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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 |
| 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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