Dietary therapy uses food to treat and prevent diseases. What you eat can determine your health and the quality of your life. “You are what you eat.” Chinese medicine believes humans and their environment form an organic whole. Human beings are integral parts of the entire universe. The environment provides air, water, and food for our lives. Many diseases are linked with the environmental factors. Thus things from the environment can keep you healthy and treat diseases as well. Healing food is medicine.
Chinese medicine classifies food according to its energetic effects rather than according to its components. Foods have different properties: different tastes, different flavors, and different functional directions.
Different foods can specifically enter and treat different internal organs, such as salty food goes to the Kidney, bitter food goes to the heart, sweet food goes to the spleen acrid food goes to the lung, and sour food goes to the liver.
Certain foods are viewed as warming and nourishing while others are seen as cooling and eliminating. Some foods are useful for building Qi while others have blood building proprieties. Cold foods treat hot diseases; hot foods can counter cold diseases. Foods with lifting properties can be used to treat sinking, depressed, hypofunctional conditions, and foods with sedating properties can be used to treat uprising, over-active and hyperfunctional conditions.
Chinese medicine classifies food according to its energetic effects rather than according to its components. Foods have different properties: different tastes, different flavors, and different functional directions.
Different foods can specifically enter and treat different internal organs, such as salty food goes to the Kidney, bitter food goes to the heart, sweet food goes to the spleen acrid food goes to the lung, and sour food goes to the liver.
Certain foods are viewed as warming and nourishing while others are seen as cooling and eliminating. Some foods are useful for building Qi while others have blood building proprieties. Cold foods treat hot diseases; hot foods can counter cold diseases. Foods with lifting properties can be used to treat sinking, depressed, hypofunctional conditions, and foods with sedating properties can be used to treat uprising, over-active and hyperfunctional conditions.
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Common forms of dietary therapy:
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