Chinese Medicine Diet

In my practice as a Chinese Medicine practitioner, I often hear patients declare they follow a “healthy diet.” But what exactly constitutes a healthy diet?

The answer may surprise you when viewed through the lens of energetic balance.

In Chinese medicine, our perception of a healthy diet differs significantly from modern nutritional guidelines. The Chinese Medicine diet is grounded in energetic principles, considering foods as either damp-natured, cold-natured, or hot-natured.

By understanding the energetic nature of food, we can empower ourselves to achieve better digestion, enhance balance, and promote overall well-being.

Acupuncture seeks to restore balance to the body when imbalances manifest as pain or disease. Practitioners may employ acupuncture, herbal remedies, or complementary practices like tai chi or dietary therapy.

While these methods can effectively address imbalances and alleviate symptoms, the ultimate goal is to prevent imbalances from arising in the first place.

As a patient, you hold the key to achieving this balance in your daily choices, particularly through the foods you consume. Your fork is the tool to navigate this journey toward optimal health.

Our nutritional counseling posts aim to provide fundamental principles that guide individuals toward achieving balance through their diet.

My intention is to empower you to make informed choices by highlighting balancing foods based on common energetic principles. By establishing this foundation, you can embark on a path towards healthier living.

Dampness in the Diet

The Chinese have followed a balanced way of eating for thousands of years, considering not just what they eat but also when they eat it. Their diet features well-known spices like ginger and everyday foods like pearled barley, chosen not only for taste but also for their health benefits.

They’ve learned that ginger aids digestion, and barley helps clear dampness. While it’s easy to understand picking herbs and spices for digestion, the Chinese diet focuses on something unfamiliar to many Westerners: stopping dampness.

Dampness comes from eating foods that block the natural flow of energy in your body. Common foods like cheese, yogurt, white flour, and sugar are culprits that lead to dampness. This dampness causes stagnation, leading to blockages, pain, and illness.

Signs of too much dampness include mucus in the nose or lungs, digestive issues like loose stools or constipation, extra weight, and swollen joints. Some Western illnesses connected to dampness are chronic allergies and arthritis. Since dampness is hard to treat once it builds up, the goal is to eat in a way that stops it from happening in the first place.

How Is Dampness Formed?

Let’s explore how dampness forms in your body. Have you ever wondered about the process of digesting food? The Chinese have studied this for over 2,000 years, considering proper digestion as the cornerstone of their medical system and the key to good health. The journey of dampness accumulation begins in the digestive system.

As food enters your mouth, it travels through your stomach and intestines. This is where the energy or life force is taken from the food, and waste products are expelled at the other end. The energy extracted becomes your essential life force, fueling your everyday activities.

Ideally, digestion should happen quietly and cleanly, extracting the most nutrition and energy from your food. This clean process is akin to metabolism. Properly metabolized foods mean efficient use, with no leftover residue after waste is expelled. However, if the system gets clogged, energy doesn’t separate well from the food, leaving leftover residue that sticks to different parts of your body. This residue is what we call ‘dampness,’ impacting your body’s functions in various ways.

Accumulated dampness can clog organs like the lungs, leading to allergies or asthma. In the digestive tract, it can cause indigestion or bowel issues. Dampness can also hide and block meridians, the channels used in acupuncture that carry life force, resulting in pain, stiffness, or swollen joints.

Over time, dampness can turn warm and lead to inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, high cholesterol, and diabetes. Understanding and dealing with dampness is crucial in Chinese Medicine to treat diseases. Because it’s tough to remove once accumulated, preventing dampness in the first place becomes essential.

So, how do we choose foods that prevent dampness, support good digestion, and allow free-flowing energy? This is where the wisdom of selecting foods based on their energetic properties comes in. It’s simpler than you might think. Everyday foods from any grocery store lay the foundation for a healthy Chinese Medicine diet.

What Types of Food Can I Eat?

Wondering about the kinds of foods you can include in your diet? Picture the menu at a typical Chinese restaurant – it revolves around steamed rice, cooked vegetables, and modest portions of animal protein or beans. In high-quality Chinese eateries, the use of cooking oils tends to be minimal. If you steer clear of deep-fried options and dishes made with flour products (like dumplings and wheat noodles), you’re essentially following the basic Chinese Medicine diet – a regimen designed to maintain bodily balance at any age.

Cooked Vegetables

Next time you order a vegetable dish at a Chinese restaurant, take note of the generous serving of lightly cooked veggies on your plate. Vegetables play a crucial role in draining dampness and are loaded with life-nurturing nutrients. The vibrant mix of colors and textures not only pleases the eye but also the palate.

Taste and texture are key factors in regulating appetite, and a diverse array of vegetables ensures a satisfying meal. Including plenty of leafy greens is recommended, as they are among the most balancing and nutrient-dense foods. Aim to fill half your plate with vegetables for a balanced approach.

Non-Gluten Starches

Rice stands out as a balanced and easily digestible food. For patients with allergies, rice is often recommended as a gentle carbohydrate during allergy treatments. Whether you prefer white or brown rice depends on your digestion – white rice is considered more cleansing, while brown rice is seen as more nourishing. Other wheat-free, non-glutinous grains like millet and quinoa are dubbed ‘clean burning’ foods in Chinese Medicine, gently draining dampness from the body. Rice, quinoa, or millet should make up one-quarter or less of your plate.

Protein

In the Chinese diet, you’ll find small servings of animal protein or beans. Animal proteins are considered ‘building’ foods but can be challenging to digest, hence the emphasis on keeping portions small. A typical serving of animal protein ranges from 2 to 4 ounces, consumed 3 to 4 times a week. Beans, on the other hand, can be eaten more frequently as they absorb dampness and provide both fiber and protein. Allocate the remaining quarter of your plate to your chosen protein source.

Limit Cold Raw Food

You’ll notice a scarcity of raw, cold food on the Chinese Medicine diet, including salads, chilled items, iced drinks, and frozen foods. These cold, raw foods are considered contributors to dampness formation because they pose a challenge during digestion. For your digestive system to draw out the essence of food, it needs to warm it up to body temperature before breaking it down.

Heating food within your body strains your energy resources, gradually weakening your overall energy system. Lightly cooked vegetables and well-cooked grains, unlike raw foods, allow your digestive system to promptly extract energy without the need to first heat the food to body temperature. Although raw foods like those in salads contain slightly more enzymes and nutrients, the overall benefit is less than that of cooked vegetables due to the energy lost in the internal heating process while assimilating these foods.

Eliminate Dairy

Observe the absence of cheese, butter, or milk on the Chinese menu, and one reason is their tendency to create dampness. Even if heated, the energetic nature of dairy is considered cold and hinders digestion. In Chinese Medicine, dairy is classified as a building food, suitable mainly for undernourished individuals. For those already well-fed, dairy can lead to stagnation.

In a culture emphasizing calcium, the belief that dairy is the sole source of this bone-building mineral prevails. However, alternatives like almonds, salmon, leafy greens, and broccoli are rich in calcium and other essential minerals crucial for strong bones. Meeting your calcium needs is easily achieved by incorporating several servings of vegetables into your daily diet and adding foods like salmon and almonds weekly.

Eliminate Sugar

Concentrated sweets such as soda, candy, sweetened yogurt, and energy bars swiftly contribute to dampness. While the ‘sweet’ flavor is considered nourishing in Chinese dietary therapy, it primarily applies to foods like rice, beef, and vegetables, not concentrated sugars. Imagine the intense sweetness of chocolate cake when considering vegetables as sweet.

The sweet flavor of rice, meat, and vegetables benefits the digestive organs. Concentrated sweets, like sugar, hinder the body’s ability to convert food into energy and transport waste for elimination. Incompletely transformed food turns into dampness, accumulating over time and leading to blockages and disease.

The five flavors—sweet, sour, pungent, bitter, and salty—are integral to Chinese dietary therapy, with balance tailored to individual body types, disease patterns, and seasons.

Eat According to the Seasons

Adjusting your diet based on the changing seasons is a beneficial practice. Different times of the year call for varied cooking methods and food choices. In winter, people naturally gravitate toward warming, heartier foods such as soups, stews, and baked dishes. Conversely, summer invites a preference for lighter, cooler fare, like quickly cooked steamed vegetables.

Aligning your food selections with the seasons helps keep your body in harmony with the natural environment. Opting for warmer foods in cold weather and cooler options during the summer contributes to overall health throughout the year.

Similarly, aligning your diet with what grows locally in your region contributes to bodily balance. Individuals residing in warm, equatorial climates year-round would naturally consume different foods than those in cold, northern regions. Tropical fruits thrive in warm climates, making them a common choice for those near the equator. Conversely, individuals in colder, mountainous areas might not encounter tropical fruits growing naturally, suggesting they might want to avoid them.

The modern diet is a recent deviation in the history of human dietary habits, emerging over the past 50 years. Many contemporary food choices rely on fast global transportation and indoor refrigeration, enabling access to diverse foods year-round. However, humans evolved eating locally available and in-season foods, often preserved through cooking. While today’s grocery stores offer a year-round garden, consuming foods like watermelons, pineapples, and grapes freely, even when not locally grown, can lead to imbalances over time.

Eating local, seasonal foods remains a common practice in various parts of the world. Indigenous cultures with a high number of centenarians have been studied for their dietary habits, with researchers seeking the secrets to their long and healthy lives. While some studies may overlook the fact that indigenous diets focus on locally grown foods, a perspective aligned with Chinese Medicine dietary therapy reveals similarities.

Notably, these diets emphasize a higher proportion of locally grown vegetables, rice, and whole grains, an absence of sugar or processed foods, and smaller quantities of protein compared to Western counterparts.

With these fundamental principles of the Chinese medicine diet and the concept of dampness in mind, you can make informed choices that contribute to both a longer life and a more fulfilling one. If you’re inspired to embrace a balanced and harmonious way of eating and living, consider exploring Chinese Medicine Foods to Eat for practical guidance. Make the shift towards a more balanced lifestyle.

Call to make an appointment for a Consultation and let us help you set up a program for you to be proactive in maintaining your health the CHINESE MEDICINE WAY! Chatsworth (818) 280-9133