The 6 Tastes of Ayurveda
Ayurveda made easy. It can seem very complicated and overwhelming. But, it can be broken down into some basic principles. Today I would like to look at the role of taste in Ayurveda.
Modern science is about separating each food item into macro-, micronutrients, and calories. All countable.
The ayurvedic approach is a little different. It is based on the tastes of the food; it is experiential. With our body's constitution, the times of the day and seasons, the tastes determine if food benefits our health if it is medicine or poison.
A quick Introduction of Ayurveda
As you all probably know, Ayurveda is based on the five elements of space, air, fire, water and earth.
Each element has its own quality.
Space is vast, cold, dry, empty, subtle, clear, and light.
Air is mobile, cold, dry, subtle, clear, rough, and light.
Fire is hot, penetrating, sharp, subtle, slightly oily, and light.
Water is smooth, cool, liquid, soft, adheres, dull, and spreading.
Earth is dense, cool, heavy, slow, slimy, unctuous, gross, stable, and static.
The elements are grouped into three biodynamic energies, Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.
Vata consists of ether and air, Pitta of fire and water, Kapha of water and earth, and their respective qualities.
The six Tastes
The six tastes are sweet, sour, salty, pungent (spicy), bitter and astringent.
Of course, they underly the five elements as well. Here is what this looks like:
Sweet consists of earth & water and their qualities: heavy, dense, slow, cold, unctuous, gross, and moist.
Sour consists of earth & fire, which is hot, sharp, penetrating, heavy, and slow.
Salty consists of the opposing water & fire, so it’s hot, sharp, cool, liquid, heavy, and light.
Pungent is made of air & fire, which makes it hot, light, mobile, sharp, and penetrating.
Bitter is of ether & air, which makes it light, mobile, dry, and cold.
Astringent is air & earth, which make it both heavy, dense, cold, and light.
A complete meal should contain all six tastes. During the day, we should consume all the tastes as they have different purposes.
The first three tastes are building and anabolic, sweet, sour and salty. They bring substance and help make and nourish the body's tissues and keep everything together.
The last three tastes are catabolic, pungent, bitter & astringent. They are reducing the tissues.
The Features of the Tastes
Have you ever put one food item, let’s say a carrot, into your mouth and explored what you can taste? All food items contain a particular taste. The taste has certain features and purposes, which again can aid our health or imbalance it if one tastes features in excess.
Sweet Taste
It gives strength, vigour, vitality, nourishing, comfort and cooling.
Overeating food with a sweet taste causes coughs, colds, congestion, and sluggishness is harmful to the brain, heart, kidneys, and pancreas and diminishes healing.
Sweet of taste are all root vegetables, sweet fruits, dates, honey, sugar, liquorice, milk, rice, and wheat.
Sour Taste
It is needed to sharpen senses, stimulate appetite, energize the body, nourish the heart, and enliven the mind. It is also antispasmodic.
If you consume the sour taste in excess, it dries the membranes, causes congestion, excessive thirst, hyperacidity, heartburn, gastritis, ulcerative colitis, and is toxic to the blood.
Food items with a sour taste are yoghurt, vinegar, citrus fruits, cheese, sour cream, and fermented food.
Salty Taste
Salty is needed to aid digestion, absorption and assimilation, help waste elimination, remove gas from the colon, give energy, and promote growth.
An excess salty taste creates water retention and swellings; it thickens the blood, contributes to HBP, worsens skin conditions and creates temptation and addiction.
You find salty taste in all salts :), seaweed, and tamari.
Pungent Taste
We need a pungent or spicy taste as it kindles Agni, aids digestion and absorption, cleans the mouth, clears sinuses, aids circulation and elimination, and removes fat.
Pungent taste in excess can cause diarrhoea, heartburn, burning, choking, fatigue, inflammation, ulceration, anger, envy, and jealousy.
The food containing a pungent taste is Cayenne, chillies, black pepper, mustard, onion, ginger, radish, and garlic.
Bitter taste
Bitter improves all other tastes, is anti-inflammatory, reduces fever, relieves burning sensation, cleanses the liver, and firms skin and muscles.
Eating too many bitter foods dries the system, depletes the tissues, creates weariness, aversion, and separation, and makes the mind cynical.
You find a bitter taste in all leafy greens, bitter melon, turmeric root, dandelion, aloe vera, fenugreek, sandalwood, neem, and coffee.
Astringent Taste
It improves absorption, binds stool, is an anti-inflammatory and decongestant, aids in healing ulcers, scraping action, helps blood clotting, and collects the mind.
Excess causes spasms, constipation, scattered mind, creating insomnia, fear, nervousness, and holding on to emotions.
Astringent taste is in unripe banana, pomegranate, chickpeas, green beans, okra, turmeric, yellow split peas,
As the tastes underly the five elements, they impact the doshas, as shown in the table below.
How do Tastes and Seasons relate?
As everything in and around us is influenced by the five elements, so are the seasons.
Ayurveda looks at three seasons throughout the year.
Late winter until mid-spring is Kapha Dosha.
Mid-spring to early autumn is Pitta Dosha.
Mid-autumn until late winter is under the influence of Vata dosha.
As always, the ayurvedic principle is that everything needs to be balanced with the opposite. Applied to the seasons, this means that:
Late winter until mid-spring is Kapha dosha.
This means you must balance Kapha's heavy, slow, cold qualities with pungent, bitter and astringent tastes, which are all catabolic, decreasing the tissues naturally. That makes the spring ideal for losing weight.
Mid-spring until early autumn is dominated by Pitta dosha.
The hot, penetrating, sharp qualities require sweet, bitter and astringent tastes.
Mid-autumn until late winter Vata is dominant.
Remember, it is cold, dry, mobile, and vast so the opposite will be sweet, sour and salty tastes.
If we eat too much of the same quality as the season, i.e. eating cold food during the winter, too spicy during the summer or too heavy during the spring; we are running the risk of imbalance of the seasonal dosha in our body. This can look like this:
Experiencing cold hands and feet, dry skin, dry hair, and dryness inside the body can lead to bloating, constipation, inflammation, general aches and pains, and joint issues during the late autumn and winter months.
Or hyperacidity, inflammation, skin rashes, burning eyes, and very fast metabolism leading to loose stools or diarrhoea during the summer months.
Tendencies to retention and swellings, the skin might feel puffy, frequent colds and coughs, congestion in the chest and sinuses, weight gain, allergies, fibroids or cysts.
Bring it all together.
This is a lot of information, right?
I aim to make Ayurveda more accessible. It can seem complex, but understanding some basic concepts helps us navigate life more easily.
The most important principle is that ALL is based on the five elements and their qualities. From them, you find the doshas; they govern systems in our body, the days, seasons, and tastes.
The qualities need to be balanced by the opposite qualities.
We can use different tastes to keep our health strong through the day and the seasons.
Intrigued? If you want to learn more about applying ayurvedic principles to stay healthy, strong and calm, check out our Back to Balance course, which starts January 15th. Find further information with the link below.
Or email me with any questions; I am happy to help.
