Whenever I visit my parents, they ask me things like, “What should I eat to alleviate back pain” or “What foods should I avoid to improve my eyesight?” Many who grew up with Eastern cultural influences have herbs and “complementary medicines” to take care of the body. When I was a kid, I would retort, “No, your way of thinking about food isn’t scientific!” or “No, food doesn’t work like that, your understanding of food is primitive.” I’m so ashamed that I tried telling my culture its views on medicine and food are invalid — merely because they did not fit conveniently into the Western way of thinking I was used to.
How egotistical are we, as Americans, to think that we know all there is to know about everything? That OUR way is the ONLY way?
Don’t get me wrong, as a dietetic intern trained in Western practices, I’m taught to educate my patients through the framework of macro and micronutrients. But as I become more in tune with my ethnic background and learn about other cultures, it doesn’t sit well with me. Am I supposed to tell all of these cultures that their way of viewing health and wellness is incorrect? That it’s not “modern”, or effective? Let’s remember that our world today has become a Western-dominant society (thanks to things like imperialism and colonialism). The Western method, aka the scientific method, is seen as TRUTH, while all other methods are seen as complementary or integrative at best, and primitive or superstitious in most cases.
You may be thinking that this sounds more like an opinion post, rather than a “fact” post. Sit tight, the facts are coming soon. But as I continue to illustrate these so-called facts through our blog, I want you to be aware that my perspective and education is a predominantly WESTERN perspective and a WESTERN education on health and medicine. Do you not get why it’s so important to clarify perspectives in health? Try reading “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman. Here’s a quick summary.
With that said, in order to pay tribute to my Eastern heritage, and widen the minds of my audience, I wanted to do a post that highlighted nutrition truths from an Eastern lens. Let’s start with the basics.
The Background. Through an Eastern lens, the body is seen as a holistic organism. Mind, soul, and body are integrated. (In the Western world, the physical body is the focus and seen as a robot). If you’re healthy, your body’s energy, or chi, is in balance. If you’re not, something is out of balance and your doctor will work to help your body come back to a state of balance.
The Energy of Food. Again, food is the body’s first medicine, and Eastern cultures do not take this for granted. Food is known to have certain energies that play a role in bringing balance to your body. The key to a healthy diet is to eat a balanced diet with varying energies. Food is categorized with Yin and Yang qualities.
Yin. Yin can be translated as “cold” foods. This doesn’t refer to the temperature of the food, per se, but the energy. There are cold (colder) foods (ie bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, seaweed, sugar cane) and there are cool (milder) foods (ie barley, wheat, cucumber, celery, coconut). Tea is considered to be a cool food due to its cooling effect on the body.
Yang. Yang can be translated as “hot” foods. Again, this is not a synonym for the temperature of the foods, but spicy foods fall into this category. There are warm foods (ie coriander, Chinese chives, sweet peppers, lobster, egg yolk) and there are hot foods (ie black pepper, cinnamon, mustard seed, chilli pepper). Fried foods often fall in this category as well.
Neutral. Foods can also have a balanced energy of Yin and Yang. These include foods like corn, taro, milk, sugar, plums, and carrots.
You can read more on food properties here.
Putting it all together. All of these foods influence your body’s chi and it’s important to eat a balanced diet to keep your body in balance. When your body is feeling ill, TCM doctors educate their patients on how to alter their diet to achieve a balanced chi. (This is WHY, my parents would often ask me specific questions of what food will help them alleviate pains in their bodies!!!) For a general example, when you have a fever and sore throat, you have a higher yang energy. It is therefore recommended that you avoid spicy foods or chips because these are yang foods.
Given all of that, I’d hate for you to read all of this and be like, “oh, interesting voodoo magic!” I’d like to challenge you if you have that perspective. I know it’s hard for us with a Western mindset to accept different cultural beliefs as legitimate ways of healing and practice. It’s so easy to see it simply as a lifestyle, one that is cool for “them,” but not for “me,” because I’m “educated” and above all of that “magic.” Let me just say, try putting yourself in someone else’s culture, and think about how they would feel if they were told they needed to have a stranger cut open their chest, break their ribs, and mess with their heart for a “way of healing” (aka coronary artery bypass surgery). If they see healing as a process of balance, how well do you think they would be convinced by such an invasive procedure?
We all need to be more critical about the way we approach differences; rather than oppress certain ways of thinking in favor of our own, we need to consider the roots of our doubt when we criticize other people’s worldviews.
…
Still curious? Watch this man lie completely awake during his operation using acupuncture as anaesthesia to see how Western and Eastern perspectives have BOTH worked together in the past.
And if you want to learn how you can implement this practically, we’ll be posting some recipes early next week!
HEY, HAVE YOU EATEN? 