Vida Lavana

Vida lavana, or bida salt, one of the five salts of Ayurveda: salt fired with plant matter into a dark, sulphurous salt, traditionally used for gas and digestion.

Vida lavana, also written bida or bit lavana, is one of the five salts Ayurveda names, with rock salt, sea salt, sauvarchala and audbhida. It is a prepared salt: classical recipes heat common salt with amla or with plant ashes until it changes, much as kala namak is kiln-fired with herbs and charcoal. The result is mostly sodium chloride, darkened by traces of sulphur compounds that give an eggy smell.

Ayurveda counts vida lavana as warming and sharp, and uses it to ease gas and help the downward movement of wind in the bowel. There is little modern research on it as a distinct salt. Like any salt, it adds sodium.

• Gas and bloating
• Digestive salt
• Ayurvedic five salts