Know your Tongue.

The tongue has a coating, which represents the state of digestive function in our body. The coating of the tongue is actually made up of bacteria that reside on the tongue. It is interesting in that most people think they can scrape the coating off of the tongue. In fact, scraping the coating does very little and the bacteria will grow back immediately.

The fact that there are bacteria on the tongue should not be surprising in light of the fact that bacteria reside throughout our entire digestive tract. As such, you cannot actually remove the bacteria from your tongue just by scraping it.

The ideal tongue coating consists of a thin, white film on the surface of the tongue. A thin, white coating indicates that the stomach and digestive system is healthy and functioning in the process of transforming and digesting food.

 If the coating is grey, black  or brown, you can assume Vata toxins; if the coating is orange, reddish, yellow or green, this indicates Pitta toxins; and finally is there is a thick, whitish coating you can think Kapha toxins.This can be quite helpful as each toxin should be treated different, depending on which dosha is involved.