Food therapy (shí liáo in Chinese, 食療 ) is one component of Chinese Medicine developed alongside other forms such as Acupuncture, Moxibustion, Tuina and Cupping. In ancient times it was said, that only when food therapy has failed should we reach for our needles and moxibustion. What this really meant was that a good diet could stave off many illnesses without the need for acupuncture, herbs or other medicine. If you were a really good practitioner, you would adjust the patients diet to account for upcoming weather patterns and the patient’s inherent constitution. This way, the best doctors kept their patients healthy. Bad doctors meant people were getting sick. Which is a far different way of looking at medicine that what we are used to here! It was very much a preventative modality rather than reacting to symptoms.
The downfall of food therapy is that it can take longer to bring about changes than we’re prepared to wait. Acupuncture or even popping a pill from a doctor works faster and so we tend to neglect the effects food has on us. Changing our diet, particularly when we are changing a lifetime of habits, can be that bit slower but is so worth it.
One of the key things about food energy is that it be of good energy – fresh, organic foods are critical to healing and are said to contain good Qi (energy). Chemical laden foods, foods treated with pesticides, herbicides, preservatives and so on are more harmful to the body.
A list of broad food types and their categories is at the end of the article.
Where confusion arises is foods can be classified in Chinese Medicine according to their action on the body (cooling, warming, neutral, hot) or the Organs (Zangfu) they are associated with such as;
Bitter – Heart
Sweet – Spleen
Spicy/Acrid/Pungent – Lungs
Salty – Kidneys
Sour – Liver
Food therapy of course is just a fancy name for what we should be eating according to our needs. There is much written about foods and the effect on the organs in Chinese Medicine but I wanted to take a different slant and approach it from “how do the foods we eat make us feel emotionally?”
We’re not talking about “I ate a bar of chocolate and now I feel like crap” emotions but long term emotions that could possibly be re-enforced by the foods we eat. If you are finding it difficult to shift an emotional state, read on!
Credit: By Wikipedia User:Parnassus CC BY-SA 3.0
Part of Chinese Medicine is centered around the five elements/phases (Wuxing). Based on this theory, there are different ways of approaching food therapy. To briefly illustrate, in the diagram we can see that Wood ‘supports’ fire, and water ‘controls’ fire. You can think of it as wood is needed for fire but water is what can control the fire. If you were very anxious with a lot of Yang rising, you might eat less ‘fire’ foods and more ‘water’ foods. Alternatively, you might reduce Wood foods if they were causing fire to burn out of control. For this reason, different practitioners will have different ideas about how to approach food therapy and where the double classification of foods according to their action on the body or the Organs (ZangFu) they are ascribed to can be an endless merry-go-round.
Different treatments doesn’t mean that one is wrong per se, but that a different ‘path’ has been taken to the end goal.
To add to the confusion, some foods will have numerous characteristics. Take coffee for example. It heats the body but is also damp forming. There are very few foods that fall specifically into one category or another so it’s not surprising that we see foods across categories depending on what approach we are taking to the food therapy.
What’s important with all these emotions is that the foods we eat are out of balance with what we require. This might not mean that you are eating a truckload of chocolate, but that the amount of chocolate you eat is out of whack what with your constitution requires. It might be too little, too much or none at all. It varies for everybody but what is excess for one person might not even register with another.
Worrying
We may eat some chocolate and feel good afterwards. We’ll often reach for something sweet after a meal and in Chinese medicine, sweet foods are associated with the Spleen which along with the Stomach is the primary organs of digestion. Hence, something sweet can boost the Spleen and aid digestion
But what happens if we eat too much sweet stuff? Sweet foods can overload the Spleen making it damp and sluggish. What started as boost to the Spleen became an over-indulgence in sweet foods and the result can be lack of energy. We get a boost and then crash.
By the way, sighing a lot is a sign of worry in Chinese. It is a way of releasing the tension/worry that builds up when we are constantly worried.
If we continue this pattern over an extended period of time we begin to get ‘bogged down’. The Spleen hates damp and over the long term, too much sweet stuff can inhibit the Spleen’s function. This might manifest as physical sluggishness and lack of energy. But it can also manifest on an emotional level – emotionally we feel worn out, tired, unmotivated, unorganised, sloppy. We begin to worry about things endlessly because worrying is what happens when we are stuck in a swamp.
Day to day it can feel like we are wading our way through life. And so we continue to eat sweet things, hoping for that temporary boost. Over a very long time, our spirit gets dragged down into this swampland and we experience depression.
If you are overly worried and find yourself reaching for those biscuits and sweet things, it could be due to the Spleen wanting a temporary boost. The effects are an endless loop until we deal with the source of our worry.
To deal with it, we might consider reducing our intake of damp forming foods and eating more sour foods (Liver controls Spleen). Reducing bitter foods might also be an option if they are contributing to our Worry (Fire feeds earth).
Anxiety
Anxiety is a curious one in Chinese medicine because it can be part of several patterns such Yin deficiency, Blood deficiency, heat patterns or Kidney or Heart deficiencies for example. It can also derive from the Spleen. Too much hot foods can bring on anxiety. Surprisingly, this doesn’t necessarily mean eating hot foods. Coffee, sugar, smoking, most meats, wine and alcohol are all examples of foods that bring heat upwards and can dry up Yin in the body.
Yin and Yang are two sides of the same coin. If we have too little yin (think fluids) in the body, it means Yang can float upwards and agitate us because it is not grounded. So Yang can rise to the head and chest causing all sorts of anxieties, fretting, anxiousness and nervousness.
If we are consuming hot and damp foods excessively, the effect is twofold – we’re stuck in a swamp sometimes and other times we’re experiencing balls of anxiety in our chest. Because there is no strong root (yin) in our system, our Spirit (Shen) cannot rest at nighttime and so we are awake, going over and over things in our head.
Possible reasons are;
1. Too little water foods (water controls fire and provides a root for Yang in the body).
2. Too much warming/fire foods
3. Too much Sour foods feeding into fire.
To counter this we eat cooling water foods while reducing warming fire foods. We would also look towards sour foods see if it is the source of too much fire in the body.
Hyperactivity / Manic Behaviour
Another curious and complex one because its roots can be varied and many. At it’s root, Yang is unhinged and on a continuum of extremity, rises up and agitates the upper body and head. You may feel hot or get hot flushes. The brain will never settle and will hop from one thing to the next. Sleep is a distant thing of the past.
We’ll have bouts of huge activity or immersing ourselves in an activity and then crash. We crash when we burn up all the Yang. We can experience fits of anger or rage and be perfectly reasonable the day after or even the hour after.
Any foods that warm the body can exacerbate these issues. Foods like roast lamb, chillis, alcohol, garlic, brussell sprouts, ginger, wine (Esp. Red wine), roasted peanuts, real coffee, curries, bread and fatty meat. On a lesser scale, warm foods can also contribute and include such things as meats, chicken eggs, soup, green onions, red beans, hard cheese, rabbit, turkey, wine, rice wine or white wine, brown sugar.
Bringing down the fire is paramount. Reducing our intake of hot foods is one course. This might also be accompanied by cooling activities, acupuncture points to relieve heat in the body and re-balancing our organs (Zangfu).
Grief
Associated with the Lungs (Fei) in Chinese Medicine, we tend to think of grief as the emotion from the loss of a loved one. But grief can also be an emotional response to other events – a future that was robbed from you, the loss of a business or grief about life for example. Our breathing is affected when we grieve.
For grief, we need to strengthen the Lung (Fei) element as it is depleted. This might mean boosting the Earth foods as well to provide nourishment to the Lungs.
Anger
Anger is associated with the Liver (Gan) in Chinese Medicine and can be made worse by the foods we eat. Alcohol is a big no-no, especially spirits. With Yang rising energy, any type of alcohol will contribute further to Yang rising and so we see anger often expressed when we are drunk. The anger literally goes to our head and we fly off into a rage. The Liver is also associated with the time of Spring (hence its association with sour foods – think sour berries that appear in the Spring) and the time in life of Spring is our youth. For this reason, young men (yang) with uncontrolled alcoholic spirit intake is just a recipe for anger.
Anger can be difficult to pinpoint because it can come from the Liver, heat or fire or be induced by a weak water or metal element. Therefore anger can encompass a lot of the Organs(ZangFu), particularly in the upper half of the body.
Fear
Fear, in the form of an unspecified generic fear where we are afraid of things but they are not specific. For example, we may feel afraid of trying things in our life, paranoid about things and always expecting the worst.
Fear is associated with the Kidneys (Shen). The Kidneys are a water element and if the water element is very strong it can consume our fire – that spirit within us that kicks up and is strong and willing to fight. Our Kidneys also store our Jing (life essence) and it is plausible that unspecified fear can be caused by our constitutional make up that we inherited from our ancestors.
We may begin to tackle fear by reducing water based foods and increasing fire based foods. We could also strengthen our intake of sour foods (to feed fire) and earthly foods (to control water). If this sounds confusing – it is! Like much of Chinese medicine, food therapy can be very circular in nature, using different paths to treat the root cause of an imbalance.
Depression
Depression can be caused by various factors in Chinese Medicine theory. It could be retention of phlegm and stagnation, Qi Xu (energy deficiency), Heart (Xin) and Spleen (Pi) deficiency. Our weather in Ireland is damp forming in the body and because of this, many Irish people are prone to damp problems. Damp can lead to phlegm when it is left untreated. Spending your time in a damp forming environment can contribute to depression. Depression is associated with lethargy, but despite someone being physically lethargic, their mind can be in overdrive – over thinking bad scenarios and experiencing palpitations of the heart.
To treat, we have to look at different things. If there is phlegm in the body, we have to get rid of it and look to its cause. Removing damp foods is one and tonifying the Spleen with foods to help give us energy. If our Heart is deficient, we could tonify the heart with Bitter foods. If water foods are in excess they can work their way back to the Spleen and overload it.
Depression can often mean little or bad food choices. Which makes it harder to treat because we just don’t feel like eating or taking care of ourselves anyway.
Categories of Foods according to their actions:
Hot Foods: Roast lamb, chillis, alcohol, garlic, brussell sprouts, ginger, wine (Esp. Red wine), roasted peanuts, real coffee, curries, bread and fatty meat.
Warm Foods: Most meats, cloves, garlic, onions, cabbage, chicken eggs, soup, green onions, red beans, avocado, hard cheese, rabbit, cooked or dried fruits, turkey, wine, rice wine or white wine, brown sugar.
Neutral Foods: Carrots, green and broad beans, beetroot, cauliflower, chicken meat, peaches, peas, brown rice, cashews, steamed white rice, soya sauce, black china tea, white cabbage, bread, root vegetables.
Cool Foods: Most airy leaves such as lettuce, celery, apples, yoghurt, beer in moderation, Chinese tea, honey, pears, lemon, seaweed, lambs liver, mushrooms, cheese, oranges, tomatoes, Camembert and cottage cheese, soft cheese and salt.
Cold Foods: Mean ice-cream, bananas, foods from the freezer without cooking, cucumber, pears, green tea, bean sprouts, yoghurt, cranberries
Categories of Foods according to the Organs (ZangFu)
Bitter: Seaweed, Turnips, Wine, Coffee, Asparagus
Sweet: Honey, sugar, grapes, apples, sweet potatoes, dates, pumpkin
Spicy: Onions, ginger, garlic, spearmint, sweet peppers, wine
Salty: Seaweed, crabs, pork, duck, ham, shrimps
Sour: Early berries, olives, mango, vinegar, lemons, limes, oranges, strawberries.
