“seasonal regimen.” Simply eating the recipes from the 

seasonal chapters will get you started on this aspect of the Ayurvedic lifestyle. 

Changing your foods with the weather keeps you well

Traditionally, Ayurveda recognized six seasons, because the weather of the srilanka and all 

Indian subcontinent sees varying levels of heat, cold, and moisture, including 

monsoons. For our purposes in the europ, we identify four seasons, this way: 

SPRING: Cool and damp 

SUMMER: Hot and humid 

FALL: Cooling and increasingly dry 

WINTER: Cold and dry 

In spring, the environment is cool. The tastes that balance spring are pungent, bitter, and astringent. Pungency 

warms, melts, and mobilizes; bitter and astringent tastes lighten and reduce 

excess moisture. Reduce building foods, be sure to exercise, and eat only when 

Hungry

In the winter, dry and cold qualities accumulate. The increase of building 

qualities (dense, oily, warm, smooth, and so forth) protects the body from the 

cold, and you will experience an increase and thickening of the mucous 

membranes (in the sinuses, lungs, and intestines) to protect your system from the 

dry quality, which will only increase until the thaw in spring. A reaction to the 

combination of cold and dry could look like constipation, brittle or stiff feelings 

in the joints or bones, anxiety, and/or weight gain.

 make seasonal food 

choices, and observe a bit of lifestyle routine, you will lower your risk of getting 

sick at the change of seasons. Think about it: spring and fall, the major junctures 

in weather changes, are the times when many people become ill with colds, flus, 

and allergies.

spring season the body’s release of accumulated Ama and the melting of Kapha.

Ayurveda considers spring to be the ideal time to detox

Foods with bitter taste: kale, chard, collards, dandelion, bitter gourd, broccoli rabe, turmeric, fenugreek, curry leaf

Foods with pungent taste: arugula, leek, radish, turnip, scallion, ginger, black pepper, cumin, bay leaf, mustard, hing, rosemary, basil

Foods with astringent taste: beans, lentils, spinach, watercress, parsley, winter squashes, pumpkin, artichoke, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, millet, amaranth, barley, quinoa, buckwheat

Reduce foods with sweet, sour, and salty tastes.

Reduced heavy or sour fruits

Reduce heavy or watery vegetables

Increase lighter foods that are easy to digest, such as fruit and fresh vegetables.

Eat plenty of freshly cooked vegetables and a variety of lentils and beans

Support the process of opening up and detoxifying your body channels by drinking hot water and herbal teas.

Eat only when you are hungry

For this reason, ayurveda always emphasizes the importance of kindling the digestive fire with warm food and drinks. In spring especially, when the digestive fire has weakened and the coldness of kapha influences the body, we should avoid eating or drinking anything which is cold. 

warm water or ginger tea. This will help keep the digestive fire strong.

Try to all six tastes in every meal: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent. That’s not so easy to do, but we should at least eat all six tastes each day. Of these, the bitter, pungent, and astringent tastes balance kapha. The sweet, sour, and salty tastes increase kapha. While we should continue to eat all six tastes in spring, we should reduce sweet, sour, and salty, and give more emphasis to bitter, pungent, and astringent. 

Reference