Spring Tips—Changing Tastes As The Seasons Change
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Today, let’s talk about some spring tips.
Along with dinacharya, daily routines, ritucharya or seasonal routines are key components of Ayurvedic selfcare. In both daily and seasonal routines, the Ayurvedic texts advise proper use of the six tastes. (If you’re new to Ayurveda, and not familiar with the six tastes, please watch our video Ayurveda Basics 2: The Six Tastes
In dinacharya, we make use of the tastes most appropriate for our prakriti or body type, while in ritucharya, we adjust the tastes in our diet for the changing seasons.
Whereas we are accustomed to a four seasons model, the Ayurvedic texts consider six seasons, each made up of two lunar months. Since there are six seasons on this model, each one of them relates to one of the six tastes.
We’re now in Vasanta, the spring season. At this time, the astringent taste is predominant. It’s a season when all the kapha that built up in winter starts to liquefy, giving us mud season in the environment and phlegm season in the body. We see coughs, lingering colds and allergies at this time. So now we need to move away from our heavier winter diet with sweet, sour and salty tastes. It’s time for a kapha-soothing diet predominant in the bitter, pungent and astringent tastes. Enter bitter greens, bitter melon, burdock root, sprouts and spicy achar (pickles).
A few days of kitchari fast is great for a spring cleanse, but make sure to include bitter vegetables in your kitchari. Try Kitchari with Burdock and Winter Squash. Burdock root has the bitter and astringent tastes recommended for the spring season, but it also has some sweetness because of its content of prebiotic inulin. It is a good blood purifier and liver tonic and is used in our pharmacy because of its anticancer and lymph cleansing actions. You could also try Kitchari for Kidney Health, which features astringent adzuki beans as well as burdock root.
If you haven’t yet tried bitter melon, also known as bitter gourd, pick some up at your local Indian or Asian market. Bitter gourd balances blood sugar, cleanses the blood, and helps get rid of the excess kapha that plagues us at this time of year. Try Bengali-Style Bitter Gourd Dal, which is quite easy to make. It also features lauki, another vegetable your local Indian grocery will have. Lauki adds the astringent taste, making this a perfect spring dish.
You could also try a Kashmiri dish; Okra and Bitter Gourd Sabji. Both of these vegetables are antidiabetic and balance blood sugar.
Bitter greens are in season now; so enjoy plenty of turnip greens, mustard greens, kale and collard. Offering the bitter, astringent and pungent tastes, mustard greens are ideal for the season and so is daikon. Enjoy a simple Nepali recipe made with daikon and either the daikon tops or mustard greens. Blackeye peas, like other legumes, provide the astringent taste, so you could also try Mustard Greens and Blackeye Pea Soup.
Salads made with tender spring greens are another way to enjoy the astringent taste. You can also sprout mung beans or fenugreek seeds to add a vibrant touch of astringency to your meals.
Ginger is our favourite source of the kapha-soothing pungent taste. Start your day with fresh ginger tea for vata or pitta, dry ginger tea for kapha. Season your spring recipes with plenty of ginger. You can also make turmeric pickle, which combines the benefits of ginger, turmeric and fenugreek.
Some special foods recommended at this season include roasted meat, barley, and crystallized honey You can mix honey into your hot water in the morning. And as mangoes come into season, enjoy mango juice seasoned with cardamon.
As you switch over from a heavy winter diet predominant in the vata-soothing tastes, sweet, sour and salty, to a lighter, kapha-soothing spring diet, be careful not to change too suddenly. Take a couple of weeks for a gradual diet transition or you might get indigestion, especially as you add back salads and sprouts.
Alakananda Ma M.B., B.S. (Lond.) is an Ayurvedic Doctor (NAMA) and graduate of a top London medical school. She is co-founder of Alandi Ayurveda Clinic and Alandi Ayurveda Gurukula in Boulder Colorado, as well as a spiritual mother, teacher, flower essence maker and storyteller. Alakananda is a well known and highly respected practitioner in the Ayurveda community both nationally and internationally.
Enliven your holistic health! Visit Alakananda Ma in Alandi Ashram’s ayurvedic clinic to support the overall rejuvenation of your body, mind, and spirit. In-person and virtual appointments available. Book now!
