The 5 Flavors & Their General Effects in the Body

 Bitter (Heart/Small Intestine)

Properties: A yin flavor; cooling effect; causes contraction and encourages the energy of the body to descend.  Reduces the excessive person (robust, extroverted, with thick tongue coating, loud voice, reddish complexion, etc.). Bitterness is an antipyretic, lowering fever; it will also dry fluids and drain dampness. Certain bitter foods and herbs have a purgative effect and induce bowel movements. Enter the Heart and Small Intestines.  Corresponds to the Fire Element.

Uses: Helpful for inflammations, infections, and overly moist, damp conditions. Also used for constipation.

Organ Function: Bitter foods clear heat and clean arteries of damp mucoid deposits of cholesterol and fats, in general tending to lower blood pressure. Bitter foods clear stagnancy and cools heat in the liver (usually caused by overconsumption of rich foods).  Bitter foods and herbs drain damp-associated conditions in the form of candida yeast overgrowth, parasites, mucus, swellings, skin eruptions, abscesses, growths, tumors, cysts, obesity, and all moist accumulations including edema. Bitter foods also increase intestinal muscle contractions. The kidneys and lungs are tonified and vitalized by bitter foods. It is superb n removing mucus/heat conditions in the lungs, signified by yellow phlegm discharges.

Seasonal Attunement: One should progressively increase their bitter intake during the fall and winter months, in order to contract and channel energy lower into the body. Heat symptoms arising in any season can be neutralized by bitter foods.

Individual Benefited: Slow, overweight, lethargic, watery (damp) individuals. Aggressive, overheated people are cooled by bitter foods.

Cautions: People who are deficient, cold, weak, thin, nervous, and dry should limit their bitter food intake.

Pungent (Lung/Large Intestine)

Properties:  A yang flavor; expansive, dispersive; the pungent flavor has a warming energy as it stimulates circulation of energy and blood, tending to move energy upwards and outwards to the periphery body. Enters the Lungs and Large Intestines. Corresponds to the Metal Element.

Uses: Stimulates digestion, disperses mucus caused by highly mucus-forming foods such as dairy and meats, and offers protection against mucus conditions such as common cold. The diaphoretic pungents (mint, cayenne, elder flower, scallion, garlic, and chamomile) are used to induce sweating during common colds and other exterior conditions. They are also used to lighten the effects of grains legumes, nits, and seeds, all of which have moderate mucus-forming properties; they also disperse stagnant blood and increase Qi energy. Extremely pungent foods (garlic, mugwort, and cayenne) can be used to destroy and expel parasites.

Unfortunately, in many places of the world pungency is consumed most often in the form of alcoholic beverages, which have some short-term benefits but ultimately cause necrosis, especially in brain cells.

Organ Functions:  The pungent flavor enters and clears the lungs of mucus conditions (do not use warming pungents for this if there are any heat conditions in the body). It improves digestive activity, which is ruled by the spleen-pancreas, and expose gas from the intestines. It moistens the kidneys which affects the fluids of the body. Stimulates blood circulation and is cardiotonic. It also helps clear obstructions and improve sluggish liver function.

Seasonal Attunement: Pungent flavor (along with full sweet flavor) attunes to spring. Pungent flavors that are also hot provide the interior environment of, and attune the body to, summer—cayenne, black pepper, hot green and green peppers, and fresh ginger.

Individuals Benefited: This who are sluggish, dull, lethargic, or excessively heavy benefit from pungent foods (as well as bitter).  Those inclined to dampness or mucus conditions of the lungs or colon (Metal Element) can use pungent foods for prevention and treatment.  A person with cold signs improve with the use of warming pungents.  Some pungent foods can be beneficial for dry, thin individuals or those who tend towards wind conditions of nervous, restless activity. However, not all pungent foods are appropriate for the dry person.

Cooking: The pungency of food diminishes with cooking.  For full benefits eat pungent food raw or pickled. If cooking is needed mild steaming will preserve some of the pungency.

Cautions: Some pungent foods worsen the condition of dry, windy, nervous or thin person (sage, raw onion, and all hot peppers, including cayenne). If suffering from Qi diseases—deficient Qi, including weakness, or stagnant Qi involved in obstructions and constrictions— avoid pungent foods.  Also, avoid warming pungent food when heat signs are present. Those overweight from overeating should choose cooling pungent foods.

Salty (Kidney/Bladder)

Properties: A yin flavor; cooling effect; tends to move energy downward and inward; has centering, earthy qualities; moistens dryness;softens hardened lumps and stiffness; improves digestion; detoxifies the body; and can purge the bowels and promote emesis.  Enters the Kidneys and Bladder. Corresponds to the Water Element.

Uses: May be increased in the diet to soften lumps (ex. hardened lymph nodes, cataracts, and other knotting of the muscles and glands). Used internally for constipation, abdominal sweeping and pain, and externally for impure blood conditions with heat signs, such as skin discharges, sore throat (hot water gargle), and pyorrhea (brush teeth with fine salt). Salt counteracts toxins in the body, increases appetite, and is unfortunately overused, especially in the form of table salt.

Organ Function: Salty foods enter the kidneys and is considered a proper flavor for the spleen-pancreas, where it strengthens digestive functions.  It also fortifies a weak heart-mind (one and the same in Chinese thought) and improves mental concentration.

Seasonal Attunement: The descending, cooling nature of salty foods attunes to the colder seasons and climates, and such be used progressively more throughout fall and winter.

Individual Benefited: Salty foods moisten and calm the thin, dry, nervous person.

Cautions: Salty foods should be restricted by those with damp, overweight, lethargic, or edemic conditions, and those with high blood pressure. Seaweed, while salty, is an exception to this rule as its iodine and trace minerals speed up metabolism. Salt is a yin food, but excessive salt has the opposite effect and should be used sparingly by very yang people.

Sour (Liver/Gall Bladder)

Properties: A yin flavor; cooling quality; causes contraction and has a gathering, absorbent, astringent effect, to prevent or reverse abnormal leakage of fluids and energy, and to dry and firm up tissues. Enters the Liver and Gallbladder.  Corresponds to the Wood Element.

Uses: Used in the treatment of urinary dripping, excessive perspiration, hemorrhage, diarrhea, and weak, sagging tissues including flaccid skin, hemorrhoids, and uterine prolapse.  Sour foods derives from a variety of acids, some of the most common being citric acid, tannic acid, and ascorbic acid.  The sour flavoring found in black and green teas and blackberry leaves can be classified as astringent.

Organ Function: Sour flavor is most active in the liver, where it counteracts the effects of rich, greasy food, functioning as a solvent to breakdown fats and protein.  Sourness helps digestion to dissolve minerals for improved absorption and can help strengthen weakened lungs.  Sour foods are the proper food for the heart-mind and plays a vital role in organizing scattered mental patterns.

Seasonal Attunement: Sour foods draw one into harmony with the fall, the time of gathering and the beginning of the period of contraction (the onset of cooler weather).

Individual Benefited: Sour foods collect and hold together the dispersed, unpredictably changing personality.

Cautions: Those with dampness, heaviness in mind or body, constipation, and constrictions should use the sour flavor sparingly.

Sweet (Spleen/Stomach)

Properties: A yang flavor; regularly subdivided into full sweet (more tonifying and strengthening) and empty sweet (more cleansing and cooling). The sweet flavor, especially found in warming food, helps energy expand upward and outward in the body.  It is a harmonizing flavor with a slow, relaxing effect.  They also build yin in the body—tissues and fluids—and thus tonify the thin and dry person.

Uses: In the form of complex carbohydrates, sweet food is the center of most traditional diets; it energizes and yet relaxes the body, nerves, and brain. Sweet foods are used to reduce the harsh taste of bitter foods and to retard acute disease symptoms. Sweet foods in the form of complex carbohydrates also are suitable for treating the cold or deficient person. Enters the Spleen-Pancreas and Stomach.  Corresponds to the Earth Element.

Organ Function: Sweet foods soothe aggressive liver emotions such as anger and impatience. It is traditionally used to calm acute liver attacks.  Sweet foods also moisten dry conditions of the lungs, and slows an overactive heart and mind.

Seasonal Attunement: Sweet foods are appropriate for all seasons, and especially desirable during the equinoxes and solstices as they promote harmony. Warming and/or ascending sweet foods attune to the upsurges of spring, as do pungent foods.

Individual Benefited: The dry, cold, nervous, thin, weak, or scattered person needs whole sweet foods in greater quantity; the aggressive person needs sweet foods too for its retarding effect.

Cautions: The sluggish, overweight individual, or those with other damp signs, including mucus conditions, should take very sweet foods sparingly. Chewing carbohydrates well makes them much less mucus-forming and thus has a lighter, less damp impact on digestion. Too much sweet foods damages the kidneys and spleen-pancreas, weakens the bones, and causes hair loss.

Source: Pitchford, Paul. Healing with Whole Foods: Oriental Traditions and Modern Nutrition. North Atlantic Books: Berkeley, 1993. Print.