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Ayurveda's Six Tastes Explained

The document discusses the six tastes according to Ayurveda - sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent. It notes that taste buds help identify nutrients and helped ancestors survive, but modern processed foods can trick taste buds. Each taste is associated with physical and emotional responses. A balanced Ayurvedic diet incorporates all six tastes but individuals should adjust amounts based on their body type. Cravings originate from unhealthy organs and can be understood and addressed by identifying deficiencies.

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Francine Perreault
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243 views2 pages

Ayurveda's Six Tastes Explained

The document discusses the six tastes according to Ayurveda - sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent. It notes that taste buds help identify nutrients and helped ancestors survive, but modern processed foods can trick taste buds. Each taste is associated with physical and emotional responses. A balanced Ayurvedic diet incorporates all six tastes but individuals should adjust amounts based on their body type. Cravings originate from unhealthy organs and can be understood and addressed by identifying deficiencies.

Uploaded by

Francine Perreault
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The 6 Tastes

Evolution & Taste Buds

Taste buds are important for maintaining our health. These days, many people distrust their taste
buds. Processed foods like bread, cheese, and corn syrup bypass and trick our taste buds into
eating food that is unhealthy. However, taste buds also helped our ancestors survive in the wild.
Our tongue is a precise laboratory for our health.

Ayurveda identifies the six tastes as sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent. Instead of
defining the six tastes according to our physical experience, Western medicine defines taste
according to the presence of taste buds. Researchers have identified taste buds for sweet, sour,
salty, bitter, and umami. Scientists are also researching the possibility of the presence of calcium
taste buds. 

Cravings & Creation

As our tastes change, our food choices change. Taste is the mother of creation because we are
what we eat, and we eat what we crave. Tastes are not only on our tongue, but also describe our
choices in clothing and home decor. Taste is desire, and good taste is an art. Similarly, the sexual
organs transform desire and preference into fertility; this is why taste and sex are linked in
Ayurveda. Our tastes and lifestyle inform what kind of people we attract.

To Learn More, Click on a Taste Below

Tastes & Emotions

Emotions are in the mind, but we express them with our mouths. A smile means we are happy.
Tastes are the emotions of the body and are also located in the mouth. Emotions and tastes can
change quickly and unpredictably. An orange that tastes sweet yesterday may taste sour today.
Every food has a "taste personality," which takes some time to figure out. Eating a food every
day for two weeks will help you discover the personality of the food in your body.

Tastes & Health

Every taste is associated with a physical and emotional response. Sweet taste causes physical
satisfaction and attraction, whereas bitter taste causes discomfort and aversion. Knowledge of the
different tastes brings awareness to our food cravings. 

A balanced Ayurvedic diet includes all of the six tastes in every meal, but each individual should
adjust the quantity of the tastes for his or her own body. For example, Kapha should use less
sweet taste while Vata and Pitta would benefit from using more sweet taste. A person may have
an excess or deficiency of taste which can be detected by an Ayurvedic practitioner in
a consultation.

Food Cravings

Tastes are not in the food, but rather, they are on the tongue. One of the first signs of illness is
altered taste. Altered taste leads to poor food choices and cravings. When taste buds are altered,
we recommend cleansing programs programs to remove excess from the body and put the doshas
back in balance.

Cravings are our body's best attempt to heal itself. For example, excess Kapha causes circulation
to stagnate, resulting in low energy. Then, Kapha craves sweets for a quick "pick-me-up." Sweet
cravings might have been appropriate for our ancestors in the wilderness but there were no ice-
cream cones in the forest! In modern society, however, indulging in ice cream only causes more
Kapha stagnation and cravings.

Sacred Cravings

All cravings come from unhealthy or deficient organs. By understanding taste and the nature of
deficiency, we can understand the root of our cravings. When health and desire are one, our
cravings become sacred.

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