By NINA ELLIOT
Let’s have a healthy snack while we talk. We’ll have a sweet red apple, add a little fresh squeezed lemon to it, and finally, let’s sprinkle a bit of cinnamon over it all.
While we snack, let’s take those beautiful tastes: the sourness of the lemon, the heat of the cinnamon and the sweetness of the apple and find out what’s happening from an Ayurvedic perspective.
If you are a kapha person, try a dried apple slice with cinnamon and without the lemon. If you are a pitta, take the apple sauce.
In Ayurveda, its not just healthy snacks, but, how they are eaten and prepared that is as important.
In general, the ‘official’ tastes are sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory/(unami). Taste provides us with messages that drives what we put into our mouths, in order to survive. We know that apple snacks taste pleasant, provides nutrition, and won’t make us ill. Ayurveda will tell us a deeper backstory.
Rasa, the Sanskrit word for Taste, has many meanings, which can include essence, enthusiasm, experience, etc. Taste is not only in food, but it's also one’s reaction to the food. The Vedic belief that everything physical emerges from a subtle source, that each substance is made up of the 5 elements, thus having different qualities, embodies the concept of Rasa. These tastes have physical, metabolic, spiritual, and emotional effects on the body, to name a few. There are 6 tastes, and their predominant elements are as follows:
Rasa
Sweet (Madura) Earth + Water
Sour (Amla) Earth + Fire
Salty (Lavana) Water + Earth
Pungent (Katu) Fire + Air
Bitter (Tikta) Air + Space
Astringent (Kashaya) Air + Earth
Some SNACKING examples:
Sweet (Madura) fresh farmers cheese, mangoes, pineapple, raisins, dried fruits, dates
Sour (Ama) dried citrus fruits, tamarind drink, lemonade, Citrus fruits, fermented foods
Salty (Lavana) Seaweed, nuts
Pungent (Katu) Ginger candy
Bitter (Tikta) Kale chips, dark chocolate-with monk fruit or low sugar.
Astringent (Kashaya) Pomegranates, plantain chips
As we are munching along our snack, the rasas would be: Sweet, Pungent, Astringent (Cinnamon) / Sour (Lemon) and Astringent, Sour, Sweet (Apple)
Further, there are qualities assigned to each Rasa, all of which affect Doshas:
• Sweet tastes are heavy, moist and cooling, whose nourishing and soothing pacify Vata and Pitta, yet increase Kapha.
• Sour taste is hot light and moist, is most beneficial to Vata, yet its heat will increase Pitta and Kapha (to a lesser degree).
• Salty is hot heavy and moist, whose grounding effects can balance Vata, but increase both Pitta and Kapha.
• Bitter is light, cooling and dry, which balances Kapha and Pitta, but aggravates Vata.
• Pungent is hot dry and light, whose stimulating and doing effects help Kapha, but throw Pitta out of balance because of its heat, as well as Vata because of the air qualities.
• Astringent is cooling and heavy by nature, and when taken in moderation, can balance Pitta and Kapha, yet will aggravate Vata.
All of this is just the beginning of what Rasas means, a deeper dive into the mosaic of Ayurveda would show how all these Rasas affect the mind, body and spirit. For now, just enjoy the snack. Maybe notice how you feel eating, do you feel cold? Warm? Does it give you energy? Maybe you are a Kapha, in which case this is a perfect snack for!
In the end, just remember that Ayurveda wants you to enjoy your food, that it taste delicious, and that it satiates the senses, nourishes from within and stimulates the digestive system. Whenever possible, try to incorporates all 6 tastes in one’s meal, in specific order according to taste (driven by one’s dosha), as this will be a perfect meal.