Chinese Food Cures

Using Food as Medicine

Have you ever considered how your food affects you on an energetic level? What we eat provides nourishment, vitamins and minerals and helps form the building blocks for all vital processes in our body. And according to Chinese Medicine, the properties inherent in our food effect the way we feel physically, mentally and emotionally. Just imagine that when choosing what to eat for lunch you considered not only what sounds tasty, calories, servings of vegetable, grain and protein but also how the food would impact the overall quality of your health. This is the reality of using food as medicine. The foods we crave, the foods to which we have aversions and the nature of the foods we eat can be used to help, or hinder, our overall health.

In Chinese medicine, our food has three very important qualities: heat, cold and damp. Sounds simple enough but these fundamental properties are reflected in nature, in everything around and inside us. These three properties are not just referring to the temperature at which something is cooked, but the actual nature of the food. We’ll look more specifically at which foods fit into what category, but if you’ve ever eaten a spicy pepper, you know what I’m talking about: your face gets red, you start to sweat and your tongue burns…all signs of a hot-natured food. What Chinese medicine suggests is that your constitution also has hot, cold and damp properties and that you can use food to balance out those properties and to guide your body towards better health.

In order to choose which foods are best for you, you’ll want to determine whether you are hot, cold or damp-natured. Most of us have several characteristics in each category, so it can seem confusing at first. But if any of the signs in a category feel more like symptoms than just characteristics to you, then that is the category of foods you will want to avoid. So which category do you fit into? A hot-natured person tends to be someone with a robust constitution, they usually speak loudly, have a red or flushed face or a big barrel chest. People with a heat imbalance often have trouble with skin eruptions or rashes, a red tongue (as opposed to a pale tongue) and they will feel hot or warm and generally thirsty. They also tend towards constipation. A cold-natured person will be more withdrawn, maybe sallow complected or pale and have a pale tongue. They tend to feel cold when others are comfortable and have an aversion to cold weather, food and drinks. Often times a cold imbalance will cause a person to have chronic watery mucus in their nose or chest and frequent, pale urination. A damp-natured person tends to be overweight. They feel heavy, sluggish and tired and will usually have a thickly-coated tongue. They have a craving for sweets. Damp-natured people can also have chronic phlegm and possible skin conditions but they may also have difficulties with their digestion and have looser stools. All of their symptoms will be exacerbated in damp or humid weather.

Below is a table of hot, cold and damp-natured foods. In general, if you have several symptoms in any one category, you will want to be more diligent about avoiding foods that will exacerbate the problem. For instance, let’s say you’ve determined that you are a damp-natured person. You have chronic, achy joints that are worse when it rains; you are a little overweight, tend to have looser stools and feel sluggish during the day. You will want to limit or avoid many of the damp-natured foods listed below. If, for instance you find that you are equally damp and hot-natured—say you also have trouble with eczema, have a short temper and hate the hot summer weather—you’ll want to limit the foods in the “hot” category as well. Or, if you are more cold-natured, you can choose more warming foods to help balance out your symptoms.

Warming/Hot Foods

• Foods cooked for long periods of time or on high heat.
• Spicy foods.
• Greasy or fried foods.
• All hot peppers, including black pepper, cayenne.
• Refined sugar and sugar substitutes.
• Meat especially beef, lamb and chicken.
• Butter.
• Mussels and shrimp.
• Alcohol.
• Garlic, scallions, chives, onions.
• Spices such as cinnamon, ginger, cloves, basil, rosemary.
• Black or aduki beans.
• Walnuts, pinenuts, sesame and sunflower seeds.
• Oats, spelt and quinoa.

Cooling/Cold Foods

• Raw or uncooked fruits and vegetables.
• Milk, icecream, yoghurt.
• Soy products like soy milk, tofu and tempeh (always use soy in moderation regardless of constitution).
• Cold water fish (except for anchovies) and seaweeds.
• Cooling vegetables include: lettuce, radish, cucumber, celery, asparagus, eggplant, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, corn and zucchini.
• Cooling fruits include: apples, banana, pear, watermelon and citrus.
• Spices such as peppermint, dandelion, nettles, cilantro, marjoram.
• Mung beans and split peas.
• Wheat, barley, millet, amaranth.

Damp Foods

• Creamy or greasy meals.
• Fried foods.
• Alcohol.
• All dairy products.
• Meat, especially beef.
• Eggs.
• Tofu and other soy products.
• All sweeteners, including sugar substitutes.

Most of the foods in the cooling category will also exacerbate a damp condition. Most vegetables are ok for a damp condition but avoid raw or uncooked fruits and vegetables.

It can all seem overwhelming at first, so begin slowly and make it easy on yourself, limiting the foods that you already know you are over-consuming. Remember that these lists are general guidelines and if you have more specific questions, ask your acupuncturist which foods will be of most benefit for you. Also, as always, moderation is the key. Over-doing it in any one category will ultimately tip the scale in the other direction, creating compensatory patterns that will need balancing out later.

Regardless of where you fit in the hot-cold-damp spectrum, the best way to judge how your food is affecting you on a deeper level is to pay attention to how you feel after you’ve eaten. Ice cream every day may feel fantastic at first during the summer months, but if you notice that not long after you eat it you feel a little fuzzy headed and tired, you know you’ve just consumed a little too much of a damp-natured food. Use the above guidelines lightly and have fun trying out new foods and letting go of others. For more specific information on Chinese dietetics you can read “The Tao of Healthy Eating, Dietary Wisdom According to Traditional Chinese Medicine” by Bob Flaws and “Healing With Whole Foods” by Paul Pitchford.