Early Summer Flavors, Flavor Theory Summed Up
Your Guide to Early Summer Flavors for Easy Living!
KISS: Keep It Simple, Sweetie! Eat seasonally - greens, berries, and fruits from the Farmers’ Market or Community Supported Agriculture. Through either one, you’ll also - more than likely - have access to local butchers. Seek them out if you need to.
Sweet flavor, as in some fruits and flowers, coconut, and cooked carrots supports kapha as a balance to accumulating Vata. Vata is movement, and Kapha is structure. Movement without boundaries is chaos and not supportive of health. Contrary to popular belief, pitta is not accumulating, but will later in the Summer. Remember, too, that with each accumulation, we have an opportunity to strengthen the associated dosha with our choices.
Sour flavor in berries, where it’s tempered with a little sweet and cool as the cucumbers that will be ready later in the summer. The sour and bitter flavors help to support digestion, and breath and can help to metabolize fats we’re burning from our winter stores.
Avoid getting your sour from ferments, which combine the flavor with warming, drying, and aggravating qualities to digestion. Avoid alcohol, “booch” (kombucha), yogurt, and other ferments for a bit during early summer, and focus on the clean, clear tastes of herbal teas and filtered water. Infuse your water with berries!
Remember, we’re not aiming at rigid rules, so if wine, spirits, or beer are part of your social and recreational preference, opt for the lighter version, alternate with water, and occasionally use it as a meditation. 80/20 or thereabouts is often a good rule of thumb. “Dry January” has become a thing because of New Year’s, but that’s a better time seasonally to have spirits if that’s your thing. Dry June may be a useful reflection on how you feel when you choose differently for a while, intentionally.
Is yogurt non-negotiable? Try coconut yogurt, where the sweetness of coconut can mitigate the other qualities.
The bitter flavor still predominates in the vegetables growing seasonally: greens of all kinds, sprouts, lentils, green fava beans, and lima.
Sprout, sprout, Baby! Grow your own in a simple jar - or head to the Farmers’ Market for this one, too!
More on Early Summer Yoga + Habits here.
Four tiered sprouter with water dripping down over broccoli seeds.
Make your own sprouts - less expensive and so rewarding! Like a mini, edible garden on your counter.
Steps:
Soak 1/4-1/3 cup chosen seeds in water 12-24 hours. They’re ready when some of the hulls are breaking open to reveal the lighter active seed inside.
Place all in a mason jar or your chosen sprouter - they make them in fired clay, safer plastics and wire meshes. If it’s tiered, distribute the seeds about evenly.
Leave in a spot where they receive natural light on your counter.
Water 1-2 times daily.
See their progress into sprouts daily - you can eat them any time, but they’re best when they look like a crew cut :-)
When they’re ready, store in the fridge to slow the growth and have fresh sprouts on your salads, in your soups, mix them for salads, grab a handful for a great, refreshing snack!
Start soaking your next batch a couple of days before you’ll need them!
Good sprouting seeds: lentils, broccoli, kale, spinach, alfalfa, beet, carrot, clover, fenugreek for an extra big flavor punch and a great digestive, green pea, mung bean, mustard, radish and sunflower seeds.
Guide to Flavors and Macro-/micro-nutrients
Sweet = Carbs, quick, storable energy (grains, sugars, roots, coconut, cooked carrots, corn, squash, peas, cherries*)
Sour = Improve fat metabolism, drying and increase mineral absorption (Lemon, grapefruit, cherries*, Ferments =yogurt, tamarind, sour kraut, wine, pickles)
Salty = Hydration, Minerals (sea veg and olives… and, um, salt)
Pungent = Digestion, Micronutrients like capsaicin (chilis, ginger, cinnamon - which incorporates sweetness, so a great option for many seasons and people)
Bitter = Flavonoids and calcium, Stimulate breath and metabolism (turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, some herbal teas, greens, green veg, coffee, chocolate, orange peel). “Bitter is Better!” This phrase is often used to remind us that though we tend to avoid this flavor, the health benefits of edible, non-poisonous natural sources are legion.
Astringent = Vitamins, absorbs water and dries fats (cranberries, unripe bananas, citrus, beans, green and black tea, brassica family vegetables, celery)
Cherries are seasonal, sweet and sour, so a great choice for Early Summer!
For more on flavor theory - or biocharacteristics, see this page from the American Association of Biocharacteristics Clinicians.
For Early Summer asana (yoga posture) focus, conscious breathing (pranayama) to cultivate, and daily habit (dinacharya), check out this article I wrote on Medium: “Spring to Summer Yoga + Daily Routine”! That’s a friend link, Friend - everyone reads for free :-)
To support Medium as the coolest place to read some of the most engaging minds, and Badlands Yoga’s mission to help everyone improve their health through simple, joyful daily habits, join Medium for only five bucks a month through this link. You’ll get unlimited access to every story and a wealth of thought-provoking, thoughtful insight and motivation.
See below for some helpful reminders about backbends and summer poses :-)
Backbends are the signature poses for Early Summer! What other backbends do you love?
Remember to engage the elevator and drawstring to support your more mobile lumbar spine and use your cobra muscles to create breadth across the chest and pecs, strength in your upper back in movement in lymph, breath and diaphragm!
Backbends are the signature poses for Early Summer!
Camel is pictured here, which you can also do standing, clasping your hands behind your back. What other backbends do you love?
Remember to engage the elevator, drawstring, and zipper to support your more mobile lumbar spine and use your cobra muscles to create breadth across the chest and pecs, strength in your upper back in movement in lymph, breath, and diaphragm!
Inhale deeply, exhale completely. Words to live by.
