Choosing foods that taste pungent is one of the main ways to enkindle “Agni,” or digestive fire, and burn away Ama, or toxins. While many of us look to eating this food or that food, in reality, we can eat just about anything if we prepare it correctly to balance its overall affect on digestion.
When digestive fire is low and the immune system is compromised by all of the undigested toxins that haven’t been eliminated, the tongue will become coated; appetite decreases; some fluids like tears decrease, while other fluids like mucous from the sinuses, increase.
“Pungent herbs and spices are stimulating, promote digestion, increase appetite, increase sweating, removes phlegm, kills parasites. It promotes circulation generally increases all bodily functions while reduing all foreign accretions in the body. Be sure to be fully hydrated when embarking on pungent therapy.” (from The Yoga of Herbs by Dr. Vasant Lad)
The pungent taste arises mainly from various aromatic oils. Pungent tastes can include acrid, spicy and aromatic tastes.
Typical pungent herbs include: basil, bayberry, bay leaves, black pepper, camphor, cardamom, cayenne, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, ephedra, eucayptus, garlic, ginger, horseradish, mustard, onions, orgegano, peppermint, prickly ash, rosemary, sage, sassafras, spearmint, thyme.
rosemary
For the most part these herbs are a pretty safe level of intervention. You can expect good results quickly with no real side effects that you have to worry about, unless of course you overdo, and then all you have to do at that point is stop taking them!
Pungent herbs are used for:
Constipation; bad breath; really really smelly feces; tongue coating; abdominal pain and distention, especially if aggravated by massage; intestinal gas and cramping pain; low appetite; heaviness; slow pulse; cloudy weather; yellow feces; heaviness in stomach; sour taste in mouth; skin rash; brain fog; saliva threads; tonsil stones; mucus in stools and urine; generalized pain; fatigue.
An easy way to get your dose of pungent herbs is to drink ginger tea.
Fix foods like pasta with plenty of garlic, oregano, rosemary and basil – yum! Throw plenty of thyme and sage in your chicken soup, make your pancakes with a pinch of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, powdered ginger, or cardamom.
You can also include more pungent FOODS in your diet. Here is a list of foods that are pungent in post-digestive effect:
Onion
radish
chicken
eggs
castor oil
safflower oil
mustard
broccoli, cabbage, carrot, celery, lettuce, okra, spinach, zuchini, pumpkin
Once your tongue has no coat and your appetite is good and strong, back off on pungent therapy. It has done its job! What you want to do now is to use just enough to keep digestion strong and to counter-balance foods that are rich, high in fats, or tend to be mucus forming for you.
For instance, if I eat eggs or cheese, I eat them with red pepper flakes or green chili peppers. If I make a very rich cake, I make it a spice cake, incorporating cardamom or cinnamon, etc., and eat it with ginger tea. Sprinkle cardamom on vanilla ice cream – it tastes great and helps you digest it properly.