Herbal Therapy: The Bitter Taste of Traditional Chinese Medicine

What is Herbal Therapy in Traditional Chinese Medicine

Herbal medicines, or therapies, are a part of the overall healing and wellness system of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The overarching goal is to bring balance to bodily systems, and maintain wellness through our ever-changing lives and surroundings. Many Herbal therapies are also prescribed with dietary changes, to support the healing process. With any health practice, there is a great focus on balance, which we talk briefly about in this article.

Types of Taste

In TCM, there are five basic tastes, each important to our diet’s constitution which affect how we feel and perceive our surroundings. Typically we associate foods with single tastes, but single food items and meals will often contain most, if not all, of these food tastes. 

Firstly there are Sweet tastes, which are connected to strength, energy, and a short-term feeling of enrichment. Sweet things will often help give us the energy to complete tasks, and to find the motivation for productive work. However, an overabundance of sweetness in our diets can result in overconsumption of various foods, as we try to chase the energy it can give us. This can lead to weight gain as well as feelings of anxiety.

Second is Salt, which is essential to the taste of our foods. Salty foods are connected with feelings of comfort and seething. You may often reach for salty pretzels or popcorn when relaxing to watch a movie or TV show. Too little salt could impact your comfort, and you may feel disconnected from your work or on edge, However too much salt can impact our productivity due to an increase in lethargy and tiredness from consistent feelings of comfort and safety.

Up next there’s Spicy tasting food. Despite spicy foods being contentious for or against their hot flavour, they are connected with feelings of excitement and warmth. Depending on how spicy your foods are you may even develop some will-powered endurance to get through the heat. Spicy foods help us to be more aware of our mouths and how we taste and eat. Foods that are too spicy, or an overconsumption of spicy foods can result in stomach imbalances, leading to cramping, pain, sweating, and hot flushes. 

Then there’s Sour tasting foods, which help us to be alert and aware of our food, its tastes and textures. Sour foods are also good to help regulate our stomach acids, as well as helping to unblock stagnant Qi and Blood flow pathways.

Finally there is the Bitter taste which, similar to Sour tastes, helps us to be more alert. However, it is a more whole-body alertness stemming from exciting the heart. Making both us and our body more conscious of what we are eating. In this way, our gut becomes more alert and aware, working harder in conjunction with our liver, pancreas, and kidneys to properly digest, breakdown, and remove wastes and toxins from our body. Bitterness can be difficult to overdo, but an overconsumption of bitter foods can begin clearing out our gut of healthy compounds and microbes. An underconsumption of bitterness may result in stagnant Qi and Blood flow due to a build up of wastes and toxins in the body that aren’t being properly removed. 

Is Bitter Better?

Bitter tasting foods are often left behind as they aren’t appealing to most people. Often causing discomfort as we are accustomed to more enjoyable flavours of sweetness, saltiness, and spiciness. This is often reflected in our daily diets, where bitter tasting plants have been consumed less and less. Although the bitter flavour is not as appetising as other flavours, it is still useful.

As many herbal therapies work to produce balance within the body, they are often composed of bitter tasting plants, utilising the effects of the bitter taste as well as the plant’s compounds to assist the gut and digestion. So, although bitter flavours are important and can be beneficial to an individual’s constitution, Herbal therapies are not always bitter, or may be varying degrees of bitter. This is because the goal is to subsidise the lacking elements of your regular diet and constitution, meaning that as your lifestyle, diet, workload, and daily activities change, so will your prescribed herbal therapies. 

Balance Across Seasons

As the seasons change, so does our constitution. Whether this be seasonal activity or workload fluctuations, or changes in our behaviour, diet and lifestyle. Dee Volek, from the Premier Medical Group, wrote a wonderful piece about how we can ground our health and wellbeing in times of seasonal change through exercise and risk management, which you can read more about here. 

Through the seasons, we may consume more of specific tastes to balance our constitutions in line with the seasonal changes. In Springtime we may consume more sour tastes to be more alert and awake as we move into the Summer. During Summer, we may consume more spicy tastes to embrace excitement, warmth, and motivation from the previous alertness of Spring. As the seasons change into Autumn, we may consume more salty tastes to calm and soothe us unto the colder months ahead. During Winter, we may consume more sweet tastes to give us energy and enrichment through the cold months, where we may be naturally lacking the motivation to get moving.

It is important for us to be aware of how our behaviours and diets change through the seasons, or under various circumstances. This allows us to build routines to help us remain grounded in health and wellbeing to promote our own harmonious relationship with our health and the world around us. 

Written by Harrison Borough