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Chinese Food Therapy
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The Background |
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Chinese food therapy dates back as early as
2000 BC. However, proper documentation was
only found around 500 BC. The Yellow
Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine also
known as the Niejing, which
was written around 300 BC, was most
important in forming the basis of Chinese
food therapy. It classified food by four
food groups, five tastes and by their
natures and characteristics.
During the Chau dynasty (16 BC), food
therapy was established as a specialist
field. The state even had a food specialist
serving the emperor in the imperial court.
It was during the Tang dynasty (608-906 AD)
that food therapy became popular and the
classic books on the subject were published.
Throughout Chinese history, healthcare was
not the responsibility of the state but
rather the responsibility of every ordinary
citizen. People used their own resources to
find cures when they became sick, which
meant that most people could not afford to
be sick. This is why preventive healthcare
is so popular in China. Out of the four
pillars of health - lifestyle, diet,
exercise and mind - diet is most important
because food is considered the primary cause
of sickness as well as the main reason for
living long and healthy.
Food plays a center role in Chinese culture.
Cooking good food for family members is a
lifelong profession for most women. Children
are brought up with some knowledge of the
nature of their daily foods. Dietary
restriction is commonly understood and
observed. Eating well and healthy is almost
a national obsession and definitely the most
valued activity of family life.
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Herbal Medicine and Food Therapy |
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"Medicine and food are of the same sauce",
the Neijing says. When the Chinese
discovered farming and agriculture in the
early days, they discovered the medicinal
properties of food. Since then, food has
been studied and analyzed for its medicinal
effects on people. This knowledge enables
people to use food as the first line of
defense to ward off common sicknesses and
diseases. It is only when food alone cannot
solve the health problem that people seek
the help from medical practitioners.
When treating sickness, Chinese doctors use
herbal remedies initially to control the
problem. They apply tried-and-true formulas
with slight variations to meet the patient's
specific conditions. Mixing herbs of similar
properties increases the overall
effectiveness. Mixing herbs of different
properties can moderate the effects of the
main herbs, complement the actions and/or
minimize any adverse side effects. Some
herbs can be as harsh as drugs, very
forceful and effective but not to be taken
continuously.
Herbal medicine comes from plants, animals
and minerals sources. Plant sources are
roots, stalk, and bark, leaves, flowers,
fruits and seeds of wild vegetation. Some
can only be found in extreme climates and
mountainous terrain. Animal sources include
insects, marine products and game. Mineral
sources include crushed stones, fossilized
bones and crushed shells. Herbal remedies
are mostly decocted into teas, to be taken
warm and are very bitter in taste. They are
used to control and treat the predominant
symptoms of sickness. Once the sickness is
under control, food therapy is used to
continue the treatment.
This combination of foods and herbs to make
medicinal dishes to treat sickness is food
therapy. When herbs of similar, supporting
or enhancing natures are added to food, they
intensify the medicinal effects. When herbs
of opposing natures are added, they lower
the impact or change the effects on the
body. Therapeutic foods are designed to
assist the body in healing itself for
permanent cure. The herbs used are superior
herbs or food herbs with little or no
adverse side effects.
Medicinal food is most effective when taken
regularly for a few days or up to a few
weeks. Patients going through the treatment
gain a better understanding of their body's
systems and know what to eat to prevent
future reoccurrence. Some simple therapeutic
recipes have become popular family dishes
and the more precious ones are delicacies in
Chinese cuisine.
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The Four Food Groups |
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The four food groups in the Chinese diet are
grains, fruits, meats and vegetables. Dairy
products, especially cow's milk, are not
considered suitable for humans.
The Niejing defines "grains for
sustaining, vegetables for filling, fruits
for supporting, meats for enhancing."
Grains and vegetables are regarded as the
basic foods necessary to sustain life. They
should form the major part of our diet.
Meats and fruits are supporting and
complementary foods and should be eaten in
moderation.
A balanced Chinese diet comprises 40 percent
grains, 30 to 40 percent vegetables, 10 to
15 percent meats and the rest in fruits and
nuts.
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The Five Tastes |
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Foods are classified by the five tastes:
sweet, sour, bitter, salty and pungent. Each
taste acts on or has direct influence on a
specific vital organ. When each taste is
consumed in moderation, it benefits the
corresponding organ. Over-indulgence in any
taste harms the organ and creates imbalance
among the five vital organ systems.
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Taste |
Sweet |
Sour |
Bitter |
Salty |
Pungent |
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Act on Organ System |
Spleen/Stomach |
Liver/Gall bladder |
Heart/Small Intestine |
Kidney/Bladder |
Lungs/Large Intestine |
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Sweet acts on the spleen and stomach helping
digestion and neutralizing the toxic effects
of other foods. Sour acts on the liver and
gall bladder and controls diarrhea and
excessive perspiration. Bitter acts on the
heart and small intestine and reduces body
heat and excessive fluids and induces
diarrhea. Salty foods act on the kidneys and
bladder and soften hardness of muscles or
glands. Pungent acts on the lungs and large
intestine and induces perspiration and
promotes energy circulation.
The five organ systems control and support
each other. Proper coordination only exists
when there is no one organ stronger or
weaker than the rest. Since the five tastes
have direct influences on your organs, your
diet should have a good combination of the
five tastes in order to promote internal
balance and harmony.
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The Nature of Food |
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Chinese medicine defines the natures of
foods as hot, cold, warm, cool, wet and
neutral. It is the same definition as our
body constitution.
Yang Yin
Hot < Warm < Neutral > Cool > Cold
Knowing your body's constitution and the
nature of foods are necessary to eat right
for your type. When the body is in balance,
it is in good health and is more resistance
to disease and external evils.
You are born with a specific body
constitution determined by genes and the
diet of your mother when carrying you.
However, your diet can change its
constitution after birth. Eating foods that
are in contrast to your body's constitution
is beneficial because it balances out the
effects. This is why people of cold
constitution can eat a lot of heat excess
foods without getting sick and vice versa.
So, what is good food for others can be bad
food for you. You just have to eat according
to your constitution.
The nature of food can also affect your
moods. Too much hot or yang food brings
about over excitement. Too much cold or yin
food brings about sadness and fearfulness.
Foods that are neutral in nature are good
for everyone and they promote clear thinking
and reasoning.
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The Action of Food |
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The proper flow of energy around your body
is most important in keeping your system in
good order and healthy. Food affects the
flow because of its movement characteristic.
It can move energy outward, inward, upward
and downward.
Food moving outward promotes the flow
of energy from the center of the body to the
surface. It induces perspiration and
releases body heat. When the body is
suffering from wind-heat attack resulting in
fever, it is important to move heat outward.
Inward-moving food promotes the
opposite effects. When people are having
profuse perspiration, night sweat, premature
ejaculation and frequent urination,
inward-moving food is used to contain the
excessive outward movement. Upward-moving
food controls diarrhea, prolapsed anus or
uterus and falling stomach. Downward-moving
food controls vomiting, food-rejection,
constipation and energy obstruction.
It is beneficial to know about the movement
of most common foods in order to use them to
your health advantage.
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The Seasonal Effects
Eat According to the Season |
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In Chinese medicine, all illnesses can be
prevented if you constantly observe and
maintain the balance of qi (vital energy) in
your body. There is good qi and bad qi
resulting from external influences - the
weather, and from internal influences - our
food. For example, a diet with too many
spicy and deep-fried foods generates
excessive heat and hot-qi. It dries up the
internal body fluid, causes constipation and
dries up lips and skin. It is worse in
summer when the weather is hot and the body
loses water through perspiration. To bring
the body back to the right balance, you need
to eat cool-food such as watermelon, citrus
fruits or white turnips to counter the
internal and external heat. If the imbalance
is not rectified promptly, the body can
develop a deficiency in protecting-qi and
you become ill. Eating to counter the
seasonal excesses or evils is a very
effective way in staying well.
In spring, it is the season dominated
by wind. When the pores of your skin
dilate due to the warmer temperatures after
the cold winter, it is easier for
"wind-evil" to enter the body causing
coughing, a stuffy or runny nose, headaches,
dizziness and sneezing. It is important to
eat food that can eliminate excessive wind
in the body during spring.
In summer, it is heat / fire
that dominates with symptoms such as excess
body heat, profuse sweating, parched mouth
and throat, constipation and heart
palpitations. When summer heat combines with
dampness, it results in abdominal
pains, vomiting and intestinal spasms.
Cooling yin foods will help, while overly
hot yang foods should be avoided. Iced
drinks are cool in temperature, but not cool
in nature. They can damage the spleen and
stomach causing more health problems.
In autumn, dryness dominates and can
easily injure the lungs, causing heavy
coughing, blood in the sputum, dry nose and
throat and pains in the chest.
"Inner-dryness" can be a result of profuse
sweating, vomiting, bleeding or diarrhea.
The symptoms are dry and wrinkled skin, dry
hair and scalp, dry mouth and cracked lips,
and dry stomach with hard and dry stools.
Insufficient body fluid is harmful. You
should eat more nourishing yin food to
promote body fluid and soothe the lungs.
In winter, cold is a "yin-evil",
which dominates and injures the body's yang
energy. If cold enters the body through the
skin, it produces symptoms of fever, cold,
headaches and body pain. If it reaches the
meridians, it produces muscle cramps and
pains in the bones and joints. If it enters
as far as the internal organs, cold excess
causes nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal
pains, coldness in limbs and many other
complications. To prevent the attack of
cold, plenty of warming yang foods and
slightly fatty foods should be included in
the diet. And in extreme cold, a few warming
yang herbal medications should be consumed
regularly.
The external evils or the six excesses -
wind, cold, summer heat, dampness, dryness
and fire - affect everyone differently.
They attack people when and where they are
weakest. Healthy people with strong immune
system are least affected. Eating to
strengthen the body's resistance lowers the
chance of catching seasonal sicknesses.
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Body Constitution
Eat According to Your Body's Constitution |
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It is very important to understand your
body's constitution or type so that you know
what foods to eat that are complementary and
what foods to avoid. Body constitution can
be classified into five types: hot, warm,
neutral, cool and cold. With neutral in the
center, hot and warm are yang types, and
cool and cold are yin types.
Yang Yin
Hot < Warm < Neutral> Cool > Cold
Body type is usually determined by the
following characteristics: If you are always
hot and have warm hands and feet even in
winter, always energetic and almost
restless, underweight by at least 20 pounds,
and have a high sex drive, you belong to the
hot type. If you prefer summer to winter,
are normally not tired, fairly active and
enjoy sex more than food, you are the warm
type. On the reverse, if you are always
cold, with cold hands and feet even in
summer, overweight by at least 20 pounds,
normally tired, easy going and quite patient
and have a low sex drive, you are the cold
type. If you prefer winter to summer, just
slightly overweight, normally lazy and
fairly relaxed, and enjoy food more than
sex, you belong to the cool type. If you
have a combination of cool and warm
symptoms, you are likely to have a neutral
body type.
Knowing your body type helps you choose
foods to maintain good balance. A person
with a yang body type should eat more yin
foods and vice versa. A person having a yin
body type and eating too much yin foods
drives his or her body to a yin extreme. The
body's natural defense mechanism will show
signs of rejection, which western medicine
describes as food allergies. If the
imbalance is not rectified, the person will
become ill.
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Sickness Dependent
Eat According to the Nature of Sickness
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Sickness has yin and yang characteristics as
well. When you become sick, you should
identify the nature of your sickness first
and then use foods of the opposite nature to
balance the yin and yang effects.
Usually, by observing the patient, it is
quite easy to find out the nature of his or
her sickness. If the patient feels better
under warmer surroundings and enjoys warmer
foods and drinks, the person most likely is
suffering from yin sickness. Yang food such
as ginger is effective. If the person is
having a fever and a cooler environment and
cold drinks gives him or her more comfort,
the sickness is most probably of the yang
type. Yin food such as mung beans and
watermelon should be eaten to restore
balance. If it is too damp causing water
retention, drying foods such as broad beans
and job's tears should be used. If the
sickness is causing qi flowing in the wrong
direction resulting in hiccups or vomiting,
food with downward movement of energy such
as ginger and chive should be used. If there
is fever, food of outward movements helps to
induce perspiration therefore lowering the
temperature.
When we are sick, we need extra nutrition
for the body to fight the sickness. A
healthy spleen/stomach system is most
important for digesting and absorbing
nutrients from foods. We should avoid cold
drinks, raw foods, hard to digest foods and
oily and deep-fried foods, which add an
extra burden to the digestive system. Easy
to digest foods such as soups are most
suitable.
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Needs Driven
Eat According to Age and Needs |
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To stay healthy, you should eat according to
your age and physical needs. Over-eating or
under-eating are both harmful to your
health.
Young children whose bodies are developing
healthy bones and muscles need a diet rich
in protein and calcium. They are highly
active and should eat regularly to maintain
their energy levels. Teens need a good
quantity, well-balanced diet with lots of
calories and nutrients as they develop
toward maturity. Older people whose
digestive system's are weakening and who are
less physical active should eat less and
easier to digest foods. Professional people,
such as athletics or construction workers,
should eat more, especially carbohydrates to
maintain their energy. People whose
profession requires them to think can
nourish their brain with a protein-rich
diet.
A diet that doesn't provide the necessary
nutrition to support the physical demands or
is in excess of what the body needs is
harmful and could lead to serious health
problems. Eating three meals a day at fixed
times, in moderation and with lots of
variety is recommended.
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The Application |
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Eating food according to your constitution
and in harmony with the climate is
fundamental to staying well. Understanding
common diseases, knowing how to read their
early symptoms and knowing the nature and
characteristics of foods are keys to eating
right for preventive healthcare.
Chinese medicine believes that most diseases
progress from initial stage with obvious
surface symptoms or external conformation
and develop into bigger problems with
internal conformation. If we can
identify problems at the initial stage and
treat them with dispersing drugs, we can
stop them from progressing further. When
diseases turn internal, they become chronic
in nature and are more difficult to treat.
The treatment starts by treating the
interior symptoms. When the interior
problems are corrected, the surface symptoms
disappear automatically.
During sickness, it is important to eat
foods that are complementary to the
treatment so that relief can be achieved
sooner. Usually Chinese doctors explain the
nature of the problem and give advice on
what foods to eat and what to avoid during
that time.
Most therapeutic food dishes are eaten as
meals or with meals and repeated for days or
sometimes weeks until the body has enough
nutrition to repair itself. The results are
more comprehensive and permanent. After
recovery, repeating the recipe at regular
intervals is recommended for maintenance
purposes.
Eating purposely for health requires
knowledge, time and effort. Investing in
your food is an investment in yourself;
health and quality of life will follow.
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