Kelly Marie Mills 0:32
In Ayurveda, the jewel of the six tastes is identifying the properties that create imbalance and can help us to identify with what we do not need more of.
Believe it or not, this is true Even for the mind, the emotions, the doshas.
The six tastes are an incredible science well documented through Ayurveda
And invariably as a Yoga teacher and Ayurveda therapist, I have to know something about them...but for you...it may not be such a priority yet
Sort of like me in algebra class - the teacher got to numbers that had letters beside them and well, I can safely say, some part of my brain just fell off a cliff, and to be honest I just totally didn't get it. What was a letter doing in a math equation?
So for anyone learning about Yoga Ayurveda Living the six tastes are important for you to know in the concern of what foods will work for your doshas. Further down the road, the six tastes are vital because they teach us about the essence of enumeration and how each taste is a blend of the 5 elements ….some blends are friendly to one dosha, some are moderately okay and some are downright naughty troublemakers...and some are just nope. Bar the door Katie , get outta hea….sort of havoc-creators. Like chillies and a pitta digestion, cheese and a kapha digestion or vata and crackers ...a cracker vata digestion! Hahaha
As we translate our life process through the doshas,
We treat our doshas through the power of the six tastes.
So if you didn't know what cornerstone content is...well i can tell you all ladies and gentlemen, this is called cornerstone content...geez Yoga Ayurveda Living wordpress is always harassing me about it ...this is the foundation of all treatments for ayurveda
So we will go easy today and give you a glimpse of the attributes of food you know - for a balanced digestion with the best chance of being able to digest without having any major chronic problems. We need to have a balanced approach to the six tastes. This balance will help us rebalance quicker when things go haywire in our life, especially if we are familiar with them from the outset…
But as the western world for many of us, me included, much food wisdom has been dwindled and the first place I had learned of the last three tastes was in Japan it is the first that most people in the western world are most familiar with…these tastes are most prevalent in our diet, and once something is prevalent, it increases the chance of disease process.
Sweet, sour, salty
The last three of the six tastes of Ayurveda are bitter, astringent and pungent and it can even be hard to think of foods that contain these attributes ...because we don't look at food this way...well you didn't before you may now!
Now we go thru the tastes briefly -
Sweet - earth > water
generally neutral in its effect - but the usual culprits, honey, beet, cane, maple and
Sweet is What we consider the foundations in Ayurveda medicine, it increases the kapha in any body
In western thinking this is the sweet of starches and carbs, but we see this group of foods quite differently in Ayurveda -
grains, rice, bulgar, millet, couscous, considered a good stable source for body support
We can find the sweet taste in vegetables, oils and fat too.
Just keep in mind this is a quick overview this part of the system, we don't need you falling asleep while you are walking in the woods listening to me..but walking in the woods tends to leave a sweet taste
Sour - water is the container for fire = sour can be translated as acid (similar to pitta, nudge nudge) so think of citrus fruits, sour fruits we use often would be lemons and limes, you can really tell what get used in Ireland but what the larger food stores sell regularly! ...fruits are often peak sour when they are almost ripe. FYI grapefruit is the best fruit ever for kapha reduction...just saying!
No wonder there is the saying it all ended in sour grapes,
Imagine making wine, and not getting the timing right ...the whole darn thing went sour
Sour veg, are tomatoes, spinach, chard rhubarb
Alcohol is sour
Fermented foods are sour! ..people find this a weird one, pitta problems are always so surprised about this one! Yogurt is fermented but it's not always bad but there can be bad timing when eating it ! (I know you are like HOW?) KEFir ..yess! And of course pickles of all sorts, but all the salt creates a different addition of a problem..all fermented peeps!
Salty - earth is the container for fire = and if someone was to be be the salt of the earth, then we are thinking obviously mineral salt, Himalayan salt is mineral and is a good digestive stimulant ( you will hear about that at the end) , sea salt is the driest and the laxative salts pull water from the dhatu or tissues of the body and mess with the tender balance of vata- and then of course anything from the sea. Is salty!
The use of salt is the most minimal if possible - one tiny pinch before another...salt is often included in a vata meal spice blend so extra salt will probably not be needed
…now to those we do not come across enough for most of us
Pungent fire and water = this is the heat of a chili! But some of us know we cant eat chilis so you would widely know pungent spices like ginger, mint, cardamom, onions, garlic . > it is a warming sensation, like fire it spreads slowly…
Pungency can be acrid too - like a naff gone off or burned smell is acrid yuck...
And pungent is also in alkaloids, can be considered a poison or narcotic depending on the use and dose - milder ones we all know are coffee and tea (thats me quitting coffee again!Yikes) many stimulants have some relation to pungency, they can have a side effect of sedative or purgative too
Bitter air and either - there are different types but real bitters are golden seal or gentian
Others more familiar but are astringent bitter are the cabbage family, Betty botter bought a bit of bitter butter, - and helped digest her butter….
Bitter is good for kapha because it is the total opposite of itself! Kapha is the gooey love, bitter is the detached burn of never again….and he was so bitter, it was so bitter sweet, have you ever had bittersweet chocolate? There is nothing sweet about it!
I personally think turmeric or tumeric, is bitter and then a bit warm and pungent, but some say different, turmeric is a gift of the gods to all of us, but i will save that for the episode…
Astringent earth and air- this is a taste that helps our digestion close the doors, ring the bell, last call ...if you were born in and around the time of the wonderful pub in cork city, the Long Valley - they had a sure fire way of getting people out on any given night with a broken recording playing, a fire engine bell they would ring twice and last calls give twice...ah back in the days when the more crowded it was, the better it was -
So its not to get too worked up ;about it - if you are working with me in some form or other - especially in my support programmes you will learn about the foods that will help you most,
But for today, it is to come to taste food on its own...what is astringent? One of its actions is a mouth pucker, so like the end of a lime or lemon this is this sense of internal squeeze and pucker inwards….the call to slow and gather the digestive power inward - i think in daily life it shows up as a twinge, and an eek, as a stop start, or a false start...as a booboo a faux pas…
Ayurveda and Yoga understands how important astringency is and so many of the green leafies and most especially broccoli and kale are like always a good go too and much of the work of food is related to anti doting the parts that may not work so well for our dosha...but to keep it simple and not overwhelm, which you might be already…
All in all, throw the blanket over the whole Shabang?
Okay…every meal should have all six tastes.
Vata needs warming….and food from with earth helmet nets helps stabilise them too and moderately spicy ...and nothing in extreme like super hot or super cold or too cooling - so foods that have kapha like properties, - sweet taste, a bit heavy a bit of oil and but to add to this
Pitta needs to cool down… no hot and spicy, less oil, less sour and no fried - so apart from that, they generally have the best digestive power on a regular day
Kaphas...need spicey hot pungent bitter and astringent...they don't really need much else! They have all the earthy stuff in their body type already so they will find balance in seeking the opposite to lighten their system...
And all this information is great, but it does need tweaking, and that is what you need to discover - the tweaks.
Remember as i started this episode i was Ramanashihng about finding it hard to settle on watching something to relax, ..to get the sweet show for me to enjoy.
We take in tastes all day long.
If we start to taste our life, we realise what we love and what leaves a bad taste in our mouth. We can understand what part of our life we cannot stomach. And we can come to terms with understanding what we cannot stomach and some wonderfully original ways to embrace all the tastes the come into our life
I leave you with a
A great way to understand the six tastes is to meet them.
Take cooked rice. Small pinch. Taste.
Take lemon or lime. One squeeze. Taste.
Take salt, one pinch. Taste.
Take ginger. One chew. Taste.
Take turmeric. One pinched (yuck.) Taste. Takes
Take alfalfa sprouts. One big pinch. taste.
Let me know how it goes, check out episode details or descriptions for further links and support.