Tastes and Doshas

-by Sheela Rani Chunkath

Ayurveda has classified all foods according to its taste. There are six taste sensations and all foods will fall under one or more of these categories. The six tastes are sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. Now, Ayurvedic vaidyars pay a lot of importance to the taste classification of foods because these affect the doshas which in turn affect your health.

If one of your doshas is vitiated you should pay attention to the type of food you are eating. Let us suppose that you are having aches and pains, the dosha that is vitiated is vayu. You should then stop eating those foods that increase vayu and eat those that decrease it. Some people come and ask “isn't bitter gourd very good for you? I try to include it in my diet at least once a week.” unfortunately, if you are suffering from a vitiation of vayu dosha, bitter foods should be avoided as bitter foods increase vayu. In fact you should avoid bitter, pungent and astringent foods and eat sweet, sour and salty foods. Sometimes you might have a vitiation of more than one dosha, when you will find yourself having to avoid foods with quite a few tastes and having to stick to bland foods.

Now let us assume your pitta dosha is vitiated and you have a burning sensation in your stomach; you have burning sensations on the soles of your feet etc. If this happens, you should avoid foods that have salty, sour or pungent tastes. You may wonder if such self-denial is really worth it and whether the problem would really be solved. A friend of mine had this terrible itching problem; he visited many allopathy doctors who told him that he had an allergy and put him on antihistamines. He was on it for almost a year and still the itch persisted if he did not take his antihistamine tablet at night. He was desperate, as he felt like a zombie in the morning as the antihistamine had the side effect of making him feel dopey and sleepy. After a year of being unable to find an allopathic solution he visited an ayurvedic vaidyar. She told him that his was a case of vitiation of pitta and that he would have to be on a salt-free diet for some time. I must say that my friend had tremendous will power and ate his food without salt for three months, at the end of which his itching had disappeared. Hats off to my friend for sticking to the diet and more so to his wife who too went on a salt-free diet to keep him company!

If your little one at home has a cold, the dosha that is vitiated is kapha. And you guessed right, he should not eat any sweet, sour or salty foods. So no chocolates, no lime juice or salty potato chips. You can give him pungent, bitter or astringent foods.

Treatment for diseases in Ayurveda is inextricably linked with eating the right foods. So, if you want to get well soon, eating the right foods should become second nature to you. I usually have a problem with vitiation of vayu dosha and I almost always avoid bitter and pungent foods. I used to eat really spicy foods till I learnt about the effect of the nature of foods we eat and our body's health.

I am giving below a table indicating the link between the doshas and the tastes.

Dosha	Increased by	Decreased by
Vata	Bitter, pungent and astringent foods	Sweet, sour and salty foods
Pitta	Salty, sour and pungent foods	Sweet, bitter and astringent foods
Kapha	Sweet, sour and salty foods	Pungent, bitter and astringent foods

In addtion to the tastes, doshas are also affected by some root vegetables. Vayu is greatly increased by vegetables such as potatoes, Colocasia, raw bananas, cluster beans etc. Older members of our families invariably knew which foods aggravated vayu and caused pain and discomfort. So do talk to the older people you know and learn about the effect the foods you eat can have on you.

--- The writer was earlier Health Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu and is currently Additional Chief Secretary and Chairman & Managing Director, Tamil Nadu Handicrafts Development Corporation. She can be reached at Sheelarani.arogyamantra@gmail. com. Earlier articles can be accessed at http://arogyamantra.blogspot.com/

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