Tomato for Cough

Does Tomato help with cough (Kasa)? In one narrow way, yes. Ayurvedic kitchen medicine gives a single tomato remedy for dry cough, breathlessness and chest pain: one cup of tomato juice with one teaspoon of turmeric, two teaspoons of organic sugar and a pinch of ground clove, taken on an empty stomach.

That recipe is the whole of the case, and it comes with a strong caveat. The same tradition describes tomatoes as generally hard on the system and says raw tomatoes provoke all three doshas: Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Tomato is only recommended for healing when it is taken with the right spices.

So think of tomato as a vehicle for turmeric and clove in an occasional home remedy, not a cough herb in its own right. The core of Ayurvedic cough care depends on the type of cough, with classical formulas such as Sitopaladi Churna as the usual starting point.

Ayurveda sees every cough as breath-related Vata moving upward in a disturbed way through the respiratory channels. A dry, tickling cough with no mucus, often worse at night and sometimes with chest pain, is the Vata type (Vataja Kasa). That is the pattern the tomato remedy names: dry cough, breathlessness and chest pain.

Tomato's own nature

Red tomato is sour and slightly pungent in taste, with a sour post-digestive effect (Amla Vipaka, the taste a food leaves after digestion is complete). It is described as cooling in the stomach and heating in the intestines. Green and yellow tomatoes are sour, sweet and heating.

Raw, every type provokes all three doshas. This is why the cough recipe never uses plain tomato, and why the spices carry much of the weight.

What the other ingredients add

Turmeric and clove both appear elsewhere in Ayurvedic home care for cough: a warm salt and turmeric gargle, and sucking a whole clove with rock candy. Sugar softens the sourness of the juice, much as rock sugar forms the base of the classical cough powder Sitopaladi Churna.

What the evidence covers

This is a traditional food remedy. Our sources contain no clinical research on tomato juice for cough, and its value rests mainly on the spices it carries.

There is one tomato preparation for cough in Ayurvedic kitchen medicine, and it is meant for a dry cough with breathlessness or chest pain, not a wet, mucus-heavy cough.

The recipe

Timing

Take it on an empty stomach, then wait at least one hour before eating or drinking anything else. Our sources give no fixed course length, so treat it as an occasional remedy rather than a daily habit.

Everyday eating while you have a cough

Avoid raw tomato, which provokes all three doshas. When you do eat tomatoes, cook them with cumin, mustard and turmeric, the form Ayurveda considers acceptable for everyone once in a while. Do not combine tomato with milk, yogurt, cucumber or melon, which Ayurvedic food combining lists as poor pairings.

If you want to try tomato for a dry cough today, the simplest starting point is the traditional spiced juice.

Kitchen version: stir 1 teaspoon turmeric, 2 teaspoons organic sugar and a pinch of ground clove into 1 cup of tomato juice. Drink it on an empty stomach and wait at least an hour before eating.

The spices do much of the work here, so good-quality turmeric matters more than the tomato itself. For most acute coughs, Ayurveda's usual first step is the classical powder Sitopaladi Churna.

Find Organic Turmeric on Amazon ↗ Sitopaladi Churna ↗

Skip this remedy if you have acidity, kidney stones or gallstones, and see a doctor for any cough with blood or one lasting more than three weeks.