Another way to understand the energetics of plants is through their taste. Long before we had the ability to identify isolated constituents, herbalist used their senses to understand and categorize medicinal plants. This concept of taste is most developed within Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda. The five tastes in Chinese herbal theory are pungent, salty, sour, bitter, and sweet. Ayurveda recognizes the same five tastes, along with astringent as a sixth.

PUNGENT

     The pungent herbs are warming and spicy. They are used to awaken the senses and get things moving. They are ideal for people who tend to feel cold, damp, or sluggish, as they can increase circulation and bring warmth from the core of the body out to the climbs. When it comes to dose, though, easy does it!

     You’ll see a wide variety of warming qualities among the pungent herbs. Follow a sip of rosemary tea with a sip of cayenne tea and you’ll notice a big difference! The heat of cayenne can often force your body to take cooking measures such as sweating.

 

Some pungent herbs
The pungent herbs are warming and spicy.

     In fact, most of our common culinary herbs are classified as pungent. Many herbs have become part of culinary tradition because they not only taste good but also support one’s health.

SALTY

     The salty herbs are high in vitamins and minerals. They are nutrient dense and considered the most nourishing and foodlike of all the herbs.

     You might be thinking that these herbs would have the flavor of table salt. However, in herbalism, “salty” refers to herbs that are high in micronutrients; they have a mineral taste rather than an overtly salty taste.

Some salty herbs
The salty herbs are high in vitamins and minerals.

     Herbs in this category are known for affecting the fluids in your body. Some are diuretics, helping with the flow of urine; others are lymphatic, helping with the flow of lymph fluid.

    Herbs with a salty taste include seaweed, oatstraw, violets, chickweed and stinging nettle.

SOUR

     The idea of “sour” may make your mouth pucker as you envision biting into a lemon. Howerver, just as with salty, the sour taste in herbalism tends to be more subtle. Most fruits and astrigents herbs are classified as sour.

     The sour herbs stimulate digestion, build strength, and reduce inflammation. Energictically, they tend to be cooling, but not drammatically so.

Some sour herbs
Sour herbs stimulate digestion, build strength and reduce inflammation.

     Many of these herbs are high in antioxidants. However, while the protective qualities of antioxidants have been making headlines, studies have repeatedly shown that it is not beneficial to ingest antioxidants as supplements. It is ideal to search out your antioxidants in their whole form, and the herbs in the sour section are the perfect way to do that.

     Many sour herbs also have an important herbal action: they are astringent, which is the sixth taste in Ayurveda. I think of astringency as a mouthfeel rather than a taste. If you’ve ever bitten into an unripe banana or drunk a strong cup of black tea, then you’ve felt the astringent action. While it is often described as a dry sensation in the mouth, astringent herbs are actually tightening the mucosal tissues the come in contact with. Astringency helps with bleeding or swollen gums, swollen throats, healing wounds, and excess discharge such as a runny nose.

SWEET

     The sweet herbs nourish and build. They can restore energy levels and modulate the immune system. But before you start dreaming of herbs that taste like sugarcane, I have to tell you that the sweet taste in herbalism is not like visiting a candy store. In fact, your first taste of these plants may not have you thinking about sweetness at all.

Some sweet herbs
The sweet herbs nourish and build.

     Some sweet herbs don’t taste overtly sweet but are classified as such because of their building and nourishing herbal properties. Most of our adaptogen herbs, for example, are listed as sweet. Adaptogen herbs are used to broadly support overall health in people with signs of weakness or deficiency. They can also modulate the stress response, which improves a person’s negative experience of stress and allows them to feel stronger and less agitated when life throws them a curveball.

     Because the negative effects of stress are so far-reaching, these herbs can powerfully support your health in a lot of ways. They can ease inflammation, one of the leading causes of chronic disease. They can help you to sleep deeply every night, which can improve your alertness and energy during the day. They also modulate your immune system, which means fewer illnesses and perhaps even preventive for tors against cancer.

     Some sweet herbs may be slightly warming or slightly moistening, but most have fairy neutral energetics. People can generally use these herbs no matter their constitution.

BITTER

     The bitter herbs stimulate digestion and often have a cooling and draining effect, which can help to modulate inflammation. Many of these herbs are also very important for liver health.

     In a popularity contest for the five tastes, my bet is that bitter would not win. In fact, we might call it the taste that most people love to hate. Even our language represents our antagonistic relationship: the bitter truth, bitter tears, a bitter personality. Yet in herbalism, bitter is one of our most important and common taste.

Some bitter herbs
The bitter herbs stimulate digestion and often have a cooling and draining effect, which can help to modulate inflammation.

     Herbalists are fond of saying that many digestive problems are due to a “bitter deficiency syndrome”. This term was coined by herbalist James Green and refers to the lack of bitter taste in our diets. In doing our best to breed the bitterness out of our vegetables, we’ve done ourselves a great disservice! The bitter taste is an important part of our digestion.

    Your body continues to recognize the taste of bitter long after it hits your tongue. That’s because there are bitter taste receptors throughout your body, including in your digestive tract and even in your lungs.

    The act of tasting even small something that’s bitter activates your entire digestive system. The taste causes you to salivate, which is one of the first step in the digestive process. It also releases important gastric enzymes that help digest your proteins (among other things) and stimulates bile production, which helps to you digest fats. It’s amazing. all that bitters can do for your digestion.

     I, along with many herbalists, believe that all people can benefit from adding bitters to their life. (As I mentioned, plenty of common digestive problems are due to a deficiency of bitter.) In fact, I recommend experiencing bitter with every single meal you eat.

     The energetics of bitter herbs are cooling and drying, making them a great match for those who tend to be warm and damp. However, bitters can be helpful for all types of constitutions, especially if combined with the warming and pungent herbs to improve the flavor and add more warming qualities.

Excerpt from “Alchemy of herbs”

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