We instinctively crave variety in our diets. It’s our bodies’ way of trying to ensure we get all the things we need: a balance of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and amino acids. We may not always be aware of why we want to eat the way we do, but even when grabbing a cheese-and-tomato sandwich and bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps/potato chips, we’re instinctively looking to tick off as many flavours and textures as possible: you’ve got that creamy butter, sweet bread, milky cheese, the sour tomatoes and vinegar, the salty tang, and don’t forget the crunch of the crisps beside the soft squidge of the bread. I’m one of those people who always fancies a crunchy snack with a sandwich, and I also don’t like eating a salad without something silken or creamy on top – be it goat’s cheese, feta, tofu, a dollop of hummus or some juicy chicken breast. I feel that every meal needs to satisfy, and it can only do that if it ticks off all the right flavour and texture boxes.
In Ayurveda there are six tastes (known as rasas).
The Six Rasas
SWEET, SOUR, SALTY, BITTER, ASTRINGENT and PUNGENT
The rasas cover every single food out there, though it’s not always immediately obvious which foods fall into which categories (meat and dairy are classified as Sweet, for example). Some rasas are better for your dosha than others. This is because each taste, or rasa, is made up of two of the same five elements that also make up the doshas – Earth, Fire, Water, Ether and Air. You will shortly learn that if you are, for example, Kapha (and primarily Earth and Water elements), then you will therefore need to eat fewer Earth and Water tastes (that would be fewer Sweet, Sour and Salty, and more Bitter, Pungent and Astringent foods). It is always about balance – eating more of the elements your body doesn’t naturally possess, and fewer of the things it’s already inherently rich in. So, for cold, damp Kapha that means eating hot, spicy, drying, warming foods. This will all become explicit and clear as you read this chapter, and now that you know your dosha type, you can work out which tastes should make up the bulk of your diet. There’s my Rasa Cheatsheet on page 39 to help with this.
The tastes are also individually described on pages 42–8, but if you want to check a specific food, and whether it’s a good food for your specific dosha, you should also check the Taste Table (pages 153–64).
It can sound tricky, but truly, it’s not. Knowing the rasas that are best for you makes food selection very simple. If you can eat more sweet food, you know you’re good with meat, dairy and grains. If you can eat more pungent food, you know you can enjoy spicier meals – so, more chilli, garlic, onion, etc. This becomes second nature very quickly, and is what makes the Ayurvedic way of eating practical and painless.
Being ‘diagnosed’ as Pitta–Kapha was the most fascinating point of my journey, because I realized I often ate the wrong sort of food. Despite thinking my choices were very healthy and ought to nourish me, I often felt ‘wanting’ after I’d eaten them. I love fruit, but I was eating a lot of citrus and grapes because they’re regulars in those convenient ready-prepared supermarket fruit bowls you can grab on the go, and I never particularly enjoyed them. Learning about my dosha, I found out that I need to eat riper, sweeter fruits which don’t tax the body, and that pears, cherries, strawberries and apricots were all great for my Pitta–Kapha personality. Funnily enough, they are among my very favourite fruits – I just hadn’t gone out of my way to buy and eat them.
I’d been eating the wrong fruit because I thought any fruit was good enough, but if I’d actually listened to my appetite I would have chosen a juicy apple in the loose produce section instead. Lesson learned, and no more pre-prepared supermarket salads for me. Now I eat the fruit I fancy, fresh, seasonally and where possible locally too, which makes a really big difference to the nutritional value that is passed on to my body (learn much more about seasonality in Chapter 6).
When I started learning about the rasas, I made a mental list of all the meals I find most satisfying. Satisfying – by my definition and one that will play a crucial role in the Body Balance Diet – is food that you feel happy having eaten. It fills the gap, yes, but it also satiates on another level: it’s hit the spot, satisfied all the cravings and needs within your body that perhaps you weren’t even aware of in the first place. In my experience, the meals that satisfy me most do so because they offer a balanced and rich variety of tastes, or rasas, along with interesting textures to boot. By better understanding the rasas, you’ll soon be able to cook in a way that puts the most complementary ingredients together, in a way that will really help your body thrive.
When we talk about the rasas we also talk about their effect on your dosha. Bringing your dosha into balance is at the crux of this diet, and at the heart of Ayurveda itself. We want to get to a place where all the five elements within us are optimal and settled and our body is therefore functioning at its best.
It’s best to eat the rasas which are at the opposite end of the spectrum to your own dosha, and will thereby reduce it. For Pitta, that’s Bitter (Air and Ether), Astringent (Earth and Air) and Sweet (Earth and Water). For Vata, that’s Sweet, Sour (Earth and Fire) and Salty (Water and Fire). For Kapha, that’s Pungent (Fire and Air), Astringent and Bitter.
The rasa cheat (and eat) sheet below shows which rasa is good for your dosha:
| Taste (Rasa) | Vata | Pitta | Kapha |
| Sweet | More | More | Less |
| Sour | More | Less | Less |
| Salty | More | Less | Less |
| Pungent | Less | Less | More |
| Astringent | Less | More | More |
| Bitter | Less | More | More |
Many Ayurvedic doctors choose to classify rasas in a way that is quite complex – a spice such as turmeric, for example, can be classified as Bitter, Pungent and Astringent, all at once, but such a classification can make it difficult to know how and when, and how much of it, to use.
In the end, in consultation with several leading Ayurvedic practitioners and after extensive trialling of my recipes to ensure they’re still as effective as possible, I’ve decided to classify the foods under their primary rasa (and this is true of all the foods listed in the Taste Table on pages 153–64 too). Turmeric does possess three rasas, but its action is primarily a light, drying one – which is why it is primarily Bitter.
When our dosha is serially, and seriously, imbalanced, we don’t feel great and we find that instead of craving the foods that do us good, we tend to crave precisely those foods which do us no favours at all. Think back to the vicious cycle I mentioned in Chapter 1. If you’re balanced, your body is more in tune with what it needs – I crave seasonal soups and hot winter salads bursting with veg – the stuff that does my body the most good. If I’m run down, stressed and overly tired, I often crave salty and overly spicy food.
Vata types tend to undereat or lose their appetites completely when they’re stressed, or grab raw, cold, dry foods (salads, crackers, fruit), which does not help their constitution. Vata types must always eat well – particularly at lunchtime, when their digestive fire is strongest; they can enjoy a three-course lunch without weight gain.
Kapha types have a sluggish metabolism and are prone to comfort-eating, reaching for Sweet and fatty foods most often of all the dosha types. Kapha types frequently have small appetites (slow hunger) and even slower digestion. Kapha types don’t cope well with some protein: light poultry and fish is fine, but they really can struggle to digest richer meats, and they don’t actually need them as their body type does far better on lighter protein, and shifts stubborn weight when eating a lighter, cleaner, steamed diet – think lightly stir-fried food (tofu is good), with meals rich in pulses, beans, lentils and metabolism-boosting spices.
Pitta types might seek spicy, Salty food, but need cooling and calming down – you require foods that will break down slowly, and complex carbohydrates (whole grains, pulses and beans, brown rice, root veg . . . see the Taste Table on pages 153–64 for more) are a Pitta type’s best friend. Though you may often crave an intense salty or spicy hit of flavour – I know I do when I’m imbalanced! – your body thrives on simple, soothing flavour. Avoid vinegary, sharp, acidic, tomato-based meals. Meat is also very acidic, so if you’re craving a burger, opt for chicken if you can, and limit the amount of red meat and egg yolks you consume (egg whites are fine).
Pitta types can get very irritable when hungry (I know that feeling well). In general, snacking is not in line with Ayurvedic wisdom, but if there’s going to be a long gap (more than four hours), plan ahead and pack a dosha-supporting snack such as vegetable crudités (try with my hummus or one of my ‘pestos’), oat, spelt or rye crackers, and vegetable juices. You can cope well with raw food, so fruit and veg are often great foods for you. Try to eat these in season, and organic if possible.
There is much scientific discussion about whether or not organic fruit and veg have more vitamins than food that is grown non-organically. One benefit is certain: they are grown without the chemical interference that can meddle with your body’s own internal balance. Eating for the seasons is particularly important in Ayurveda because it means you’re balancing Vata, Kapha and Pitta more effectively, as the food you eat at the right time of the year naturally attunes your body – a key Ayurvedic tenet.
Earth and Water dominate this taste, which has the qualities of being oily, damp and also quite heavy. It’s good for reducing Vata and Pitta, but really increases Kapha. Dairy, meat, grains, starchy vegetables, nuts, pulses and beans – these are all Sweet. That may surprise you – after all, we’re used to thinking of sugar as being sweet, but these Earth and Water foods all have a pleasing richness to them, they’re not overly savoury or sharp on the palate. Most fruit is also Sweet. We don’t digest Sweet foods quickly, but they are very nourishing and will make up the staple part of most diets. This needs to be what we eat most of, because it gives us the energy to live. But for Kapha types, too much Sweet can imbalance us, because Kapha is already made up of Earth and Water, so we need to pull back on as much dairy and meat as possible and focus more on vegetables.
Sour is mainly Fire – think of your taste buds and the saliva they produce when eating sour food, and how it warms up your mouth – but there is also a bit of Earth in there too. Sour food is great for reducing Vata, but increases Kapha and really increases Pitta. Foods include most fermented foods (wine, beer, yogurt, fermented cheese, soy sauce), pickled or vinegary food, and citrus fruit. This is a taste which you’ll generally eat little of as these foods do not tend to form the staple part of one’s diet, but it is great for rebalancing an excess of Vata. Also Sour are tomatoes (I’d recommend caution here – see the box below).
Tomatoes
Much of the food we eat contains tomatoes that are less than lovely – think of the pale, soggy, flavourless ones you often get in shop-bought cheese-and-tomato sandwiches – and they’re often the base of pasta sauces, pizza toppings, soups . . . but tomatoes are acidic (they tend to have a pH of around 4) and don’t help Pitta or Kapha types. However, if you eat them when they’re wonderfully ripe and actually in season (generally from July to October), their pH is closer to 5. Enjoy them fresh in a salad, or crushed onto a piece of bread with a drizzle of lovely oil. If cooking them, cook only ripe tomatoes and they’ll retain their less acidic nature (making a big batch of in-season tomato paste that can then be the base of pasta sauces or soups is a good idea too).
In Ayurveda, Salty is a rather literal taste as there are not many salty foods that occur naturally. Salty refers to food flavoured with sea/rock salt, soy or seaweed. Element-wise, it is made up of Fire and Water. Small amounts help digestion and also calm the nervous system. It’s good for reducing Vata, but increases both Pitta and Kapha. I’ve read widely on this matter and some Ayurvedic practitioners list naturally salty fish too. Obviously much of the food we eat is salty – though not naturally so – and in fact 75 per cent of our daily salt intake comes from food we do not add salt to. These are most processed foods, such as sandwiches, cereals, soups, cheese, processed meats, cookies, crisps/potato chips and bread (for more on ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ bread, see pages 126–8), which can have a surprising amount of salt in them, so one must take these foods into account too if trying to cut down on salt intake. The World Health Organization recommends no more than 5g of salt a day for adults.
I love hummus, anchovies, crisps/potato chips and corn chips, and I thought my snacks were healthy (better than a bar of chocolate, surely?). I scarcely ever added salt to my food because I’d always been wary of the high blood pressure that one side of my family has always been prone to. So, although my home cooking was low-salt (in cooking I occasionally used Himalayan pink crystal salt or organic sea salt), the ready food I snacked on was laden with it. But as a Pitta–Kapha, Salty foods aren’t on my ideal list. I wasn’t sleeping well and my skin was dry; I was constantly thirsty despite drinking plenty of water, but never felt ‘hydrated’. My Ayurvedic doctor in the Maldives pinpointed my salt overdose almost immediately. He could feel it in my skin and saw that it was aggravating my Fire – completely imbalancing Pitta.
I realized I’d been consuming far too much cheese, take-away soup, smoked salmon and those aforementioned salty snacks (which are, I suppose, relatively healthy, but their sodium content does add up). As soon as I cut right back on salt my thirst balanced out, I slept far better, and my skin began to glow again too. An excess of salt in the diet can cause our systems to become overly acidic – redness of the skin and a tendency to rashes are giveaways here – and, of course, it can also lead to high blood pressure, and ultimately serious heart problems.
Bitter is a combination of Air and Ether, and the qualities are light, dry and cold. It really reduces Kapha and Pitta, but increases Vata. Bitter foods are naturally purifying, they help the body to cleanse itself, and kickstart digestion and weight loss.
Bitter foods are often quite potent and nutrient dense, and most should only be eaten in small quantities. Spice-wise, turmeric, coriander/cilantro leaves and seeds, and fenugreek are primarily Bitter, as are certain fruits such as grapefruit, olives and bitter melon (also called bitter gourd, bitter squash, balsam pear or wild cucumber – botanic name, momordica charantia). The latter, I’ll admit, is not readily available in supermarkets (though I’ve seen it in organic supermarkets and the odd ‘boutique’ greengrocery) but plays a big role in traditional Ayurveda. Bitter melon tea is also widely available via the internet; a hugely popular tea in India, it is said to stabilize blood sugar levels and is popular in the treatment of diabetes.
Another common Bitter food is coffee (see box).
Coffee – Yes or No?
The Ayurvedic community has rather a lot to say about coffee. While myriad studies have shown that drinking several cups of coffee a day can lower one’s risk of developing cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s and heart disease, the results of the studies were similar with both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. It’s the high antioxidant content of the coffee bean itself that’s doing the magic, not the buzz you get from the caffeine.
But (and there’s always a but) we also know that coffee makes us produce stress hormones, including cortisol – which is why you often get that fluttery-chest ‘fight or flight’ high after a cup. It also makes the brain produce dopamine, and it’s this hormone that that makes it strongly addictive.
The main purpose of the Body Balance Diet is to bring everything into balance, and to bring the body out of the over-active stressed tense state which is often the upshot of modern life. For this reason, coffee is not going to help an imbalanced body.
Vata types – who are flighty and active enough as it is – would do better largely to avoid coffee, and replace it with antioxidant-rich teas, such as rooibos, although a cup here and there is just fine. Pitta types are already quite fiery and driven, so coffee could push them toward the more aggressive end of the spectrum. In this instance, I’d say avoid a coffee on an empty stomach, but if it’s after a healthy meal, and provided it’s not a triple shot, it won’t push you over the edge. Kapha types are calmer and more lethargic by nature, so by all means go ahead and enjoy a cup of Joe every now and again is unlikely to tip you off balance.
You can recognize an Astringent food from the effect it has on the palate – think of the saliva-provoking tannins you get in red wine and the way it makes the mouth pucker up. If you’ve ever eaten an unripe banana you’ll know that sensation. Wine and unripe bananas aside, there’s also broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, artichoke, celery, sprouts and green beans. Many fruits are partially Astringent too – cranberries and pomegranates most of all, but also less ripe pears and apples. Chickpeas, lentils, buckwheat, yellow split peas and alfalfa are all Astringent too. Made up of Earth and Air, Astringent foods really help to cool and dry the system – hence that dryness in the mouth when you eat them. This is a great thing for the damp or overly fiery Kapha and Pitta types, but doesn’t do Vata any favours.
This taste is made up of Fire and Air – it’s heating and drying, but also light. It’s good for reducing Kapha, but increases both Pitta and Vata. Pungent foods help stoke one’s digestive fire (agni) and also shift mucus (so they’re good to eat if you’re suffering with chesty, phlegmy or snotty illnesses).
Pungent foods also get things moving – not just through the gut, but also within the blood – boosting circulation and shifting cholesterol.
The hottest (as in foods with natural ‘chilli’ heat), are all Pungent – think garlic, ginger, raw onions, mustard seed (and mustard greens), rocket/arugula, horseradish, and chillies, of course. Chia seeds are Pungent too. Many spices are primarily Pungent, including allspice, basil, bay leaves, black pepper, caraway, cayenne, cinnamon, cloves, cumin, lemongrass, nutmeg, oregano, paprika, parsley, peppermint, rosemary, saffron, sage, star anise and thyme.
Remember: always eat more of the foods that reduce your dosha. This will help keep your system balanced.
I’ve said before that I am by no means an Ayurveda puritan, and many Ayurvedic recipe books rely on grain- and pulse-rich vegetarian food, which can seem quite alien to Western palates. While I adore a good vegetable, lentil or chickpea curry, I also like cheese and chicken, yogurt and lamb, fish and bread. So, when in Chapter 1 I said you need to remove the rules to remove the guilt, I meant it. That’s why the Rasa Cheatsheet on page 39 uses the words less and more. I don’t believe in never.
I want to be able to enjoy a great burger or tacos, scrambled eggs and salmon, a fresh tuna mayonnaise sandwich . . . That’s why I’ve worked on a plan that incorporates all the essential elements of the six tastes, while also using good, wholesome, natural ingredients to ensure that, yes, you can have your burger and eat it – but let’s just tweak and tailor it first, to ensure you’re giving your body what it really needs.
My Dosha Type is Confusing Me!
What if you’re Vata–Pitta and as Vata you can eat lots of Sour, but as Pitta you can’t? It’s all a balancing act – and you should always give the strongest emphasis to your main dosha – but if both doshas are on an equal footing (which is not uncommon), you can continue to eat these ‘contradictory’ tastes, but just don’t make them a staple part of your diet. Focus instead on the rasas which balance both doshas: for Vata–Pitta, that’s Sweet (dairy, meat, grains).
Build your meals around this food, but you can still dip into the good-for-Vata and good-for-Pitta flavours as and when you really want them (as you’ll see from my recipes at the back of this book). If you’re tri-doshic, the key thing for you is to eat seasonally, as imbalances are not very often caused by your constitution (which is inherently balanced), but rather by the environmental shifts we experience every year. You will need to eat foods that pacify Pitta in hot weather (late spring, summer); pacify Vata in cold, windy, dry weather (ordinarily autumn and spring); and pacify Kapha in wet, cold weather (winter).