Nutrition Practice in Chinese Medicine 

Nutrition, nourishment, or aliment, is the supply of materials – food – required by organisms and cells to stay alive. Nutrition consultation in Chinese Medicine is to provide clients the dietary advice combining appropriate foods and food-like Chinese herbs.

According to Chinese medicine theory foods are classified in a way similar to Chinese herbal medicines. For example there are foods with cold,  cool, warm and hot properties. There are foods that nourish our bodies and foods that help eliminate or drain the pathogenic factors. When a clinical pattern is identified by the practitioner, certain foods are recommended to either tonify the body or eliminate the pathogenic factors in addition to the acupuncture treatments.  There are also Chinese herbs that are suitable to be consumed like foods. They are called food-like herbs. These herbs are usually mild, with little or no side effect even in long term use. There are about 60 herbs listed as food-like herbs according to the reference published by China State Administration of Drugs. In the practice of Chinese nutrition, these herbs may be recommended to the patients and become a part of patient’s daily diets.

  

 1. Regular foods that may be used as Chinese medicines 

Chinese medicine nutrition therapy (dietary therapy) includes the use of foods and use food-like herbs to promote health and treat illness.

In conventional nutrition, foods are evaluated for proteins, calories, carbohydrates, vitamins, and other nutritional contents. In the practice of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) nutrition and dietary therapy,, foods are just as herbs that are classified into cold, cool, warm and hot energy with five different flavors, and can be selected and prepared appropriately to Tonify the body, eliminator pathogenic factors, and regulate the yin and yang balance of the body.

Therapeutic Effect of Foods with Different Flavors and Thermal Properties (Cold, Cool, Neutral, Warm and Hot) 

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 physical state of the food but its effect on our bodies. Foods with cold or cold property are often recommended to clients with warm or heat constitution or patients classified as heat patterns. Foods with warm or hot property are often recommended to clients with a cold constitution or patients classified as cold patterns. Foods are also recommended based on their flavor and functions. Of course a balanced diet is the most import factor in nutrition.

Pungent foods will promote distributions and circulations, and stimulate appetite.

Examples are fresh ginger, onion, leeks, green onion, Sichuan peppercorn, garlic, celery, coriander, Chinese chives, fennel, spearmint, Chinese radish, radish leaf, chili pepper, sweet peppers, turnips, taro, leaf mustard, Shanghai cabbage, cinnamon, tangerine peel, kumquat, mustard seed and wine.

Sweet foods will slow down acute reactions and neutralize the toxic effects of other foods, and also lubricate and nourish the body. For example Honey, dates, shiitake mushroom, taro, sweet potato, potato, pumpkin, carrot, glutinous rice, peas, soybean, rice, wheat, corn, sugar cane, peanut, milk, apple, pears, cherry, chestnut, grapes, lotus seed, longan aril, carps and abalone.

Sour foods with their astringent character will help to arrest abnormal discharge of fluids and other substances from the body, such as diarrhea, emission and heavy sweating. For example: lemon, tomatoes, pineapple, apple, strawberry, papaya, pears, loquat fruit, oranges, tangerines, peaches, hawthorn fruit, olives, pomegranate, plums, pomelo, mango, grapes, vinegar and royal jelly.

 Bitter foods will clear heat, dry the dampness, stimulate appetite, and promote lowering effects like urination and bowel movements. For example, bitter gourd, Indian lettuce, wine, vinegar, lotus leaf, tea leaf, turnips, apricot seed, lily bulb, gingko, plum kernel, peach kernel, seaweed, pig’s liver, bergamot, arrowhead, asparagus, wild cucumber and coffee.

Salty foods will dissipate accumulations, soften hardness, nourish blood, and lubricate intestines to induce bowel movements. For example, amaranths, millet, barley, laver, preserved jellyfish, seaweed, kelp, sea clams, sea shrimps, oyster, crabs, sea cucumber, field snail, pork, pig’s bone marrow, pig’s blood, pig’s organs, razor clam, dried mussel, ham, pigeon’s egg, abalone, duck meat and cuttlefish.

Foods with cold property:

Bamboo shoot, chrysanthemum, bitter gourd, lotus root, water chestnut, root of kudzu vine, wild rice stem, angled luffa, sugar cane, tomato, watermelon, banana, pomelo, grapefruit, persimmon, mulberry, star fruit, preserved jellyfish, seaweed, kelp, cuttlefish, crabs, sea clams, snails, pig’s bone marrow, sprouts, water spinach, watercress, lettuces, arrowhead, salt and soya sauce.

 Foods with cool property:

Millet, barley, wheat, buckwheat, coix seed, eggplant, cucumber, wax gourd, loofah, Chinese radish, lettuce root, celery, peppermint, broccoli, cauliflower, leaf mustard, spinach, Peking cabbage, Chinese cabbage, amaranth, Indian lettuce, lily bulb, pea, mung bean, pears, muskmelon, apple, pineapple, coconut, strawberry, orange, tangerine, loquat fruit, mango, papaya, water caltrop, tea leaf, bean curb, mushrooms, lily flower, duck egg, egg white, pig skin, rabbit meat, conch, frogs, sesame oil, cream, yogurt and cheese.

 Foods with neutral property

Round-grained rice, corn, taro, sweet potato, potato, turnips, carrot, cabbage, radish leaf, beetroot, fuzzy melon, soybeans, adzuki beans, peanut, cashew nut, pistachio nut, lotus seed, black sesame, sunflower seed, plums, fig, grapes, lemon, olives, white fungus, black fungus, shiitake mushroom, sea shrimps, loach, pork, duck, goose, oyster, beef, quail, sea eels, egg yolk, quail egg, royal jelly honey, milk, soybean milk, rock sugar and sugar.

 Foods with warm property

Coriander, Chinese chives, onion, leeks, green onion, asparagus, sweet peppers, sword bean, spearmint, Garland chrysanthemum, pomegranate, apricot, peach, cherry, litchi, longan fruit, raspberry, chestnut, pumpkin, glutinous rice, dates, walnut, pine nut, mussels, fresh water eels, sea cucumber, carps, abalone, hairtail, lobster, fresh water shrimps, chicken, mutton, sparrow, venison, pig’s liver, ham, goat milk, goose egg, sparrow egg, maltose, brown sugar, cumin, clove, fennel, garlic, ginger (fresh), dill seed, nutmeg, rosemary, star anise, Sichuan peppercorn, sweet basil, sword bean, tobacco, coffee, vinegar, wine, vegetable oil, rose bud, osmanthus flowers and jasmine.

Foods with hot property

Black pepper, cinnamon, ginger (dried), chili pepper, and mustard seed.

Some foods may possess two different flavors or a bland flavor. Foods with a bland flavor usually promote urination and may be used as diuretic, for example coix seed and wax gourd are used for this purpose.

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 activate the circulation the spleen (an organ in Chinese medicine responsible for digestion, not the biomedical concept of spleen), stimulate appetite, promote energy circulation, get ride of excessive dampness and turbidity, and detoxify.

 

 2. Chinese herbs that may be consumed as foods. 

According to the reference from China State Administration of Chinese Medicine the following herbs  may be consumed like foods and incorporated into daily diets in a longer term to promote health and prevent illness .

Chinese Name	Latin or Common English  Name
Bai Zhi	Angelica Root
Bai Bian Dou	White Hyacinth Bean
Bai Guo	Ginkgo Seed
Bai He	Bulbus Lilii
Bai Mao Gen	Wolly Grass Root
Ba Jiao Hui Xiang	star anise
Bo He	mint
Chen Pi	Tangerine peel
Chi Xiao Dou	Red Bean
Dan Dou Chi	Fermented Soybean
Da Zao	Jujubae, Chinese date
Ding Xiang	Clove Flower Bud
Feng Mi	honey
Fo Shou	Finger Citri fruit
Fu Ling	Poria
Gan Cao	Licorice Root
Gao Liang Jiang	Galangal Rhizome
Gou Qi Zi	Chinese Wolfberry
Guang Huo Xiang	Herba Pogostemonis
Hei Zhi Ma	Black Sesame
He Ye	Lotus leaf
Honghua	Safflower
Hua Jiao	Sichuan pepper
Hu Jiao	Black pepper
Ji Nei Jin	Endothelium Corneum
Jue Ming Zi	Cassia Seed
Ju Hong	Outer layer of tangerine peel
Ju Hua	FChrysanthemi flower
Lai Fu Zi	Radish Seed
Hai Zao	Seaweed
Lian Zi	Lotus Seed
Long Yan Rou	Arillus Longan
Lugen	Reed root
Ma Chi Xian	Herba Portulacae
Mai Ya	Barley Sprout
Mu Gua	Fructus Chaenomelis
Mu Li	Oyster shell
Qian Shi	Gordon Euryale Seed
Rou Dou Kou	Nutmeg
Rou Gui	Cinnamomi bark
Sang Shen	Mulberry
Sang Ye	Mulberry leaf
Sha Ji	Fructus Hippophae
Shan yao	Common Yam Rhizome
Shan zha	Hawthorn fruit
Sha Ren	Amomi seeds
Sheng Jiang	Ginger
Suan Zao Ren	Sour jujuba
Tao Ren	Peach Seed
Wu Mei	Fructus Mume
Xiang Ru	Herba Moslae
Xiang yuan	Fructus Citri
Xiao Hui Xiang	Fructus Foeniculi
Xie Bai	Bulbus Allii Macrostemi
Xing Ren	Apricot Seed
Yi Yi Ren	Coix Seed
Yu Li Ren	Dwarf Cherry Seed
Zhi Zi	Fructus Gardeniae
Zi Su Ye	Folium Perillae

 

Dr. Xie is interviewed in this article.

How Balancing ‘Warming’ And ‘Cooling’ Foods Could Benefit Your Health

By Erica Sweeney

01/17/2020 05:45am EST

[Click to read the original post]

This concept from Chinese medicine could lend a new type of balance to your diet.ByErica Sweeney01/17/2020 05:45am EST

Many of us find ourselves trying to eat a more balanced diet with the turn of the new year, but here’s another type of balance you may want to consider: balancing warming and cooling foods.

Achieving balance in the body is at the heart of traditional Chinese medicine, and what you eat plays a key role in reaching that level of equilibrium.

“Chinese medicine is based on the philosophy of the yin and the yang, two opposing yet complementary forces that make up life and energy,” said Felicia Yu, physician and assistant clinical professor of health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles Center for East-West Medicine.

In Chinese medicine, the diet is viewed as a way to “maintain energetic balance,” Yu said. Diets are considered dynamic and should change with a person’s health, environment and lifestyle.

“It recognizes that all foods have a particular energy — some more yin, some more yang,” she said. “Yin foods are typically thought of as cooling and moistening, while yang foods help to warm, dry and heat.”

The terms warming and cooling don’t necessarily refer to a food’s temperature or spiciness, but its energy. Chinese medicine experts say food has the power to heal and harmonize the body, mind and qi, which refers to someone’s life force.

Food’s healing properties, according to Chinese medicine

The diet ― along with acupuncture, moxibustion (a form of heat therapy), herbal medicine and exercise ― has been part of the foundation of traditional Chinese medicine therapy for centuries. The guiding principle is to retain or reestablish the balance of yin and yang, said ZhanXiang Wang, professor and clinician at National University of Health Sciences.

Foods are divided into warming and cooling categories to accomplish the balance.

The body can be too cold or warm because of internal or external factors, like illness, climate, seasons or consuming too much or too little of certain foods, said Carla Wilson, dean at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

When the body is too warm, for example, someone may experience constipation or dryness, which could be from eating too many spicy foods or spending too much time in a hot, dry climate, Wilson said. “It’s too much heat being held in the body without it being discharged,” she said.

Too much cold in the body may be from being sick with a cold or virus, or having a deficiency, which Wilson said could cause problems such as fatigue, mental fuzziness or diarrhea.

“A way to start to address either of those — too hot, which would be an excess, or too cold, which would be a deficiency — is to start to think about that [in terms of] food,” she said.

From a Chinese medicine perspective, eating cooling foods brings down the heat, and warming foods add heat to the body. The idea is to find a balance between the two, which varies from person to person and is based on that individual’s constitution.

Some people may have an unbalanced (too hot or too cold) constitution, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have a medical condition, said Jinhua Xie, a certified acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist and professor of oriental medicine at Midwest College of Oriental Medicine.

“Food, cooling or warming, may be consumed based on constitutional type to help correct some of the abnormality in constitution and prevent illness,” Xie explained. “In this case, food is used for therapeutic purposes.”

Warming and cooling foods

In Chinese medicine, yin (cooling) and yang (warming) foods fall along a spectrum, where nothing is purely yin or purely yang, Yu said. Foods just have more yin or yang energy.

Foods considered yin include dark leafy greens like spinach, lotus root, radish, dandelion greens, cucumbers, bamboo shoots, seaweed, watermelon, green tea, chamomile tea, mint tea, clams, crab and tofu, Yu said.

Yang foods include peppers, chicken, beef, lamb, cinnamon tea, chai, ginger, garlic, onions, peppers, leeks, pumpkin, shallots and cherries.

The five-flavors system, where specific flavors are yin or yang, is another key part of food classification in traditional Chinese medicine, Wang said. For example, sweet and pungent flavors have yang qualities, while salty, sour and bitter flavors have yin qualities.

Flavors offer specific benefits to different bodily organs, Wang said. Sweet offers stomach benefits; acrid, the lungs; salty, the kidneys; sour, the liver; and bitter, the heart.

“However, too much in one taste can also damage organs,” Wang said.

Balancing yin and yang foods in the diet is key to optimal health, Xie said. Moderation helps achieve the balance: Eating too many foods considered warming or cooling, no matter how healthy they are, could create imbalance and lead to illness.

“Eating too much of one group of foods (warming or cooling) will cause accumulation of heat or cold,” Xie said.WAKO MEGUMI VIA GETTY IMAGES“If it is cold weather, a soup or stew with root vegetables, garlic, ginger, onions and pumpkin would be helpful to warm the body,” said Felicia Yu, physician and assistant clinical professor of health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles Center for East-West Medicine

How to actually balance yin and yang foods

Truly balancing yin and yang foods on your own dinner plate is a complex, individualized process. Visiting a traditional Chinese medicine provider can assess your constitution and help you get it right.

Xie said practitioners use a questionnaire to evaluate someone’s constitution and classify the constitution into one balanced type and nine unbalanced types to offer dietary advice accordingly.

Yu offered examples of a yin-yang balanced meal.

“If it is cold weather, a soup or stew with root vegetables, garlic, ginger, onions and pumpkin would be helpful to warm the body,” she said. “If it is hot weather, a brown rice bowl with sautéed kale or spinach, tofu, sesame seeds, cucumbers, tomatoes, chickpeas, burdock root and fermented foods, such sauerkraut or cabbage, would be a great way to cool the body.”

Yin-yang nutrition is a holistic approach to nutrition

Comparing Chinese medicine nutrition with Western paradigms is difficult. Many Western diets focus on eliminating or reducing specific types of foods, such as low-fat or low-carb diets. The Chinese nutrition system’s emphasis on a balance of yin and yang foods is a much more holistic approach, Yu said.

“While focusing on calories and carbohydrates is useful in some situations, it is a reductionist way of looking at food,” Yu said. “It does not always take into account the whole person. Eating according to the energetic properties of food is a holistic way to live that supports good health and well-being, factoring in the dynamic quality of human beings.”

Balance and eating with intention are at the heart of dietary therapies in Chinese medicine. Long-term monitoring of the diet is essential in Chinese medicine to ensure balance and that someone with a cold constitution is avoiding too many cooling foods and heat constitutions avoid too many warming foods, Xie said.

“In Chinese medicine, by following the principle of clinical medicine, treating illness based on pattern, foods may be considered a therapeutic tool and recommended based on patient’s pattern when they are sick or constitutional types when they are not sick but they have abnormal constitutional type,” Xie said. “So, you can say it is about eating with intention.”