FOODS AND THEIR HEALING PROPERTIES
6 min readTraditionally, no clear-cut distinction is made between medicinal drugs, folk and home remedies, and many of the ingredients of classic Chinese cuisine. Garlic, cloves, and ginger, for example, are used in medicine, in folk remedies, and for cooking. Nevertheless, since antiquity medicinal drugs and ingredients have been classified into one of three possible categories of toxicity.
The first of the three categories is that of so-called high-grade drugs. These are wholesome beyond their purely medicinal function and can therefore be taken continuously over a period of time with no ill effects. Food therapies fit into this category. The second class is that of medium-grade drugs. These are slightly toxic but serve to relieve some deficiency syndromes. The third category is that of toxic, or low-grade, drugs. These may be taken in small doses for short periods of time, and only to relieve a specific disorder. Toxic herbs and mushrooms and some minerals fall into this class. Modern allopathic drugs, if used by a traditional Chinese medic combining modern and ancient therapies, would also fit into this third category.
Foods and drugs may be further defined for therapeutic purposes according to their Yin and Yang preponderances; their flavors, and thus their Five Element affinities; and their warm, hot, cool, and cold characteristics.
Yin and Yang are, in the Taoist view of the world, the most obvious attributes of nature. As such they are the first aspects of a patient’s condition to attract a doctor’s attention. The restoration of their equilibrium is the goalto which all therapy aims. As a consequence, foods and drugs that are considered to be of a Yin nature will be prescribed in disorders involving Yin deficiencies or Yang pathogens. Yang therapies serve to treat Yang deficiencies or Yin disorders.
Yin foods and remedies are those with moist, cool, or cold properties, for these are Yin characteristics. Yang foods, on the other hand, have a warming or heating effect on the body. Yang remedies tend to exert most influence on the skin, tissues, and external parts of the body, while Yin remedies work on the internal organs. Yang foods and drugs ascend and disperse; those that are Yin in nature descend with an astringent effect. Yang foods and drugs are pungent, sweet, or tasteless. Yin remedies are sour, bitter, and salty.
Table 1 on page 11 shows the correspondence between the Five Elements in nature and various attributes of human physiology. One of those attributes is flavor. Each of the Elements/functions of nature is said to reside in one of the five flavors. Thus sour food, being of the Wood (germinating) element, influences the health of the liver, which is also Wood. Bitterness corresponds to Fire and affects the heart; sweetness to Earth and spleen. Pungent foods, those of the Metal element, affect the lungs; salty foods correspond to Water and influence the health of the kidneys. It is believed that by taking foods with a specific flavor/Element, the corresponding organ of the body is strengthened. Furthermore, each of the five flavors is said to exert its own therapeutic effect on the body as a whole. We shall therefore refer to the flavor, the Element, and the effect of the foods examined later in this chapter.
As a matter of interest, the effects of sour foods and drugs are said to be astringent; they counteract digestive problems and diarrhea. Bitter ingredients are febrifuges; in other words, they dispel fevers. Sweet foods act as a tonic to the body. Pungent, or tangy, ingredients act as diaphoretics; they induce sweat, reduce intestinal and stomach gas, and are said to promote the movement of qi within the body. Salty ingredients are palliatives, which means they reduce excesses and imbalances of the Five Elements as well as the effects of pathogens. Tasteless foods are considered to be diuretics.
Finally, a word about the so-called warming and cooling characteristics of foods and drugs. Illness, according to Chinese theory, is frequently brought about by the effects of the six evil climatic factors, the xie qi: evil wind, cold, damp heat, humidity, intense dryness, and firelike heat. If, as according tothis theory, cold enters the body and causes disease, it is simply common sense to counteract it with warm or hot ingredients. Similarly, cool or cold foods and drugs are used to disperse hot climatic pathogens. The terms warm, hot, cool, cold, and neutral may, however, be confusing. They do not refer to the actual physical temperature of the remedy being taken, but instead denote a fundamental property of the food or ingredient after it has been swallowed and digested. A steaming cup of tea, for example, may exert an immediate warming effect on the body, but tea is fundamentally a “cold” herb, useful for cooling the body (and, incidentally, for burning fats and promoting digestion).
Having mentioned these classifications, it should be noted that few foods or ingredients ever fit a single and precise category—Yin always contains some Yang and vice versa. Herbs, fruits, and vegetables usually combine several distinct flavors. Tea (Camellia sinensis), in both its black and green varieties, is sweet, bitter, and pungent at the same time. Peaches are both sweet and sour. Asparagus is bitter and slightly pungent. A single food item, therefore, may potentially have several therapeutic effects.
A final word about how ingredients can and cannot be used is perhaps called for before continuing on to examine the foods and components of Chinese remedies themselves.
Sometimes a single product, such as ginseng, can be used alone to treat an illness. On other occasions ingredients are combined in order to exert a fuller curative effect on the patient—food recipes are a case in point. These combinations are not always straightforward, however. Sometimes two ingredients mutually reinforce each other; on other occasions a subsidiary ingredient will assist the function of the other, principal component. There are situations also when one Element is necessary to restrain the toxic effect of another. Finally, some ingredients are so incompatible as to give rise to severe side effects if used together.
As an illustration of this last point of incompatibility, ingredients with warm properties acting on the lungs should never be taken with raw and cold (temperaturewise) food. Cooling ingredients should not be taken with greasy foods. Meat should be eaten sparingly when taking black plum for therapeutic reasons. Turnips, radishes, and rape should not be eaten when one takes tonics; neither should black or green tea. Both are said to weaken thestrengthening power of the tonic.
Apart from refraining from drinking tea with tonics, there is no need for you to concern yourself about any of the above combinations and contraindications. All the remedies described in this book have been chosen for their simplicity and straightforward wholesomeness. Unless one happens to be allergic to any of the ingredients, none of the recipes will exert the least adverse effect.
Let us now look at the characteristics of the individual foods and herbs used in the Chinese home remedies described in this book. For the purpose of self- diagnosis and gentle experimentation with individual foods, we have given the characteristics of each ingredient in Chinese terms—sweet/sour and corresponding Element, hot/cold, Yin/Yang—as well as in Western terms— protein, fat, carbohydrate, mineral, and vitamin contents per 100 grams (3½ ounces) of edible portion. A mineral or vitamin that is completely absent will be denoted by a zero; a minus sign denotes that the information for that particular nutrient is unavailable. (See appendix 1 for information on daily requirements of those vitamins and minerals for the healthy adult.) In addition to this information, we discuss the predominant healing effects of that food. Most of the foods discussed in this chapter are commonly available in the market.
