The ayahuasca diet is a set of dietary and lifestyle restrictions before ceremony. Its primary purpose is pharmacological: ayahuasca contains beta-carboline alkaloids that inhibit MAO-A, an enzyme that breaks down tyramine and serotonergic compounds. With MAO-A inhibited, certain foods and medications that are normally safe can accumulate to dangerous levels. The core restrictions include pork, fermented foods, alcohol, aged cheeses, caffeine, and serotonergic medications. The diet also has a traditional dimension: it prepares internal space for the medicine to work clearly (Ruffell et al., 2020; Malcolm and Thomas, 2018).
