Healthy eating is the most fundamental requirement for one’s overall health. The thing is there is so much confusing information available that choosing the right one can be a bit of a challenge. This article will give you a background of some basic principles of Chinese Nutritional therapy in West Orange so that you may have an idea of what foods are appropriate to eat in order to maintain or restore your health and well being.
A Chinese diet may be quite complicated and some features may even involve diagnosis prior to prescription of a certain food. The following are some fundamental guidelines that a person can integrate into his/her regular habits.
According to Chinese medicine, there are three parts to any proper diet:
1. Basic body constitution
2. Current state of health
3. Environment
These three should be considered at all times. Chinese medicine does not classify whether a food is bad or good. For them, food is just food.
The concept of vital energy known as Qi or Chi is one of the cornerstones of Chinese medicine. This energy in our bodies should flow smoothly at all times. Otherwise, our body will succumb to pain, illnesses, and diseases. The unfettered flow of Chi is the main goal of Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, Qi Gong, and Chinese nutritional therapy.
With regard to food, Chinese medicine theory states that the human body reduces Chi from food through different stages, until there is no more left, and can be excreted as stool and urine. Because of this, Chinese medicine’s primary goal is to beef up the body in order for it to use the Chi contained in the food. This is opposite to Western nutrition that focuses on nutrient supplementation.
1. Basic constitution
Each of us has a unique basic constitution. Some of us prefer a cold climate and some a hot climate. Some people prefer coke, pepsi, and other cold drinks while some may prefer tea, hot chocolate, and other hot drinks. The seasons definitely contribute to this preference and so another question to ask is whether one prefers winter or summer.
2. Current state of health
If a person has a deficiency in Chi, for example, he will tend to feel cold more often and his deficiency will only get worse if he wakes up in the morning and eats cereal with cold milk from the fridge, or if he eats a lot of salad.
3. Environment
This crucial component is what is completely omitted from the typical Western diet. Since foods can be warm, neutral, or cold in Chinese nutritional therapy, eating a certain kind of food at a specific season can make a huge difference to your health. For instance, during winter, a lot of people are unable to eat a raw food diet. This is explainable, since being cold in nature raw foods can be too much for the body to handle when they’re eaten in winter on in a cold environment. Al this changes in the summer when raw foods are now good choices to eat as they help balance the hot or warm environment.
Chinese nutritional therapy classifies food into: hot, warm, neutral, cool, and cold. In addition, any type of food can be modified by cooking.
The following foods are generally classified into:
Hot – Alcohol, beef, lamb, and other meat products
Warm – Onion, pork, goose, duck, red wine, and coffee
Neutral – wheat, potato, rice, and other staple products
Cool – Sour cream, sprouts, cucumber, and yogurt
Cold – Most vegetables, dairy products (apart from butter, which is considered warm), and seafood
How Does Cooking Modify Food?
The more Yang energy is infused in the food the higher the temperature you cook it in. Steaming or boiling is quite gentle while barbecuing or deep frying increases a significant level of Yang energy.
How Can You Combine All these Principles?
If you have a cold constitution or have cold feet and hands, you should eat foods that are cooked (especially in winter). You should also eat cooked foods when you feel tired or have a cold.
If you have a warm constitution, avoid eating spicy foods. We also recommended that you eat foods that have been gently cooked, especially in summer.
Generally speaking, each person should eat lots of uncooked vegetables and fruits in the summer, and in winter, eat more cooked ones.
The meals that you eat should always be balanced. This can mean that along with barbecued steak, you should include steamed vegetables (rather than French fries) and chips and fish should be combined with coleslaw.
Precautions
Eating hot food and drinking ice cold drinks is NOT a balanced meal. In Chinese nutritional therapy, the Stomach dislikes cold and likes a moist and warm environment. Even from the perspective of Western chemistry mixing hot foods and ice cold drinks is not a good idea, since digestion and bodily processes move slower at lower temperature.
Another thing is that food processing virtually strips away the Chi in the food, and so when you consume products that are highly processed food (such as canned soup or hot dogs) you are practically eating nothing or junk. Everyone should avoid processed food as much as possible. We instead recommend eating locally produced fresh foods (ones that did not stay in containers for several days) and foods that grow with the season.
If you follow only a few of these very simple guidelines, they can do a lot for your health.
Why do Orientals like to stir fry their food?
Because stir fry foods are considered perfect food: the short high temperature adds a moderate amount of Yang energy to the food, while the Yin energy is preserved in the partially cooked core. This results in a well-balanced meal.
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