Astringent Taste and Taste-Based Diet Rules for Each Dosha

It helps in the healing of ulcers and stops bleeding by promoting clotting. Excess use may cause dryness in the mouth, difficulty in speech, and constipation, as well as abdominal distention, heart spasms, and stagnation of circulation. It may affect the sex drive and lead to depletion of sperm. It can give rise to emaciation, convulsions, Bell’s palsy, stroke paralysis, and other neuromuscular vata disorders.

EFFECTS OF TASTES ON THE DOSHAS The tastes have the following effects upon the doshas: . People of vata constitution should avoid bitter, pungent, and astringent substances in VATA excess, because they increase air and have a tendency to cause gas. Foods and herbs containing sweet, sour, and salty tastes are good for individuals of vata constitution. Herbs and the Six Tastes The taste of an herb is not incidental but is directly related—indeed, directly responsible—for much of its therapeutic value.

That is why Ayurvedic herbs are generally taken in a form that requires tasting them, rather than concealing the taste in a capsule. There is no problem in taking an herb that has a sweet, pungent, or otherwise tempting taste. But most people, particularly in Western culture, don’t like the bitter or astringent tastes, and if they have to take an herb with either of these tastes, they want to put the herb into a capsule and swallow it without tasting it. Since the stomach has no taste buds, when the herb is taken this way, the effects and benefits derived from the taste are lessened, because they are not perceived.

When we eat food, we don’t lose the effect of the tastes because we have to chew; when we use capsules, we miss the taste of the herb. One of the reasons the Ayurvedic physician prescribes an herb is to balance whatever taste is lacking in the body. The herb transmits that taste and its effects into rasa dhatu (plasma). Triphala, for example, provides all the tastes except salty, but it tends to yield the predominant taste that is lacking in the body, which for most Westerners is the bitter taste.

That’s why for many people triphala tastes bitter for some time. Later, after regular use, the bitter taste will have been received into the rasa dhatu, and triphala may taste sour or sweet. In Ayurvedic medicine, most herbs are classified according to their predominant taste, secondary aftertaste, and “potential” taste. The main taste acts on rasa dhatu, the aftertaste acts on the nervous system, and the third taste has either a heating or a cooling effect.