Week 2: Energetics of Food Flashcards
What is the single most important category in oriental medicine in regard to food?
The temperature of a food
What are the qualities of HOT food in TCM?
- Speed up qi
- Increase yang
- Activate, warm, disperse
- Move upward and outward
- Eliminate external and internal cold
- (Zang Fu) Warm the bowels and viscera
- Enhance defense qi
What are examples of hot foods?
Ginger, cinnamon, lamb, chilli
What happens if you have an excess of HOT foods?
Excess creates heat (yang repletion), injures yin and dries out BF
What is the action of WARM food?
- Strengthen yang and qi
- Warm the body, bowels and viscera
- Warm and strengthen middle jiao
- Treatment of cold symptoms
What are some examples of warm foods?
Fennel, chicken, beef, oats
What happens with excess warm?
Yang repletion
What is the action of NEUTRAL foods?
- Build up qi and BF
- Stabilize and harmonize the body
- Treatment of qi vacuity
What are examples of neutral foods?
Honey, rice, potatoes
What is the action of COOL foods?
- Supplement body fluids (jin ye) and blood (due)
- Slow down qi
- Clear heat
- Treatment of heat symptoms
What are some examples of cool food?
Yogurt, soy milk, wheat
What are the actions of COLD foods?
- Create cold
- Cool internal heat
- Calm shen
- Treatment of heat symptoms
What are examples of cold food?
Watermelon, dandelion, orange
What happens with excess cold?
Damages qi and yang, thoroughly cools down the body.
Plants that take longer to grow (eg. root vegetables, ginger) tend to be _______ than fast growing foods (e.g. lettuce, zucchini, tomatoes)
warmer
Foods that contain high water content tend to be more ______ e.g.. melon, cucumber, squash
cooling
Dried foods tend to be more _______ than their fresh counterparts
warming
Some chemicals added to foods may produce ____ _______ as may artificially ripened foods
heat reactions
Foods with blue, green or purple colours are usually more _____ than red, orange or yellow
cooling
What are cooling cooking methods?
Blanching
Steaming
Boiling in plentiful water
Salting (pickling in brine)
What are warming cooking methods?
Grilling Frying Roasting Smoking Searing Baking Long simmering in liquid
Longer and slower methods will produce more _______ effects than quicker methods
warming
Does microwaving add any heat to food?
No, but it does alter the molecular structure and cause abnormal changes in human immune systems.
What is Wu Wei?
Five flavours
What is the function of the sweet flavour?
- Harmonizes all other flavours and forms the centre of the diet
- Mildly stimulates circulation of qi and blood
- Treats deficiency (tonifying and strengthening)
- Moistens and benefits dryness
What occurs with excess sweet?
- Leads to formation of phlegm and heat.
- Refined sugar will weaken the blood and excess sweet should be avoided with damp conditions.
What are examples of the sweet flavour?
Pumpkin, rice, beef (most meat), legumes, nuts, dairy and starchy vegetables.
Talk about the generating cycle with excess sweet
- Affects lung, cough
- Adds flesh
- Creates flesh
- Weakens connective tissue
Talk about the Controlling cycle for sweet (earth).
Earth overacts on Water Weakens kidney (bone and teeth disorders)
What are functions of the pungent flavour?
- Stimulate digestion
- Hot pungents open pores through perspiration
- EPF’s are expelled
- Loosen emotional stagnation in chest
- Breaks up phlegm
- Circulation of qi and blood
- Disperses stagnation
Excess pungent?
- Dry skin and constipation, skin linked to lung and LI
- Exhaust qi and blood
Talk about generating cycle for metal
Lung to kidney, metal to water
- Overconsumption will affect kidney yin which will overheat
- Exaggerated sexual desire and compulsions
Controlling cycle for metal?
- Damage LV/GB
- LV yang rising and irritability
Insulting phase for metal
- Heart and fire network affected, sleep disorders, hyperactivity and restlessness
- Ask person what time they finish eating and what they eat before bed
Functions of salty flavour?
- Moisture balance
- Stimulate digestion
- Moisten, soften, detoxify
- Inward and downward,
- Centre and root movement
Excess salty?
- Hardens muscles and damages bone
- Damages fluids and blood leading to hypertension
- Inhibits heart and spirit
- Decreased mental abilities and rigid thinking
Is fish salty or sweet?
Both but more sweet
Functions of sour flavour?
- Contraction and absorption
- Astringent and gathering effect
- Leaking and sagging conditions (sweating, diarrhea, hemorrhage)
- Counteracts fatty foods to prevent stagnation
- Smooth flow of qi and blood
Excess sour?
Over-contraction and over-retention of moisture
For a heated up liver and gallbladder what would you recommend?
Soothe with sour cooling foods like raspberry and lemon
Generating cycle for wood (sour)
From LV to HT
- Good for distracted, unfocused minds
- Contraindicated with acute external weather conditions as cold will move inward
Controlling cycle for wood
- Cannot really have too much sour in terms of LV and SP
- May cause over contraction but also blood activators
- Mix vinegar and honey to neutralize
Functions of bitter flavour?
- Drains and dries, moves downward
- Improve appetite, stimulate digestion
- Draw out dampness and heat
- Reduce excess conditions
- Acts mostly on heart but also benefits lung
Excess bitter? Contraindications?
- Deplete qi and moisture
- Contraindicated with cold or deficient conditions
Generating cycle for fire (bitter)
- Appropriate amount will supplement spleen, pancreas, stomach
- Spleen qi tonic
- Preferably during moist, cool weather
Controlling cycle for fire (bitter)
- Too much will dehydrate and damage fluids
- Poor circulation and blood deficiency
- Dry skin and blood
Insulting cycle for bitter
Bitter spreads to bones, robbing body of calcium
Sourness enters \_\_\_\_\_ Bitterness enters \_\_\_\_\_\_ Sweetness enters \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Acridity enters \_\_\_ Saltiness enters \_\_\_\_\_
sinews blood flesh qi bones
What is the doctrine of signatures?
Signatures may refer to colour, texture, form or the environment that the plant may grow in. TCM also recognizes flavour.
Daikon
- pungent
- moisten lung
- cut mucous
- help prevent viral infection
Willow
- Aspirin/ASA
- Cold/damp environment
- Worsens arthritic pain
Watercress
- Thrives in watery environment
- Diuretic
- Signature/form
Walnut
- resembles a brain
- omega 3 fatty acids
Cauliflower
- white, lung
- branched,like lungs
- treats lung yin deficiency
- treats mucoid conditions in LI
- brassica genus, cruciferous to treat colon, prostate, breast cancer
Chickpeas
- Contains more iron than any other legume
- Signature is form as it looks like a heart
Eggplant
- purple, black
- eggs, ovaries, gynecology
- essence kidneys
- eat sparingly by pregnant women
- signature looks like a uterus, treats congealed blood
Kale
- green good for LV/GB
- Liver qi
- high source of chlorophyll, rejuvenates, quells inflammation, detoxifies, renews
Kidney beans
- signature is form and colour
- dark, black
- looks like kidney
- water energy
- nourish yin fluids, used in treating edema and swelling
Beet
- red
- looks like a heart
- strengthen heart
- sedate the spirit
- improve circulation
- purify the blood
Avocado
- uterus
- builds blood
- nourishes yin
- rich in copper, aids in RBC formation
Celery
- form, looks like a bone
- high in silicon
- renew joints, bones, arteries, connective tissues
Pineapple
- yellow, sweet
- habitat, grow in tropical climates
- help to treat summer heat, sunstroke
- increases digestion and destroys worms
Apple
- cut it in half it looks like a star
- universal symbol for spirit, sustenance, life, secret knowledge, hidden mysteries
