Aliment, nourishment, or nutrition, is the stockpile of food needed by cells and organisms to survive and thrive. In Chinese Medicine, nutritional therapy is a system that provides clients the right dietary choice combining food-like Chinese herbs and pertinent foods.
Foods, from the viewpoint of Chinese medicine, are arranged in a manner similar to herbal food therapies. For instance, we have foods with hot, warm, cool, and cold properties. We have foods that that help drain or dispel the pathogenic elements and we also have foods that nourish our bodies. When a pattern of disharmony is recognized by a practitioner, in addition to acupuncture treatments in Bellmore, specific foods are recommended to either destroy the pathogenic factors or tonify the body. We have Chinese herbs that are acceptable to be eaten as foods. These are known as food-like herbs and they are often mild, with zero or minimal side effect even when taken in the long term. According to the State Administration of Drugs of China, there are more than 60 herbs that are deemed food-like herbs. In Chinese nutritional therapy, these herbs can be indicated as part of the daily diets of the patient.
Commonly Eaten Foods that can be considered as Chinese Medicines
Chinese nutritional therapy involves the use of food-like herbs and foods in order to address disease illness and encourage health.
In Western dietary therapy, foods are assessed for their nutritional contents. These include vitamins, proteins, and calories. In both Western dietary therapy and Chinese nutritional therapy, foods as well as herbs are categorized into hot, warm, cold, and cold energies with five flavors. They can be prepared and appropriately chosen to regulate the balance of yin and yang of the body, eliminate pathogenic factors, and tonify the body.
The healing effects of foods with Different Thermal Properties (hot, warm, neutral, cool, and cold) and Flavors
The energy that foods generate refers to their ability to create sensations – either cold or hot – in the body. Neutral, cool, warm, hot, and cold are the five types of energy, and this pertains not to the food’s physical state but on its impact on the human body. Foods with cold or cool quality are usually indicated to patients with heat or warm constitutions or patients categorized as heat patterns. Foods with hot or warm quality are usually indicated for patients classified as cold patterns or patients with a cold constitution. Foods are also indicated based on their functions and flavor. When it comes to the aspect of nutrition, a balanced diet is of course the most important factor.
Foods with pungent flavor tend to bolster circulations, distributions, and perk up appetite.
Pungent tasting foods include among others wine, onion leeks, Sichuan peppercorn, green onion, garlic, Chinese radish, celery, mustard seed coriander, Chinese chives, kumquat fresh ginger, , tangerine peel radish leaf, spearmint, sweet peppers, turnips, chili pepper, leaf mustard, taro, cinnamon, Shanghai cabbage, and tangerine peel.
Foods with sweet flavor tend to nourish and lubricate the body, neutralize the toxicity of other foods, and impede acute reactions. Examples of sweet foods are abalone, carps, longan aril, lotus seed, grapes, chestnut, cherry, pears, apple, milk, peanut, sugar cane, corn, wheat, rice, soybean, peas, glutinous rice, carrot, pumpkin, potato, sweet potato, taro, shiitake mushroom, dates, and honey.
With their astringent quality, sour foods can help prevent heavy sweating, emission, diarrhea and other irregular fluid seepage from the body. Examples of sour foods include royal jelly, lemon, vinegar, tomatoes, tangerines, strawberry, pomelo, pomegranate, plums, pineapple, pears, peaches, papaya, oranges, olives, mango, loquat fruit, hawthorn fruit, grapes, and apple.
Foods classified as bitter tend to bolster depressing effects like bowel movements and urination, boost appetite, dry dampness, and eliminate heat. Examples of bitter foods include coffee, bitter gourd, wine, wild cucumber, vinegar, turnips, tea leaf, seaweed, plum kernel, pig’s liver, peach kernel, lotus leaf, lily bulb, Indian lettuce, gingko, bergamot, asparagus, arrowhead, and apricot seed.
Foods that are salty can emolliate intestines to stimulate bowel movements, tonify blood, soften hardness, and deplete accumulations. Examples of salty foods are cuttlefish, amaranths, seaweed, sea shrimps, sea cucumber, sea clams, razor clam, preserved jellyfish, pork, pigeon’s egg, pig’s organs, pig’s bone marrow, pig’s blood, oyster, millet, laver, kelp, ham, field snail, duck meat, dried mussel, crabs, barley, and abalone
Cold Foods
Soya sauce, bamboo shoot, wild rice stem, watermelon, watercress, water spinach, water chestnut, tomato, sugar cane, star fruit, sprouts, snails, seaweed, sea clams, salt, root of kudzu vine, preserved jellyfish, pomelo, pig’s bone marrow, persimmon, mulberry, lotus root, lettuces, kelp, grapefruit, cuttlefish, crabs, chrysanthemum, bitter gourd, banana, arrowhead, and angled luffa
Cool Foods
Barley, millet, buckwheat, wheat, eggplant, coix seed, wax gourd, cucumber, Chinese radish, loofah, celery, lettuce root, broccoli, peppermint, leaf mustard, cauliflower, Peking cabbage, spinach, amaranth, Chinese cabbage, lily bulb, Indian lettuce, , mung bean, pea, muskmelon, apple, pears, coconut, pineapple, orange, strawberry, loquat fruit, tangerine, papaya, mango, tea leaf, water caltrop, mushrooms, bean curb, duck egg, lily flower, pig skin, egg white, conch, rabbit meat, sesame oil, frogs, yogurt, cheese, and cream.
Neutral Foods
Sugar, round-grained rice, honey, white fungus, turnips, sweet potato, sunflower seed, soybeans, soybean milk, shiitake mushroom, sea shrimps, sea eels, royal jelly, rock sugar, radish leaf, quail egg, quail, potato, pork, plums, pistachio nut, peanut, oyster, olives, milk, lotus seed, loach, lemon, grapes, goose, fuzzy melon, fig, egg yolk, duck, corn, taro, cashew nut, carrot, cabbage, black sesame, black fungus, beetroot, beef, adzuki beans
Warm Foods
Chinese chives, coriander, wine, walnut, vinegar, venison, vegetable oil, tobacco, sword bean, sword bean, sweet peppers, sweet basil, star anise, spearmint, sparrow egg, sparrow, Sichuan peppercorn, sea cucumber, rosemary, rose bud, raspberry, pumpkin, pomegranate, pine nut, pig’s liver, peach, osmanthus flowers, onion, nutmeg, mutton, mussels, maltose, longan fruit, lobster, litchi, leeks, jasmine, ham, hairtail, green onion, goose egg, goat milk, glutinous rice, ginger (fresh), garlic, Garland chrysanthemum, fresh water shrimps, fresh water eels, fennel, dill seed, dates, cumin, coffee, clove, chicken, chestnut, cherry, carps, brown sugar, asparagus, apricot, and abalone.
Hot Foods
Mustard seed black pepper, ginger (dried), chili pepper, cinnamon, and mustard seed.
There are foods that may possess a bland flavor or foods with two kinds of flavors. Bland Foods often tend to bring about urination and can be used as diuretic. Wax gourd and coix seed, for example, can be utilized for this aim.
Moreover, there are foods that have a powerful scent that are considered “aromatic.” They include citrus fruits, peppermint, coriander, fennel, and basil. Eat these to stimulate the spleen’s circulation (In Chinese medicine, the spleen is the organ responsible for digestion, not the Western medicine concept of spleen), detoxify, eliminate turbidity and dampness, promote energy circulation, and boost appetite.
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