Food as fuel
Food is the fuel that enables us to exist, it gives us the energy for activity and the building blocks for growth and repair. There is no one single ‘superfood’ or faddy diet that is going to guarantee health but simply a good variety of fresh produce (with the occasional treat!) will give our body all it needs.
Dietary advise is a focal part of Chinese medicine
Dietary advice is seen as an important part of any treatment. A Chinese medicine practitioner will not tell you to make major exclusions from your diet (with the exception of sugar perhaps) but to increase certain foods and moderate others according to your TCM diagnosis. This is known as the dietary tilt, which is discussed below.
The energetics of food
Chinese dietary therapy looks not so much at the constituents of individual foods but at their effects on the body. Some foods have warming and stimulating effects whereas others may be cooling, some maybe moistening and others drying. Good examples, are foods such as ginger, garlic, lamb and peppers being at the warming end of the spectrum whereas cucumber, tomato and yoghurt are considered cooling.
There are five flavours
Foods can also be categorised into five flavours: sweet, salty, pungent, sour and bitter. Sweet foods are generally considered to be nourishing and moistening like root vegetables and meats. Salty foods including most seafoods tend to be cooling and can help to hold fluids in the body. Pungent or spicy foods like onion, cardamom or cumin have a warming action, dispersing stagnation and promoting flow. Sour foods include most fruits are cooling and in small amounts will aid digestion. Bitter foods like rhubarb or many culinary herbs like oregano and sage, will help to drain moisture from the body and counteract dampness.
There are also considerations as to how foods are cooked. Raw foods being the coldest and roasted being the warmest.
COLDEST Raw Steamed Boiled Stewed Stir fried Baked Deep fried Roasted WARMEST
The Dietary tilt
Variety and moderation are the keys to healthy eating but understanding our constitution can guide us to getting the right balance according to ‘who we are’. This is known as the dietary tilt. A cold person for example may need to include more Yang stimulating/warming foods whilst minimising cold foods. A good example of this is adding some cinnamon to our breakfast porridge, using more warming herbs such as garlic and basil in our general cooking and swap cucumber for red peppers and generally focusing on well-cooked, roasted foods instead of cold raw foods.
When we are feeling unwell, then the right foods can either hinder or assist our recovery. It is important that dietary therapy is gentle and patience is required to see lasting effects. Small changes (a gentle tilt!) over a longer period of time will provide the most benefit.
The information included here is designed to provide a flavour (pun) of what Chinese dietary therapy is all about. It is best to get a proper diagnosis from a qualified practitioner and that will help you to discover which category you fit into and which foods might benefit you more.
Nourishing Qi Nourishing Blood Resolving Damp Tonifying Yin Tonifying Yang
“In Chinese medicine, our ability to find and receive emotional nourishment is intimately linked to our digestive system. The digestive process is expressed at the mental level as the thinking process. Our powers of concentration and digestion are related and will influence each other. Overeating can make the mind sluggish however too much studying can produce cravings for sweet foods (a sign the digestion is weak) and worrying ‘knots’ the digestion. Often we can confuse emotional and nutritional needs, eating when in fact we need comfort or want to suppress feelings such as frustration or desire”. (Daverick Leggett, Helping Ourselves, Meridian press 2005)
