose your ideal foods for your constitution and the season
- Write a sample day of meals, and edit your pantry to match
See The Full Curriculum
Every part, every text, from the first lesson to the practicum. We'll send it straight to your inbox.
Guest Lecture Series
Learning From Those Who Live It
Everything
You Receive
When You Join
Both Paths
Practitioner Path Only
A Practitioner-Level Training, Recognized for NAMA PACE Continuing Education
Listed with NAMA (the National Ayurvedic Medical Association) at 28 PACE credits, approved at all three professional levels: Health Counsellor, Practitioner and Advanced Practitioner.
- Reviewed by a national professional body, not a badge we made ourselves.
- Already NAMA-certified? This carries 28 of the 30 credits in your two-year cycle.
- Not planning to take clients? You're taught at the same level. The depth is for everyone.
Ayurveda has no government license in the U.S. This is a professional educational certification. A PACE listing is continuing education recognition, not accreditation. Scope of practice is covered in its own module.
This is real study,
and it asks for real time
Four live hours a week, two and a half on Wednesday and one and a half on Friday, plus reading, assignments and time with the verses. This isn't a course you finish on a flight.
What no one can honestly promise you
I can't tell you what a year of study will change in your body, or how quickly a practice will grow. I can tell you what you'll know how to do: read a food, read a person, and reason your way to an answer I never gave you.
This program is for you if...
You want to understand your own body well enough that headlines stop moving you
You feed people with different needs and want one meal that works for all of them
You've studied some Ayurveda and want the method beneath the lists
You're a health coach, yoga teacher, therapist or nutritionist, and food keeps coming up in your sessions
You are a member of NAMA- and want continuing education with real depth
You want to build a nutrition practice with real client work behind you
You'd rather read the source verses than someone's summary
It's Probably Not The Right Fit If...
You want a meal plan handed to you
You can't give steady weekly time for just over six months, or through August on the Practitioner Path
You want certification without client work. The practicum is the certification. The Personal Path is for everyone else,and you're genuinely welcome there.
You need a state license to practice nutrition. This won't replace one, so check your local regulations and ask us.
Meet Your Guide –
Nidhi Bhanshali Pandya
Certified Advanced Ayurvedic Practitioner · Author of Your Body Already Knows · Creator of the InnerClimate® Method
Hi, I am Nidhi
I’m a New York City–based Ayurvedic practitioner, educator, and author of Your Body Already Knows, translated into nine languages.
I grew up in India in a family deeply rooted in Vedic philosophy and healing traditions, where Ayurveda wasn't something I studied from a book - it was part of everyday life.
My formal training is deeply classical. I spent over five years studying at a gurukulam, immersed in Ayurvedic texts, Sanskrit, and the traditional way of learning the science. I later completed clinical training and have since worked with thousands of women through private practice and long-form programs.
Over the years, I’ve learned to take what is written in the classical texts and apply it to modern life - real people, real bodies, real food, and real-world complexity.
Through my InnerClimate® Method, I’ve developed an intuitive way of understanding doshas, helping people see the patterns behind their symptoms, behaviours and imbalances. My work brings together classical Ayurveda with modern science, psychology and circadian health.
At the heart of everything I teach is a simple belief:Given the right conditions, the body already knows how to heal.
Features & Collaborations
Hear From Our
Past Students
It starts at your own table
First, it changes how you cook for yourself. You stop second-guessing breakfast. You adjust dinner for whoever slept badly. Food stops being rules and becomes something you understand.
For some, that's everything they came for. On the Practitioner Path, you also finish with five real cases, a thesis your cohort has heard, and a way of working that holds up when a client fits no category.
Your body already knows. This is how you learn to read it, and, if you choose, to help others read theirs.
Because life wants life.
Written By Those
Who Studied Here
