Continuing the digestive process
And what happens next? If the solid portions of food are jam-packed into the stomach or their digestion is impaired by cold and chilled foods and liquids or if too many hard-to-digest foods are eaten, stagnant food may accumulate in the stomach.
The stomach tries all the harder to burn these off and becomes like a car stuck in over-drive. It becomes hotter in an attempt to burn off the accumulation. This often results in the stomach becoming chronically overheated. This, in turn, causes the stomach to register hunger, which, in Chinese medicine, is a sensation of the stomach’s heat and emptiness.
Jump to the video below for a quick summary of phlegm dampness in the body.
A vicious cycle
This hunger results in eating more and more and a vicious cycle is created. Overeating begets stagnant food which begets stomach heat which reinforces overeating. Does this sound familiar? It is a sad description of today's Western diet.
A similar problem affects the spleen. If the liquid portions of food and drink jam the transporting and transforming functions of the spleen, what is called the qi mechanism or qi ji in Chinese, these may accumulate as dampness. This plethora of water fluids inhibits the spleen qi s warm transforming function in the same way that water inhibits or douses fire. Over time, this accumulated dampness may mix with stagnant food and congeal into phlegm which further gums up the entire system and retards the flow of qi and blood throughout the body.
Spleen and stomach work together for digestion but can get blocked due to phlegm and dampness.
Remember, one person’s digestion may burn hotter than another's.
Those with a robust constitution and strong life-gate fire tend to have a strong digestion. These people can often eat more in general and more chilled, frozen, hard-to-digest foods without seeming problems. Likewise, everyone's metabolism runs at different temperatures throughout the year. During the summer when it is hot outside, we generally can eat cooler foods and should drink more chilled liquids. However, even then, we should remember that everything that goes down our gullet must be turned into 100° soup before it can be digested and assimilated.
Ice cream example
Here is an example: if you eat ice cream in the summer, your body is temporarily cooled by the ingestion of such a frozen food; however, its response is to increase the heat of digestion in order to deal with this cold insult. Interestingly, it is a common custom in tropical countries to eat hot foods in hot weather since the body is then provoked to sweat as on attempt to cool itself down. In China, mung bean soup and tofu are eaten in the summer because both these foods tend to cool a person down post-digestively if we are going to eat cold and, frozen foods and drink iced, chilled liquids, it is best that these be taken between meals when they will not impede and retard the digestion of other foods.
Dampening foods
Not only do foods have an inherent post-digestive temperature, but different foods also tend to generate more or less body fluids. Therefore, in Chinese medicine all foods can be described according to how damp they are, meaning dampening to the human system. Because the human body is damp (we are, after all, 55-60% water), most foods are somewhat damp and that is healthy.
However, some foods are excessively dampening and since it is the spleen which combats dampness, excessively damp foods tend to interfere with the spleen's function of moving and transforming.
Citations
Flaws, B. (1998). The Tao of Healthy Eating: Dietary Wisdom According to Chinese Medicine 2nd ed. (Directly quoted)
Zhang, Y. (2020). A Comprehensive Handbook of Traditional Chinese Medicine: Prevention & Natural Healing. (Referenced)
Zhang, Y. & Yao, Y. (2012). Your Guide to Health with Foods & Herbs: Using the Wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine. (Referenced)