In any given day we all could use a little extra spice. A pinch of something to enrich, not just enlivening the senses, and not just to enhance the foods taste, but to balance the inner elements of the body. Spices have the potential to help us digest, assimilate, eliminate food and also uplift our mood.
What brings you a breath of fresh air? What gives you a spring to your step? Rasa is that which gives us contentment, repose, a richness or luxurious feeling, a vacation mode moment. Rasa also means taste. It is the essence of a substance, the mood one feels from that substance, an energy of a food or spice, and the taste it activates---sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent, pungent.
The rasa of tastes, mindfulness of experiencing the six tastes and favoring those that match the season and your body type.
If we can get the six tastes through our food we may find that later in the day we don't crave less healthy choices of a particular taste, especially the commonly over used one, sweet or for some salty, which we might be craving for stress or emotional reasons anyway.
The 6 tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent, pungent
Seasonal taste therapy:
In late winter and spring favor bitter, astringent, pungent
In summer favor sweet, bitter, astringent
In fall and early winter favor sweet, sour, salty
Dosha Taste therapy:
Vata dosha is increased with astringent, bitter, pungent and is decreased with sweet, sour, salty
Pitta dosha is increased with sour, salty, pungent and is decreased by sweet, astringent, bitter
Kapha dosha is increased with sweet, sour, salty and decreased with astringent, bitter, pungent. Check out my dosha page for what the heck doshas are.
See Myurveda Blog The Six Tastes
Check back soon for a list of foods and what taste category they're in....