The Six-Taste Secret: Unlock Perfect Digestion and Radiant Health With Every Meal!

Take a moment and observe the food you normally eat. If you’re like I was, it’s probably dominated by three familiar tastes: salt, sour, and pungent (or spicy). But what about the others? What about sweet, bitter, and astringent? For a long time, I never gave them much thought.

I’ve come to believe that this oversight is one of the biggest reasons for poor health and weak digestion. Our bodies are like a complex orchestra, and each of the six tastes is a vital instrument. When we only play three of them, we don't get a symphony; we get noise. To achieve true health, we must learn to be the conductor and ensure every instrument plays its part in every meal.

How Missing Tastes Weaken Your Body from the Inside Out

In my view, there is a direct connection between each taste and our internal organs. When we consistently eat food that only contains salt, sour, and pungent tastes, only the organs connected to those tastes will function well.

What about the ones we neglect?

• Sweet Taste: This is linked to the liver and spleen.

• Bitter and Astringent Tastes: These are connected to the heart, the outer cover of the heart, our temperature control system, and the small intestine.

When we don't eat these three tastes, their corresponding organs don't get the specific energy they need to function properly. Think of the digestive journey. The food first goes to the stomach, which relies on the sweet taste for energy. Without it, the stomach can't digest properly. Next, the food moves to the small intestine, which needs bitter and astringent tastes to do its job. If it doesn't get them, it also fails to digest properly. Thus, by simply ignoring these three tastes, we are crippling our digestive power at its very source.

Reclaiming the Tastes: My Practical Guide

The good news is that it’s easy to bring these missing tastes back to your plate. Our food already contains salt, sour, and pungent tastes, so let's focus on the others.

1. Reintroducing Sweet (The Right Way):
For years, people have been given the wrong advice that eating sweets causes sugar disease (diabetes). I have come to believe there is no connection. So please, add sweet taste liberally back into your food! But this is crucial: you must never use the poison that is white sugar (refined sugar). Instead, embrace natural sweets like jaggery, palm sugar, honey, and all types of sweet-tasting fruits. By adding a healthy sweet taste to your food, you are directly helping your digestion.

2. Embracing Bitter and Astringent:
People generally don't like these tastes, but they are absolutely essential. They strengthen our heart, give us confidence and boldness, and help streamline blood pressure. An easy way to add bitter taste is to have bitter gourd curry twice a week—but it must be boiled, not fried. The main reason doctors recommend eating spinach is because all varieties contain both bitter and astringent tastes.

You don't need to search for separate items for these two tastes. All items with a bitter taste will also have an astringent taste, and vice versa. Besides spinach and bitter gourd, you can try turkey berry, citron fruit pickle, a piece of lemon (including the skin), neem leaves, or neem flower. If you can’t find any of those, just a small amount of fenugreek powder can provide a lot of these tastes. But be careful—only use fenugreek in small quantities.

The Wisdom of Our Ancestors and "Superfood" Shortcuts

Have you ever seen old movies about kings? After a meal, someone might ask, "How was the feast?" and the reply is often, "Excellent! I ate six-taste food!" Our forefathers understood that eating a "six-taste" food was the pinnacle of a healthy meal, and they drove away diseases by doing so. Today, we avoid many tastes and, as a result, we are welcoming disease into our bodies.

For a simple shortcut, our ancestors said that if we eat one gooseberry with every meal, we will never get any disease. The reason is that gooseberry contains all six tastes! If you can, add one gooseberry to your meal, perhaps every other day so your tongue doesn't get tired of it. Tender coconut water also has all six tastes. But my advice is to never drink it with a straw. Put your mouth directly on the coconut, enjoy the taste, and let those six tastes travel through your tongue to act as medicine.

The Most Important Rule: Don't Stress, Just Progress

After learning this, many people have started eating six-taste food. But sometimes, it’s just not possible. And here is the most important point: if you eat a meal and feel bad that you couldn't get all six tastes, or if you worry that the food won't digest properly, then that negative thought will ensure the food does not get digested properly.

We eat about ninety times a month. To start, just try to eat a six-taste food ten times a month. Even if you can't do it all the time, do it as frequently as you can. If you can’t get it on a particular day, instead of worrying, just happily eat whatever is available. Your positive mindset is more powerful than a missing taste.

And please, be warned: some people have misunderstood this and started buying "six-taste powders." These will not give any positive results. The tastes must be present in the food we eat daily. By ensuring all six tastes are present in your food whenever possible, you can get the food digested well and turn every meal into powerful medicine.