Taste, has always been our major guiding principle for selecting foods and diets, but often the wrong way. A person may like a certain kind of food because he finds it “Tasty”. He may reject a few others as they may not be “Tasty”. Taste obviously seems to guide him. But the truth is different. He is being in fact guided by his “likes and dislikes” for the taste and not by the taste themselves. Whenever our likes and dislikes are our only councilors the result is inevitably the same: disaster.
Therefore diseases are the result.
The Rishis of the yore, the givers of Ayurveda ironically had also taken the taste seriously, but with a difference. They were not bothered about how the Indriyas responded, with their like and dislikes, to the tastes.
They were guided by the therapeutic aspects of the taste.
A huge body of knowledge was generated by the Compassionate rishis relating the tastes, the doshas and the diseases.
Rasa means taste. Taste is very important in understanding both food and medicine. Taste can be identified immediately, as soon as one puts the substance in one’s mouth. The three physical doshas as well as the qualities of the mind, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas are influenced by rasa.
Rasa or the taste can, therefore, be used to regulate both the physical and the mental doshas.
According to Ayurveda there are six rasas or tastes.
Indians were the first to see all the shades of the spectrum of tastes.
The six tastes are :-
1) Madhura Rasa or the sweet taste
2) Amla Rasa or the sour taste
3) Lavana Rasa or the salt taste
4) Tikta Rasa or the bitter taste
5) Katu Rasa or the hot taste
6) Kashaya Rasa or the astringent taste
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