Gego 345 - Chinese Medicinal Cuisine

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Not only can Yin and Yang balance our bodies, but also the fluid Qi in our bodies is the fundamental principal of Chinese Medicinal Cuisines. “Qi is considered crucial to health — particularly to the prevention of cancer. Qi is the most important ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine, and the hardest to characterize.”(Jan Ziegler 8). It is clearly seen in this word that Qi as an energy can flow in the body directly reflects the health condition of the person. Issues related to illness are most clearly seen in the lack of Qi and related to death is the person without Qi. At this time, the adding of proper food to someone who is lack of some kind of Qis can recover the person. For example, eating some gojis or red dates can cure the woman who is sick or in period. Older people as a group people of lacking of Qi can drink Chinese ginseng tea or eat bird nest to slow down the aging process. What’s more, it is visible that the blocked Qi circulation may cause injury or stress, so it is helpful to eat some foods like dangshen, longan, and mulberry with the idea that food tonic is much better than medicine tonic.

As the Yin and Yang continuously adjust to one another and Qin flow through bodies to harmonize the energy, another notion is Wu Xing that are five elements transfer endlessly in a simple logic way to balance the food energy that we consume. The five elements are Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal, which represented five major organs---the Kidneys, the Liver, the Heart, the Spleen and the Lungs. Different foods are associated with different elements and actions in our bodies. According to Lillian’s journal Five Elements of Food posted on 2016,“One of the best ways to create balance in the body is to eat more foods that correspond to all the Five Flavors: Salty, Sour, Bitter, Sweet and Savory, Pungent or Umami in a way that most suits your personal needs.”(1) It means that what we eat needs to provide us with all these five elements, and we can determine the five phases by the flavors of food. All salty and dark foods belong to the property of Water, which can promote moisture and calming people down. The function of foods with Wood property like spinach and celery is restricting movement and benefit erratic people. Most red foods, especially food that looks like hearts and hot foods, are classified in the Fire element that associated with the maturation and the summer’s sunshine, which in turn, like tomatoes, red pepper and carrots, can reduce the blood pressure and benefit the circulation system. The sweet and starch Wood foods like apples, potato, and bananas can benefit nervous and aggressive people, neutralize toxins, and slow down acute symptoms. Metal foods like garlic, white rice, and cream associated with storage the energy for the next cycle are savory, pungent, and white foods with the energy to promote circulation and anti-inflammation. More than one element in one food and various cooking methods can be considered as the reasons of the transformation of different elements. “For example, raw onion is the metal element because of its pungency whereas cooked onion is very sweet and becomes earthy, or they may change at different states of growth so that when it is unripe versus when it is ripe. For example, tomatoes when green are quite sour and therefore belong more to the Wood Element and when they are ripe, belong to the Fire Element. When they are very sweet, they become Eartthier.”(Lillian 3) Once the onion becomes sweet after cooking, the property directly changed into earthy. It obvious that the flavor of food, such as pungency, does follow the property of metal element shows on raw onion, and different foods with different Wu Xing should have diversified approaches to cook. For the food with Water element, it is better to use boiling, steaming, and freezing to cook, while using grilling and smoking methods to cook Wood food is proper ways. Frying and toasting are excellent cooking methods for Fire food. As for Earth food, baking and roasting are reasonable, while Metal element belongs to Garnishes or Condiments.

The transformation of five elements can also be understood relative to a specific routine that is similar with the dynamitic balance of Yin and Yang. According to Christopher Hafner’s article five phases of transformation or the five elements, “Each phase of transformation also has a restraining influence on the phase opposite to it (i.e. water restrains fire, wood restrains earth, etc.). By increasing or decreasing the qualities and functions associated with a particular phase, a practitioner may either nourish a phase that is in deficiency or drain a phase that is in excess or restrain a phase that is exerting too much influence.”(2) This concept refers to the idea of decreasing the qualities or function associated with one phase is eating that opposite phase food. This is particularly seen in the person who eats too much food with Fire phase should eat more food with Water property like sugar cane, and imperata arundinacea. In contrast, each phase can nourish the next phase like Water nourishes Wood and Wood nourishes Fire.

Actually, the theory of five elements manifests how Qi transfer through various stages, and five phases are associated with the never-ending harmonization of Yin and Yang. Apart from these principals of Chinese medicinal cuisines, some seasonal recipes that are easy to prepare have been part of Chinese culture for hundreds of years.

It is prominent to eat seasonal foods because the nature produces the right healing food and the reasonable time for ill people. As mentioned above, Chinese avoid eating melons during winter because it has too much Yin. Not like Westerns who always drink ice water, Chinese like to drink hot chicken soup with ginger, red date, and Huangqi during winter. Putting a chicken into water with two chopped radishes, some mushrooms, one tablespoon of ginger, and two pieces Ginsengs. After that, strewing it with lower heat for three hours to totally mix the nutritional elements of these foods. However, tomatoes and cucumbers salad with simple seasonings is the most popular food for Chinese in summer because that summer should be relegated to make body cool down. However, due to the cleaning up process and less needed storage energy in spring, we should control ourselves to eat less fat and meet. As the saying goes “The spring is the color for green and liver”, it is necessary to eat some fresh green vegetables to help nourish the liver, stimulate the Qi, and prepare for growing Yang. In autumn, the depressing season and escaped Qi from our bodies related to the essential replenishment of Qi, so butternut quash soup is suitable for Autumn, and here is the recipe from Gavin Van Hinsbergh’s article Chinese Medicinal Cuisine---Healthy Seasonal Recipe on November 23, 2015,