Chinese dietetics: Reading a food

Nothing is classified on its own

食疗 Shí Liáo

Chinese dietetics does not sort foods into good and bad. It reads each one inside three things: the meal it belongs to, the climate it is eaten in, and the person eating it. Change one of the three and the reading changes with it.

“Melon is bad”

Says nothing: with what, when and for whom is missing

“Melon alone, on an empty stomach, in January”

That is a reading, and it can be argued with

The same dish in August and in January

Two different readings of the same dish

Common mistake: Looking for the list of forbidden foods. It is the first thing everyone asks for and it is exactly what this subject does not have.

Four categories, and what they are not

Tradition describes a food by thermal nature, flavor, direction and organ affinity. These are observation categories accumulated over centuries, not measurements: nature is not a thermometer and flavor is not always what the tongue notices.

Thermal nature

Which way the observed effect tends: cooling or warming

Flavor

The category it is filed under, sometimes inherited from the text

Direction

Whether the described effect rises, descends, releases or gathers

Affinity

Which organs tradition relates it to

Common mistake: Inferring a treatment from a single property. Four categories exist because one is not enough.

A patient asks whether bananas are good or bad. Which answer is Chinese dietetics?

1. Bad: it is cold and weakens digestion
2. Good: it provides potassium and fiber
3. It depends on what with, when, and who eats it
4. Bad in winter and good in summer, always

Someone wants to drop five food families because they have read that they are “cold”. What do you tell them?

1. To try it for a week and observe
2. That a restriction needs a clear reason, and that is not one
3. To replace each one with its warming equivalent
4. To check with their acupuncturist first

Each category with what it describes