5 Tastes- TCM Week

An addition to the 5 elements, the 5 tastes go hand in hand with them and the beliefs(so check out our post on 5 elements!). Eating is so great but one of, if not the most important aspects of it, is the taste. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, they have five flavour categories being sweet, bitter, sour, spicy and salty. The belief is certain flavours can help the functionality of organs to balance your health in many aspects. Based off the belief in qi or energy flow, each of these flavours help emphasize or replenish your levels of energy. The five tastes are in essence, naturally contained in all foods as they can nourishes a specific organ or organ system. All the while being associated with specific organs themselves, and a season with either a warm or cool energy.

In more layman terms, the more varied your inclusion of these five tastes are in your meals, the more delicious and nutritional it will be. At times even the addition of a singular herb can greatly impact the nutritional value of it! With no exclusivity of taste for a given ingredient, these are the basic explanations of each flavour.

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Pungent: Great during Autumn, this metal based taste is great for invigorating you with hot based energy. Beneficial towards your colon and lungs, but potentially bad for your intestines; this taste is great to improve your blood circulation. As ingredients like this include scallions, peppers, wasabi, and ginger; it is usually accompanied with proteins of sorts. This can also fight against pathogenic issues and others.

Salty: Best during winter, this water associated taste is great for adding strength, your kidneys and bladder. It can include miso, soy sauce, sea salt, and pickles! Without this ingredient in your diet you can cause issues especially considering

Sweet: This earth based taste is great for late summers while influencing organs which absorb and distribute sugar such as your stomach. Being extremely nourishing, it can be relaxing for you while not being specifically due to sugars. This category is the most stereotypically eaten with things such as grains, and veggies such as cabbage, carrots and onions. Lack of sweet ingredients can cause digestion issues and even fatigue.

Sour: This taste is associate with wood as it can give you short term energy while being influential with your liver and bladder. This could include vinegar and sauerkraut as it tries to fix potential emotional issues due to lack of this taste.

Bitter: This ingredient which is associated with fire is best during early and midway through the summer season. Usually stimulating the heart and small intestine, this can include foods like parsley, mustard, sesame and corn! Associated with the early and mid-summer season, (FIRE) bitter foods are thought to stimulate the heart and small intestine. These foods include dandelion, parsley leaves, mustard greens, collard greens, burdock root, sesame seeds, cereal grain coffee substitute, and some types of corn.

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So next time you cook, try spreading out the difference tastes and you will hopefully get more healthy along the way!