• Sharebar

Substance which irritates the tongue (especially the tip of tongue) as soon as it come s in contact with it and also cause excessive burning sensation in throat, chest or entire body and therefore induces watery secretion from nose and mouth to reduce severity of burning sensation is said to be spicy in taste.

Common substances that are spicy in taste are; Asafoetida, black pepper, long pepper, ginger, garlic, ajowan, basil etc.

Properties:

  1. Substances that are spicy in taste are very hot in nature.
  2. They are very light to digest.
  3. Also they are very dry in nature and its usage leads to dryness of watery secretions of body.
  4. Due to its hot nature, action of it is very strong in nature and therefore usually not suited for children or mild constitution.

Function:

  1. Due to its strong and very hot nature of action, spicy taste is basically responsible for digestion of food by increasing digestive fire. Bile and other digestive juices secreted during digestion are also of same taste and help in digestion of food. Spices like asafoetida, ajowan etc act in a similar way.
  2. It also has cleansing action over tongue and reduces excess watery secretion over it thereby improving the sensation of taste. This also leads to increased sense of hunger.
  3. Due to its strong and hot nature of action, it helps in keeping various channels of body free from blockage and thus helps in increased circulation and nourishment of body.
  4. It is very much useful in burning extra fats due to its strong and hot nature. Therefore it is useful in reducing excess weight for obese persons. For example, pepper, ginger etc used for same.
  5. It easily makes diet more palatable and tasty. Therefore various spices are used while cooking food.
  6. It reduces excess of watery secretions, mucous etc in stomach and has a cleansing effect on it which helps in controlling worm infestation’s removal of worms. It also prevents further growth of it. For example, Ajowan leaves of basil etc.
  7. Use of spicy substances leads to absorption of water content of tissues and dries up watery secretions like semen, breast milk etc which are very mild(cold) in nature. For similar reasons it leads to low urine output, reduced sweat and passage of dry and hard stools.

Overuse of it will lead to:

  1. Thirst: Overuse of it will lead to more absorption of water content of tissues and cause extensive dryness. This will lead to excessive thirst.
  2. Fatigue: With loss of tissue strength due to extensive dryness, overuse of it ill reduce overall strength and vitality of body.
  3. Bleeding: Due to its strong and hot nature of action, it would lead to bleeding, increase burning sensation in body, sense of imbalance, hyper acidity etc. For example, overuse of red chilly, garlic etc.
  4. Pain: Excess use of it will lead to increased pain sensations in body especially in bones of limb and pelvic region.
  5. Infertility: As it dries up watery content of semen, it would lead to loss of semen qualitatively and quantitatively resulting in infertility.

Note:

  1. Food should not be too spicy. Avoid regular use of red chilly, spicy curry etc in food.
  2. Try and restrict use of excess spices in food as in Chinese food or food outside home in restaurants etc.
  3. Person’s suffering from gastritis, hyper acidity, bleeding piles etc should strictly avoid use of spices and spicy food.
  4. Persons suffering from arthritis, pain etc should restrict or avoid use of spicy food.
  5. As it leads to overall loss of strength when used in excess, use of it should be in limited quantity especially during sexually active age.

As an exception to general rule, use ginger, garlic and long pepper do not have adverse effect on sexual strength of a person. Therefore they are used in combination with other drugs to increase sexual strength.