Eating Out the Chinese Way - The History of Chinese Medicine Nutrition
By John Voigt
One should be mindful of what one consumes to ensure proper growth, reproduction, and development of bones, tendons, ligaments and channels and collaterals [i.e., meridians] This will help generate the smooth flow of qi [life energy] and blood, enabling one to live to a ripe old age.
From The Yellow Emperor’s Classic on Medicine.
The Yellow Emperor’s Classic On Medicine (Huang Di Nei Jing), circa second century BCE, is the most important ancient text on Chinese medicine. In it are the concepts of a balanced and complete diet, and probably the world's first dietary guidelines.
The Thermal Nature of Foods - Warming, Cooling & Neutral
Basic concerns are about Han (“cold”) and Re (“hot”) foods. Han foods such as kelp, wheat, vegetables, and pork possibly may cause diarrhea. Re foods such as ginger, pepper, mutton, and unripened guava possibly may cause heartburn or constipation. Wen (“neutral”) foods such as rice, beans, fish, and beef can help to repair the body’s tissues. Bu (strengthening) foods such as ginseng, deer velvet, and dates may be healing.
Food Relationships in Chinese Medicine - A Holistic Approach
But this is not about one food by itself being good or bad, it’s about the relationships of food. Chinese dietetics—as most past and present Chinese thought—is based on holistic concepts, not singularity concerns. For example, with the above foods, vegetables (a Han or so-called “cold” food) is usually cooked with some Re (a so-called “hot”) food such as ginger or pepper. That neutralizes or balances out the “cold” [yin] and “hot” [yang] aspects of each food, and helps create something good for you and delicious as well.
Along the same idea of a food gaining its meaning by its relationships to other foods, in classic Chinese cuisine we most often find the “neutral” food (the rice or noodles) along with the main meal (meat or fish), accompanied by various other dishes usually vegetables. For example, The yang of rare beef is balanced by yin of tofu or cool slices of fruit.
The Healing Nature of Foods
The foods need to be prepared in the proper way, vegetables not overcooked, but not raw either; small portions of meat or fish not fried. In The Yellow Emperor’s Classic we find, “Heavy and greasy food causes a change that may result in serious illness.”
Also from that book, from Chapter 81, section 22 we find: Five cereals (such as rice, sesame seeds, soya beans, wheat, millet) provide our basic nourishment. Five fruits (such as dates, plum, chestnut, apricot, peach) add what the cereals lack. Five animals (such as beef, dog meat, pork, mutton, chicken) give certain advantages that animals possess. Five vegetables (such as marrow, chive, bean sprouts, shallot, onion) provide a wide range of needed substances. If the food tastes and smells good, then eat it to replenish the body’s needs.
These guidelines are approximately two thousand years old, yet amazingly from that time to today most Chinese people followed them whenever they were able to do so. This article will close on how the tradition is being automatically preserved today without the restaurant or their customers knowing what is happening.
Now to make all this simple for the health (and food loving) reader. After all, the many millions of Chinese who go to their favorite restaurants aren’t bring along any of the ancient treatises on dietetics. Nevertheless, the traditional way of ordering and serving food seems to be right on the mark on what the ancient seers taught about food and good health. All over the world you will see this standard pattern in middle and smaller sized Chinese restaurants—(the more larger ones are becoming more geared to tourists and the new Chinese upper classes who eat like their western counterparts). Not surprisingly such non-traditional diets have been accompanied with an increase in western styled diseases.
Eating - The Chinese Way
Here’s how the “natives” eat, and how you can do the same.
Begin with those tiny bowls of free sweet and sour pickles, or pickled cabbage, or cooked peanuts, etc. that many restaurants just bring you without you asking for them. Something like an appetizer, but not quite; they prime the digestion. Then order several different vegetable dishes. And some rice. Then some fish (usually with the bones included—be careful don't swallow any); or some meat. And finish it all off with a soup. That will help your digestion. Traditionally the final close is making a big burp to show your appreciation to the cooks and servers, and remove any bad qi—but you might because of western propriety leave out that final gesture—(or is it better described as a bodily function noise?).
That’s it. Now go enjoy such a standard traditional and healthy meal. Best done in a large group of friends and family with chopsticks.
Postscript: For more about the proper kinds of food for health from both an eastern and western point of view, see my “Color Dietetics – With a Poster to Hang on the Wall. https://www.chinesemedicineliving.com/blog/color-dietetics-poster-hang-wall/
Sources and Further Information
Ho Zhi-chien. “Principles of Diet Therapy in Ancient Chinese Medicine: ‘Huang Di Nei Jing.” http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/apjcn/2/2/91.pdf
Sun Simiao on Dietetics in the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine Journal (Autumn 2013, vol. 10, no. 2). https://static1.squarespace.com/static/537fb379e4b0fe1778d0f178/t/5399d890e4b0bcfc5d028d47/1402591376077/Sunsimiao+on+dietetics.pdf
“Chinese food therapy.” Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_food_therapy
Some Other Interesting Info (Nerd Facts)...
Sun Simiao (581-682) who was known as “The King of Medicine” - (one of is greatest credentials is that he lived to be 101 years old) - taught that the prevention of disease should come before any medical treatment. However, if treatment was required, he believed that dietary concerns should never be neglected. He wrote, “Proper food is able to expel evil and secure the zang and fu organs [the viscera] to please the spirit and clear the will, by supplying blood and qi. If you are able to use food to stabilize chronic disease, release emotions, and chase away disease, you can call yourself an outstanding artisan. This is the special method of lengthening the years and “eating for old age,” and the utmost art of nurturing life. Sun Simiao, known as the “King of Medicine,” (581-682). https://static1.squarespace.com/static/537fb379e4b0fe1778d0f178/t/5399d890e4b0bcfc5d028d47/1402591376077/Sunsimiao+on+dietetics.pdf
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Image Credits
The featured image photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
Vegetable photo by David Vázquez on Unsplash
Bok Choy photo by Jodie Morgan on Unsplash
Soup photo by Elli O. on Unsplash
Cooling Cucumber Salad - Summer Recipe
By Emma Suttie, D.Ac, AP
Cucumbers are an important part of Chinese medicine food therapy and are packed with a multitude of health benefits. They are also the perfect food for summer. In Chinese medicine cucumbers are sweet, affecting the spleen, and cooling - helping the body stay cool in the hot weather. They have a high water content and are very moisturizing, helping you stay hydrated in the hot summer months. Cucumbers are also excellent detoxifiers, cleansing the body of impurities which build up no matter how hard we try to avoid toxins in our food and the environment. Cucumbers are great in a salad, delicious pickled, an excellent addition to any juice, and adding a few slices to your water will pack an extra punch of hydration niceness whether you are working out at the gym or on the beach doing yoga. Below is an impressive list of cucumbers health benefits.
Health Benefits
- Clears heat from the body; resolves fevers from summer heat and helps to prevent heat stroke
- Detoxifying
- Anti-inflammatory (most inflammations are due to heat)
- Cleanses & purifies the blood
- Strengthens the spleen
- Relieves thirst
- Benefits the heart
- Moistens the lungs
- Moistens and cleanses the large intestine
- Strongly alkalizing
- Reduces cholesterol
- Treats depression
- Benefits the skin - cucumbers speed healing in the skin and the juice speeds the healing of burns and wounds
- Aids digestion
- Stimulate hair growth
- Treats kidney and bladder infections
- Promotes urination
- Helps with weight loss
- Anti-cancer
- Aids constipation
- Relieves bad breath
- Promotes joint health
- Benefits the eyes (placing cucumber slices over the eyes calms hot, puffy, dry or irritated eyes).
- Kills tapeworms!
Cooling Cucumber Salad - Summer Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cucumbers
- 1 medium white onion (you can also use red onion)
- 1/4 cup vinegar (2oz)
- salt & pepper to taste
Directions
*You can make this tasty salad with the skin on or peel it off, its up to you. There are many health benefits to eating cucumber skin but as cucumbers are sensitive to pesticides, always try to buy organic, or soak them in a little apple cider vinegar which will neutralize the pesticides.
- Peel and cut the cucumbers lengthwise, then slice into 1/4 inch slices (or thinner if you like)
- Slice the onion in half, then slice thin
- Add cucumber and onion to a bowl and mix
- Add salt (I like pink Himalayan salt) & pepper to taste
- Add the vinegar
- Mix thoroughly and serve
This dish actually gets tastier the longer it sits, so you might want to make it a couple of hours before you plan to eat it for maximum deliciousness. ;)
Enjoy!
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If you would like a downloadable information sheet that will tell you all about how to live in harmony with the Summer season in Chinese Medicine, you can find it here - The Summer Season in Chinese Medicine.
The Best Yin Foods
By Emma Suttie, D.Ac, AP
One of the things that I love about Chinese medicine (and there are so MANY things I love about it) is how practical it is. Staying healthy is really about lifestyle, and a big part is that the foods we eat are the best medicine. Got a fever? Eat some cucumber or watermelon. Have the chills and can't get warm? Try eating some lamb, or a handful of cherries. The ancient Chinese had a vast knowledge of foods and their healing properties which is why nutritional therapy is one of the building blocks of Chinese medicine and still used by practitioners today. Food really is the best medicine.
Each food in TCM is seen to have a thermal property - warming, cooling or neutral. Conversely, the body can also be hot, cold or balanced, or neutral and certain illnesses introduce heat or cold into the body, so in Chinese medicine we eat cooling foods for excess heat, or warming foods for excess cold. Today, we will look at foods that nourish the yin / cold / water aspect of the body and are particularly beneficial if you have an excess of yang, fire or heat. But how do you know if you have excess heat? Below is a list of symptoms that point to an excess of heat or yang. If you have many of these, you might want to introduce some Yin foods into your diet to help clear the Yang and build Yin.
Signs of Heat in the Body
- Fever
- Aversion to heat
- Desires cold
- Redness - swellings, inflammation, rashes, sores
- Bloodshot eyes
- High blood pressure
- Extreme or uncontrollable anger or frustration
- Constipation
- Dark, yellow urine
- Desire for cold drinks
- Extreme thirst
- Blood in stools or urine
- Stools with a strong odour
- Red tongue with deep cracks
- Dry skin and hair
- Chapped lips
- Nose bleeds
- Canker sores
- Bad taste in the mouth
Other Factors that Contribute to
Foods Thermal Nature
There are several widely accepted factors that also affect the thermal nature of the foods we eat.
- Growing Time - Plants that take longer to grow (potatoes, carrots, cabbage, squash) are generally considered to be more warming, and those that grow quickly (lettuce, radish, cucumber, summer squash) are considered more cooling.
- Raw - Raw foods are more cooling that cooked foods.
- Refrigeration - Food that is chilled and eaten cold is more cooling.
- Fertilizer - Foods that are chemically fertilized because it is forced to grow quickly is considered more cooling. This includes more commercially grown fruits and vegetables.
- Colour - foods that are blue, green or purple in colour are considered cooler than foods that are red, orange and yellow. This even applies to the same foods, for example, a green apple is considered cooler than a red one.
- Cooking Methods - Foods that are cooked for longer periods of time, at higher temperatures are considered more warming. But cooking food on low heat for a longer period is more warming than cooking it at a high temperature for a shirt time.
- Chewing - Chewing food thoroughly helps the Spleen to digest it (because we love our Spleens, right?) and creates warmth. Even cooling foods can be warmed by chewing them thoroughly. Chewing also helps to break down the food more thoroughly before reaching the Stomach and the action of chewing releases saliva that helps break the food down further which helps assimilation and absorption and we want as much of that as possible!
The Best Yin Foods
Green Tea
Kelp and All Seaweeds
Tofu
Goat Milk / Yoghurt / Cheese
Sardine
Alfalfa Sprouts
Bok Choy
Cilantro
Banana
Watermelon
Blackberries
All Citrus Fruits
There are many yin foods, and these are only a few. Introducing yin foods into your diet is not only a good idea when you are suffering from an excess of yang like a fever, they are also good to eat in hotter months like the peak of summer to keep us hydrated and cool. So, next time you feel overheated or come down with a case of excess yang, reach for one of these yin foods (or many) and you will be amazed at how quickly you feel relief. :)
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Food as Medicine
Dietary therapy provides a powerful tool for correcting disharmonies and is used in conjunction with acupuncture, herbal therapy and Qi Gong to restore balance to the Essential Substances, Organ Systems and channels.
Article from http://www.shen-nong.com/eng/lifestyles/food_property_food_tcm.html
What are the energies, flavors and other properties of food?
In Western diet, foods are evaluated for proteins, calories, carbohydrates, vitamins, and other nutritional contents. However in Chinese diet (and that includes herbs), one looks for not only vitamins and minerals but also the energetic properties of food like energy, flavor and movement. Other less importance aspects include meridian tropism and common and organic actions. These refer to specific internalorgans or the meridians on which the foods can act. For example, celery acts on the stomach and lungs, carrot on the lungs and spleen.
According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), foods are just as herbs that can be selected and prepared appropriately to tonify, cleanse and regulate the body.
| 1. | The five energies of foods | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
The energies of foods refer to their capacity to generate sensations - either hot or cold - in the human body. The five kinds of energy are cold, hot, warm, cool and neutral, and this refers not to the state of the food but its effect on our bodies. For example, tea has a cool energy, it means that when we drink hot tea, it generates cool energy and it is therefore considered a cool beverage. Shortly after you have drunk hot tea, the heat begins to fade quickly and it begins to generate cool energy internally, allowing your body to cool off. Here are some food samples with different energies. |
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It is important to know about the energies of food because different energies act upon the human body in different ways and affect our state of health. If a person suffers from cold rheumatism and the pain is particularly severe on cold winter day, eating foods with a warm or hot energy shall relieve the pain considerably. Or if a person suffers from skin eruptions that worsen when exposed to heat, it is beneficial to eat foods with a cold or cool energy to relieve the symptoms. To seek a balance in diet, we can define food as predominantly yin or yang. If you eat predominantly yin foods, your body will be capable of producing more yin energy - darker, slower-moving and colder. In contrast, eating predominantly yang foods will produce more yang energy - faster, hotter and much more energetic. It's helpful to remember certain rules to determine the type of energy a food produces: |
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| 2. | The five flavors of foods | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Chinese think flavor is very important because it helps to send nutrition via the meridians to the correspondingorgans. If we eat a balanced meal with many tastes, we feel satisfied and don't binge. The five flavors of food include pungent (acrid), sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. |
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| Different flavors have their respective important effects upon the internal organs: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Some foods may possess two different flavors or a bland flavor which means it has little or not taste. For example, cucumbers have both sweet and bland flavors. Foods with a bland flavor usually promote urination and may be used as diuretic, coix seed and wax gourd are outstanding examples of this kind. In addition, foods with a strong scent are categorized as "aromatic", such as basil, fennel, coriander, peppermint and citrus fruits. These foods can be eaten to enliven the spleen, stimulate appetite, promote qi(vital energy) circulation, resolve dampness and turbidity, refresh the mind, open up the orifices, and detoxify.
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| 3. | The movements of foods | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Food acts on the body through specialized movements. Depending on the properties of food, food moves in different regions within the body and can driveqi (vital energy) in the same direction as well. TCM claims that disease is caused when any of the external or exogenous evils exert too much influence on our body, foods that have specialized movements can be used to counter these evils. For example, when a person suffers from mild flu (which caused by exogenous wind invasion), foods with a floating action such as green onion and fresh ginger can expel the evils out of the body. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TCM has classified the movements of foods into four aspects. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| In general, foods like leaves and flowers and those with light and loose qualities possess a tendency to move upwards or outwards; while roots and seeds and fruits that are heavy and hard in qualities possess a tendency to move downwards or inwards. However there are many other exceptions and some foods can move in two directions e.g. lettuce possess both downward and inward movements. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Two other terms are also used to describe the movements of foods: glossy (sliding) and astringent. Glossy foods such as honey, banana, white fungus and milk facilitate movement by acting as a lubricant. This is why these are good for constipation and internal dryness. On the other hand, astringent foods such as guava, plum, euryale seed and lotus seed slow down movement, which is good for diarrhea and seminal emission. The movements of foods can be changed through certain methods of cooking. |
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References
| English References: | |
| 1. | Chinese System of Food Cures Prevention & Remedies by Henry C. Lu.Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 1986. |
| 2. | The Tao of Food, Richard Craze and Ronifjay, 1999 Godsfield Press. |
| 3. | Chinese Food: a Holistic Therapy by Tom Neuhaus, www.hopedance.org |
| 4. | Medicinal Food in China by Junshi Chen, M.D. http://newcenturynutrition.com |
| 5. | Cooling the Summer with Food: An Introduction to Medicinal Foods by Yanfang Wang, M.D., Ph.D. http://newcenturynutrition.com |
| Beautiful feature image photo by Jenny Dorsey on Unsplash |