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6.5.3 Emotional Effects of Tastes

The tastes also affect us psychologically. Expressions such as “a dried up old bag”, he’s still bitter after all these years,” “She’s a sour puss”, “He’s still bitter after all these years,” “She’s a sour puss”, “isn’t she sweet?”, “He has a sharp tongue”, “an old salt”, “it left a sour taste in my mouth”, are all familiar to us. All these sayings express emotional tastes or frames of mind. It is said that the effect of emotional taste is stronger than the taste resulting from food and herbs. As with all forms of health, our mental attitude plays a decisive role in maintaining and healing ourselves. Sweet represents love, sour represents envy, salty represents greed, pungent represents anger, bitter represents grief, and astringent represents fear.

It should be noted that traditionally taste is considered the first and least strong in medical treatments or therapy. It is generally stated that taste is overcome by the long-term effect of herbs or food. This in turn is overcome by the action which gives way to the “Catch 22” effect, or the special gift of a plant. We can also understand “taste” as the pharmacological action of the food or plant being used. Therefore, taste can be used primarily for our daily food regimen and herbal supplements, but for medical needs the special action of an herb should be given primary consideration.