Chinese Food Health gives you the basic approaches on how to nourish and preserve health in the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

While you are enjoying the crisp weather, changing leaves, and bike rides to the full, you should also concern your health in the season of fall.

In fact, during these months, as low relative humidity leads to a fast evaporation of body water, we are inclined to suffer from canker sores and aphthous ulcers, nose and skin dryness, swelling and sore throat, coughing, constipation, etc. In the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), these symptoms reflect that the “Qi” (essential energy) of lungs (metal) is getting too strong and is hurting the liver (wood).

Not have a clue?  According to TCM, The Five Elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth) are the aspects of “Qi” and health is a harmonious balance of all the elements.  To elaborate, each organ is associated with one of the elements: lungs link with metal, liver with wood, kidneys with water, heart with fire, and stomach/spleen with earth.

Since fall is also associated with the element metal, and the metal element corresponds with the lungs, we should therefore follow a less-pungent-more-sour diet in fall to stay healthy.

In fact, tannins, organic acids, and dietary fiber in some sour-taste fruits and vegetables can stimulate digestive juices/bile production, which helps break down complex molecules into simple structures and speeds up the whole digestion process.  On the contrary, eating foods in pungent taste will only increase perspiration. That explains why it’s not a good idea to consume pungent food in fall.

When speaking of health, one tremendously important concept that we should realize is the importance of the digestive and intestinal systems.  The digestive tract is the first line of immune defense, and the liver (also considered part of the digestive system) is the second. Which means if we want to maintain good health, we must take care of the digestive tract and the liver.

Once we have a healthy digestive system, our body will be able to extract nutrients and other important substances from food that we need to fight off diseases!

Tips:

• Foods in Pungent Taste include: Leeks, garlic, green onion, ginger, fennel (aniseed), cassia (Chinese cinnamon), etc.
• Foods in Sour Taste include: Hawthorn, grapes, grapefruit, pomegranate, apple, spinach, cauliflower, etc.

Image by sean dreilinger