spring nutrition

spring nutrition,

n in Tibetan medicine, the adjustment of an individual's eating habits to spring weather. Specifically, between the winter and summer solstice, the digestive processes within the gastrointestinal tract are believed to progressively decrease in comparison to the activity during the winter. The change in atmospheric conditions diminishes the demand for energy provided by the absorptive and digestive functions. As a result, because the functions associated with badahan and schara gradually weaken, they become quite vulnerable to errors in dietary habits. As a rule, individuals are instructed to consume foods with bitter, rough, pungent, and astringent tastes that are characteristic of spring fruits and vegetables or to fast occasionally to decrease the amount of burden placed on the digestive processes within the body. See also schara and badahan.