Six Tastes of Ayurved

Ayurvedic Cooking is based on six tastes: sweet, salty, sour, punjent, bitter and astringent. Each taste supports or aggrevates the qualities of the body described as Vata, Pita and Kapha. Understanding these qualities and the tastes which support them helps an individual maintain optimal health.

We introduce our students to the six tastes of Ayurved with a tasting class so each student can begin to identify the different tastes. We included the following foods for each taste:

• Sweet: Cinnamon, Fennel and candy coated fennel, licorice tea, honey

• Sour: Lemon, lime, dill pickels, tomatoes, grapefruit

• Salty: Salt!

• Punjent:(Spicy) Clove, Chili pepper flakes, ginger

• Bitter: Kale, Dark chocolate covered almonds with Cocoa powder (to taste Cocoa powder then dark chocolate)

• Astringent:(Dry) Potatoe, Apple, Beans

We also teach the kids where each of the food sources comes from such as cinnamon bark, licorice root, potatoe tuber, cocoa bean, fennel seed, apple fruit, etc.