VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
The dietary recommendations during the challenge come from over 2,000 years of research and case studies. Unlike the latest western diet fads and information, Chinese medicine doctors have applied the principles you will be learning about over a vast range of genetic backgrounds, climates, and lifestyle conditions over thousands of years.
Most importantly, they have been developed to look at each individual’s current state of health. Not all “healthy foods” are healthy for all people. That being said, some general principles that apply to everyone evolved over the course of millennia, and you can reap the benefits of this knowledge.
Feel free to return to this lesson if you have questions down the road. Suffice it to say, the dietary guidelines have been designed to keep you healthy for many years to come!
The Yellow Emperor's Classic
By no later than 200 BCE, one or more unknown medical scholars put together the fundamental work of Chinese medical theory, the Huang Di Nei Jing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic). Although most of the classic deals with yin and yang, the Five Elements (or Five Phases), qi and blood, and the 12 meridians’ theory, several sections reference principles of healthy eating.
Grains should be the mainstay of your diet
For instance, one section, the Su Wen (Plain Questions) explains the relationship between the five yin organs (lungs, kidneys, liver, heart, and spleen) and the seasons. It states that “Medicinals are used to fight evils, [while] grains are used to nourish the body, and fruits, meats, and vegetables aid in this effort – all [five] flavors working together to supplement the qi and essence.”
This statement suggests that grains should be the mainstay of the diet, while meats, vegetables, and fruits should be eaten to complete and support that basis, and most Chinese doctors today would agree with that statement.
Later in the Su Wen this idea is emphasized with a slight twist. “Grains, meats, fruits, and vegetables must all be eaten to provide nutrition.” In other words, a person cannot live by bread alone, or meats alone for that matter.
The Five Flavors
In addition to discussing the categories of food, as you read above, the flavors of foods play an important role. Each of the five flavors relates to an internal organ system.
- Sweet foods have a special effect on the spleen.
- Sour foods especially affect the liver.
- Salty foods “go to” the kidneys.
- Acrid or pungent foods affect the lungs.
- Bitter foods have a special effect on the heart.
Since before 200 BCE and beyond, these dietary recommendations have been applied on a wide scale, with later texts showing their use by vast numbers of doctors and their patients.
The Han Dynasty
By 200 CE, during the Han Dynasty, the first classic of Chinese medical prescriptions captured thousands of years of food and herb-based remedies to prevent and treat disease. Shang Han Lun/Jin Jui Yao Lue (Treatise on Damage [Due to] Cold/Essentials of the Golden Coffer) by Zhang Zhong-jing. Several hundred prescriptions from this text are still in daily use today.
Some examples include food prescriptions including ginger (both fresh and dried), cinnamon, jujube (Chinese red dates), licorice, Job’s tears, barley, rice (both glutinous and non-glutinous) vinegar, honey, mandarin oranges (both ripe and unripe), orange peel, egg yolk, lamb, scallions, and more.
Food is medicine
To this day, almost 2,000 years after the Su Wen were written, there is a saying in Chinese medicine, “Medicine and food [share] the same source.” This means there is no line between medicinal substances and food. Therefore, every food has its impact on the health of the body.
Research and application of food therapy continued to develop. During the Jin Dynasty, (265-420 CE), one of the most famous medical texts written during the time was Ge Hong’s Zhu Hou Bing Ji Fang (Formulas [to Keep] Behind the Elbow for Emergencies). In this book, Ge recorded a number of simple, proven prescriptions, many of which are dietary in nature.
As a Taoist adept, Ge was very interested in health and longevity techniques, including what to eat and what not to eat in order to live an especially long time. In another book of his, Ge explains a long list of activities one should regulate if one wants to live to 100 years.
As part of this list, he counsels, “Don’t overemphasize any of the five flavors when eating, for:
- too much sour damages the spleen
- too much bitter damages the lungs
- too much acrid/pungent damages the liver
- too much salt damages the heart, and
- too much sweet damages the kidneys.”
These admonitions continue to be recommended by TCM doctors to this day.
Southern and Northern Period
By the Southern and Northern period (420-589 CE), another Taoist by the name of Tao Hong-jing compiled his famous Shen Nong Ben Cao Jin (The Divine Husbandman’s Materia Medica Classic). This book contains the medicinal uses of 365 substances – vegetable, animal, and mineral – and many of these medicinals are also commonly eaten foods, such as job’s tears barley, jujubes, chicken, beef, honey, lotus rhizomes, lotus seeds, sesame seeds, kelp, pears, carp, red beans (aduki or azuki beans), cow’s milk, wheat, grapes, and more.
The Four Natures
Each ingredient in the Shen Nong is described according to the five flavors and the four natures. The four natures are the four temperatures of foods. These are cold, cool, warm, and hot. The fifth nature is neutral, which is neither cool nor warm. Even today, when a Chinese doctor talks about the effects of a food on a particular person, he or she will take in to account that food’s nature or temperature. For example, someone who is pathologically cold will be told to eat more warm and hot foods and to avoid cool and cold foods.
The Tang Dynasty
In the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), the great Sun Si-mia, another Taoist hermit and healer, lived in Central China. As a Taoist, he was also interested in longevity techniques which led him to a deep interest in food therapy for good health and long life. In his masterwork, Qian Jin Yao Fang (Prescriptions [Worth] a Thousand [Pieces of] Gold], Sun categorized the dietary properties and uses of a large variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, fish, fowl, insects, and other animals. Because of the depth and quality of his research and work, modern Chinese doctors often cite Sun as the father of modern Chinese dietary therapy.
The Song Dynasty
By the Song Dynasty (960-1129 CE), it was common practice to use food in the treatment and prevention of disease. Two critical works from the period came from the imperial government. Both books were widely circulated and included over 100 different recipes for health and longevity. Another book of the time, Yang Lao Feng Qin Shu (A Book on Nourishing the Elderly [based on] Filial Piety), dealt specifically with geriatric dietary therapy and includes many specific recipes.
As you might expect, interest in dietary therapy continued during the Yuan (1206-1368 CE), and Ming (1368-1644 CE) dynasties. More famous works came from each era. One important work for maintaining a healthy weight comes from the Yuan dynasty.
Emotional stress and faulty diet and lifestyle cause disease
It is Li Dong-yuan’s monumentally critical Pi Wei Lun (Treatise on the Spleen & Stomach) which shifted the emphasis in terms of the causation of chronic disease (including unhealthy weight) from externally contracted pathogens to internal causes such as emotional stress and faulty diet and lifestyle. This major change within Chinese medical literature served to place even more emphasis on proper diet.
Further, it was Li who stressed the importance of the “clear, bland diet,” which you will learn about later.
Qing Dynasty
During the Qing dynasty (1616-1911 CE), important medical texts include Shen Li-long’s Shi Wu Ben Cao Hui Zuan (A Compendium of Foodstuff Materia Medica), Wang Shi-xiong’s Sui Xi Ju Yin Shi Pu (The Food & Drink Recipes of Sui Xi-ju), Zhang Mu’s Tiao Ji Yin Shi Bian (A Study of Food & Drink [for] Regulating Diseases), and Yuan Mei’s Sui Yuan Shi Dan (Food Elixirs [from] Sui Yuan [Garden]). These books cover the principles of both preventive and remedial diets and filled with recipes to fight disease and for daily consumption.
Modern Era
During the modern era, research and application of these ancient food principles continue and has spread worldwide. Part of the power of these dietary principles is that they have been effective for the many different genetic/ethnic groups, geographic climates and environments, and different cultures and lifestyles all over China and other Asian countries to which they spread. When modified to fit individual needs, the principles of this 2,000-year-old system of dietary therapy are workable for most people in most places.
Citations
Flaws, B. (1998). The Tao of Healthy Eating: Dietary Wisdom According to Chinese Medicine 2nd ed. (Directly quoted)
Zhang, Y. & Yao, Y. (2012). Your Guide to Health with Foods & Herbs: Using the Wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine. (Referenced)