Based on its observations and the experience of centuries, Chinese dietetics introduces a broad spectrum of valuable, practical recommendations for a healthy, holistic diet.

Along with the right choice of foods and preparation methods, Chinese nutrition also emphasizes healthy eating habits and developing a lifelong, healthy approach to food.

Eating with delight and enjoyment in a leisurely and relaxed atmosphere and without any external distractions creates excellent conditions for good regeneration of qi from food. Positive feelings and moods generally promote good qi flow. During meals, positive feelings enable free flow of stomach and spleen qi, which supports the smooth processing of food and effective integration of food qi in the body.

Exhausting talks, discussions, and distractions (TV, radio, reading) burden stomach and spleen, which are especially sensitive to emotional tensions such as brooding, worries, anger, and fear. Negative emotions block and weaken the qi of digestive organs, resulting in loss of appetite, bloating, regurgitation, and stomach pain. “It turned my stomach”; “It ruined my appetite”; “The news made me choke on my food” are popular ways of describing this all too common situation. Continuous exposure of the stomach/spleen network to emotional stress can cause serious eating disorders and digestive problems such as obesity, bulimia, anorexia, or gastric ulcers.

Well-chewed food supports spleen qi, satisfies hunger more quickly, and prevents obesity.

“Stop when it tastes best” is a good basic principle for determining the right amount to eat. Sleepiness or a burdened feeling should not appear after a meal. After excessively large meals, the entire qi and blood of the body is pulled into the center burner to cope with the excess. This initially results in bloating and drowsiness, and in case of protracted excess, weakens the digestive organs and causes dampness and phlegm disorders.

Chinese dietetics recommends to always “unlock” all foods by using appropriate cooking methods to make them more accessible and digestible for the body. This protects center burner qi and allows for more effective transformation of food qi.

Common Syndromes

Spleen/pancreas qi vacuity, spleen/pancreas yang vacuity, phlegm disorders

50–80%: Grains form the main share of a healthy diet in Chinese dietetics, for example corn, barley, millet, oats, rice, spelt, wheat

30–40%: Cooked vegetables, for example carrots, potatoes, fennel, beans, cabbage, legumes (beans and lentils).

5%: Meat, for example beef, lamb, game, also poultry, or even better fish, because it is easier to digest and develops less dampness.

5%: Raw foods, salads, fruit should make up only a small portion of the overall diet; more during the summer.

TCM recommends the intake of only small amounts of liquid (yin) during meals. Excess liquid drowns the stomach’s digestive fire. The major share of the daily intake of liquids should be consumed between meals.

Fresh, unpolluted, naturally grown and produced foods are considered most valuable in TCM. Freshness is the highest priority, because fresh foods contain the most qi and optimally develop their specific thermal effect.

Industrial processing methods and most preservatives denature qi, which degrades food quality. In Chinese dietetics, such foods have weak or empty qi and are energetically inferior.

Avoid:

Polluted foods

Innards

Highly processed and denatured foods

Food additives

Refined sugar and sweeteners

Frozen foods

Microwaving

The body’s “inner voice” often reveals instinctively which flavor is of special significance. As part of a balanced lifestyle, one may give in to this inclination without hesitation.

Example

Craving sweets makes sense during exhausting mental work or strong physical exertion, since the sweet flavor has the strongest supplementing effect and most quickly regenerates qi. However, obvious, one-sided preference for a single flavor over a longer period is a diagnostic indicator for a potential imbalance. If a patient, for example, over months or even years seems to prefer sweet flavors, this may indicate disharmony of the earth phase reflecting an underlying disorder of the stomach, spleen/pancreas organ network.

Foods with a balanced thermal nature should be given preference in the daily diet: neutral, warm, or cool, depending on the times of day, seasons, bioclimatic factors, and constitution.

Acrid, warming spices and herbs may be used generously to support the stomach, spleen/pancreas network in its digestive function. Combining energetically cold and cool foods with warming foods is very beneficial, for example tomato salad with feta cheese, hot peppers, and garlic.

Hot and cold foods are thermal extremes and are employed rather sparingly, unless they are used to specifically treat beginning or established patterns of disharmony.

Sudden change in weather, pathogenic factor wind– cold

Symptoms

Beginning cold with shivering, aversion to cold, sneezing. Cold extremities require yang energy to defend against external pathogenic cold and transport defense qi to the surface.

Nutritional Therapy

Acrid spices such as ginger, garlic, chili, cinnamon, pepper, hot tea with spices, mulled wine, and acridly seasoned soups make sense during such times.

Excessive use of the two energetic extremes hot and cold is not recommended, since they can easily bring about pathological yang or yin patterns of disharmony.

The earth phase and the stomach and spleen/pancreas network (center burner) are of key significance in Chinese dietetics.

Earth is yin, nourishing the core, inner balance, stability, and inner center. The center burner nourishes yin. It develops acquired constitution qi and yang and is responsible for intake, processing, and digestion of foods. According to TCM, a large part (about 70 %) of the postnatal, renewable qi is taken from gu qi (drum qi).

Li Gao, the famous Chinese scholar of the Song dynasty (AD 960–1280), emphasized the special status of the center burner by founding a school just for the “strengthening of the center,” which specifically focused on prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of the center burner.

All therapy began with “strengthening the inner center,” the consistent development and protection of the stomach and spleen/pancreas network, primarily through nutritional therapy.

Many doctors were of the opinion that only when the Center Burner is balanced can the body form enough qi, blood, and body fluids. This forms the basis for subsequent therapies such as acupuncture.

This once again illustrates the importance of strengthening the function of the center burner daily through appropriate diet, in order to build up enough food qi to optimally regenerate the body’s entire acquired qi.

If this network is weakened (stomach qi vacuity or spleen/pancreas qi or yang vacuity), the body invariably develops acute and later chronic qi or yang vacuity.

For daily strengthening of stomach and spleen qi and yang