Balance Your Health
Your Diet
We are what we eat
The Chinese has been using food as the first line of defense to ward off common sicknesses and diseases for thousands of years. It is only when food alone cannot solve a person’s health problem, then medicine is used with the help from the physicians.
Based on this simple principle, food is carefully selected and used accordingly to the right mix for promotion of good health.
The Nature of Food
Under TCM, food is divided into 7 simple categories (see chart on the next page) – Hot, Warm, Neutral, Cool, Cold, Tonifying and Dispersing. A particular food is deemed ‘hot’ if eating it brings about a sensation of ‘heatiness’. Similarly, a food is termed ‘cold’ if it leaves you feeling ‘cold’. As this clearly corresponds with the nature of your body’s constitution, eating food that are in contrast to your body’s constitution is beneficial because it balances out the effects. This is why people of ‘cold’ constitution can eat ‘heaty’ foods without feeling "heaty’ and vice versa. So depending on the individual’s constitution, what is good food for one may well be bad for another.
| EATING YOUR WAY TO BALANCE - AND HEALTH |
| Categories |
Examples |
| Hot |
Chocolate, coffee, curry, chillies, onions, lamb and alcohol |
| Warm |
Beef, cheese, egg yolk, garlic, ginger, ham, peach, potato, prawns, turkey, wine and chicken |
| Neutral |
Apricots, bread, rice, cabbage, carrots, corn, egg white, grapes, honey, milk, peas, pork and sugar |
| Cool |
Apples, barley, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, fish, mushrooms, oranges, pears, soya beans and corn |
| Cold |
Banana, bean sprouts, cucumber, duck, green tea, lettuce, ice cream, tofu, tomato, water melon and yogurt |
| Tonifying |
Ginseng, sesame, chicken, mutton |
| Dispersing |
Barley, tea, watermelon |
Interestingly, you may also want to take note of a particular group of food like chicken, ginseng, sesame and mutton. This group of food can be taken regularly because of their "tonifying" properties.
In fact, chicken is highly-regarded by the Chinese as a tonic food in the earliest times. It is considered a ‘warming’ energy food with a sweet flavour and a meridian propensity for the spleen and stomach channels. Its therapeutic effects include warming the middle region (Triple Burner Organ), nourishing Qi and Xue, and tonifying the kidney and Jin. Because of that, chicken is often used to alleviate fatigue and improve memory. In addition to that, it is also known to improve blood circulation as well as enhance the Yang energy.