A "Food as Medicine" Approach to Health + Life
Here’s the truth: the bulk of modern, western diets are stripped of the nourishing, energetic, and healing qualities of food. Therefore, they must be remediated with vitamins, supplements, “superfoods” and medicines just to be healthy. Therefore, many modern, Western diets are not “healing” at all, but rather quite inflammatory. All of these factors product a biological state that is out of alignment.
But what is also true is that, in many other parts of the world, foods have been used as medicines for centuries. The ancients described cohesive medical systems to understand how food works in the body and mind. Their primary aim was to describe body functions, not offer recipes. Foods were used to bring about health and protect longevity.
Below we’ll walk through the foundational nutritional/biological theories which have informed the way we look at food, medicine, illness and healing today.
How Hippocrates (460 B.C. to 375 B.C) Understood Food and Medicine
The early Greek theory of humours understood the human body to be composed of fluid (humours) and all aspects of digestion and health were dependent upon them. Disease was regarded as a result of an imbalance of the four humours: yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood. Yellow bile corresponded to Fire; black bile to Earth; phlegm to Water and blood to Air.
In the tradition of Hippocrates, foods can be heating, cooling, or generative of one humour. Some foods produce good “juices” and others bad “juices” and often cooking and preparation of the foods can change or improve the “juices” of foods. In addition, foods may be easy to assimilate (easy to pass through the body), easily excreted, nourishing or not nourishing.
Balancing Energy with Foods
In Hippocratic medicine, the qualities in foods are analogous to the humours in the body. For instance: too much of a single food is bad, a proper mixture is ideal. In other words, Yellow bile (Fire and bile) has the function to digest and consume, metabolize and transform. Bile powers digestion, assimilates and excretes fats and cholesterol and acts as a natural laxative to stimulate intestinal peristalsis and defecation. However, excess yellow bile, resulting from heat and excreted by the liver, causes biliousness (inflammation, irascibility.)
Black bile was believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen and, when in excess, to cause melancholy. A treatment to reduce black bile was eating natural laxatives such as olive oil or figs soaked in rosewater in order to rid the body of the waste material.
The Phlegmatic humour is cold and wet in nature. It includes all the other clear fluids of the body: mucus, saliva, plasma, lymph, and serous and interstitial fluids. Together, these fluids cool, moisten, nourish, lubricate, protect, and purify the body. The Plegmatic humour flushes out impurities, transports vital nutrients, and helps eliminate wastes.
How the “Humours” Connect with Emotions
The four humours tend to have negative effects on the mind and emotions only when they’re excessive or aggravated. Otherwise, they can also strengthen positive aspects of character.
For instance:
• Blood promotes a feeling of joy, mirth, optimism, enthusiasm, affection and well-being.
• Phlegm induces passivity, lethargy, subjectivity, devotion, emotionalism, sensitivity and sentimentality.
• Yellow Bile provokes, excites and emboldens the passions. Being inflammatory, irritating and caustic, it can provoke anger, irritability, boldness, ambition, envy, jealousy and courage.
• Black Bile makes one pensive, melancholy and withdrawn. It encourages prudence, caution, realism, pragmatism and pessimism.
When and Where We Eat (Matters Just as Much as “What” We Eat)
Seasonal foods were also part of Hippocratic teaching. In “on Regimen” we are advised, in winter (warming and drying) roasted meats, few vegetables and wheaten bread should be stressed; in spring (cleansing) green foods, barley cake and barley water.
How the East Views Food as Medicine
Long before Hippocrates, East Indian and Tibetan healers also described humours. In Ayurveda they are known as vata, pitta and kapha (Wind, Bile and Phlegm.) In Tibet, they are known as rloong, krispa, badkam. In many Eastern traditions, food and herbs are used to bring about harmony in the body and a harmonious relationship to our fellow travelers and within the environment. Their composition correspond roughly to the ancient Greek humours. Wind moves through the body and is light like air. Bile is digestive energy and heat and phlegm is our fluids and flesh.
Foundational traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) texts date back to the Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 220 ACE). Chinese medicine was practiced long before the texts were discovered. One of the earliest works was the Wushi’er Bingfang (Chinese: 五十二病方 or Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments, an ancient Chinese medical text that was discovered in Mawangdui in a tomb that was sealed in 168 BCE under the Han dynasty. That formulary presents more than 250 exorcistic, surgical and food or herbal-based cures for ailments ranging from warts to hemorrhoids or snake bites. Among medical treatments, the text describes channels (also called meridians) but mentions neither acupuncture nor moxibustion (cauterization with mugwort herb) were mentioned.
A Traditional Chinese Medicine Approach to “Food as Medicine”
Using a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) framework, a person’s balanced diet must consider the physical constitution which is another way to look at body and energy type. In TCM there are six types of physical constitution: hot, cold, dry, damp, deficient and excessive. That means if we have hot physical constitution, we should eat more cooling foods; if a cold constitution, eat more warming pungent foods to create balanced energy. It is important to know our type of physical constitution.
A “hot” constitution:
• Often feels hot, thirsty, reddish complexion
• Prefers cold drinks and cold weather
• Has scanty dark urine, hard stools
• Red tongue with yellow coating
• Fast or high pulse
A “cold” constitution:
• Feels cold and not thirsty
• Prefers hot drinks and foods
• Has pale or whitish complexion
• Has clear urine and soft stools
• Light colored tongue
A “dry” constitution:
• Dry skin, itching
• Dry cough
• Constipation
• Thin frame, cannot easily gain weight
A “damp” constitution:
• Heavy or clumsy feeling in the body
• Often tired
• Glossy, greasy coating on the tongue
• Edema or easy weight gain
A “deficient” constitution:
• Weak body, low spirits
• Pale, easily tired
• Palpitations or shortness of breath
• Underweight often with prolapse symptoms
An “excessive” constitution:
• Strong and energetic
• High spirits or drive
• Reddish complexion
• Hypertension, heart disease
• Loud or high-pitched voice
Combinations are always possible: hot and excessive, cold and dry etc. The individual’s diet is always a mixture of foods with different flavors and energies suited to the needs of that person.
Using a “food as medicine” approach to balance constitutions:
• Cold physical constitution: eat more hot or warm energy foods, fewer cold raw foods; eat more sweet and pungent foods and decrease bitter foods.
• Hot physical constitution: eat more cool or cold energy foods; eat more bitter foods and less pungent foods
• Dry physical constitution: eat foods that lubricate dryness like honey, avoid drying (astringent) foods like adzuki beans.
• Damp physical constitution: eat more drying foods that reduce fluids such as diuretic foods or drying foods; avoid foods that produce fluids.
• Deficient constitution; eat more tonics such as yam, red date and fewer bitter cleansing foods.
• Excessive constitution: choose more foods that promote blood circulation, avoid foods that increase energy (stimulants)
How the West vs. How the East Sees “Food as Medicine”
In the West we may eat beef for phosphorus, seaweed for iodine, banana for potassium, rice for carbohydrates, spinach for iron, tomato for vitamin A, or lemon for vitamin C. But in Eastern medicine we eat foods according to their effects on our health and energy. Instead of a simplified, extractive relationship between the food we eat and what we hope to “gain,” from it, Eastern medicine chooses foods (and temperatures) that gently nudge the body’s energy towards alignment. “Alignment” being a balanced, harmonious series of bodily systems that all flow well together with no blockages. Needless to say, it’s a bit more complex than the Western way of looking at the nutrients within each food.
For example, according to TCM, beef is neutral in energy, sweet in flavor and acts on spleen and stomach. Chicken liver is slightly warming, sweet in flavor and acts on liver and kidneys. Seaweed is cold and salty in flavor. Sweet rice is warm in energy, sweet in flavor and acts on spleen, stomach and lungs.
Choosing Your Diet According to Your Constitution/Condition
Cooking according to our constitution and a food’s energy (aka using “food as medicine) may seem complicated, but it is easier than cooking purely to achieve proper food chemistry (ie., “I need more iron so I’m going to eat black beans).
Here’s why: we cannot taste potassium, sodium, or chloride though every cell needs them. We might memorize food sources or analyze the food’s chemical composition, its energetic interaction with body systems. But many of us simply rely upon tradition: “Gramma’s favorite cure for preventing headaches.” But we can accomplish something more specific, more like food as medicine.
Since we as individuals have different needs and tastes, and the same food will react in us according to our constitution (our genetic heritage) and our condition (what we feel now) an energetic approach is easiest to use in the kitchen.
It can be a truer guide for your diet than nutritional mega-studies, seasonal choices or food fads.
• If you are weak and blood deficient you may feel cold chills during summer heat. You may feel feverish or have menopausal hot flashes during winter.
• If you are hot, cook cool, fresh and green
• If you are cold, use spices, warm and sweet
• If you are weak, add tonics, adaptogens, seaweeds
• If you have hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, use cleansing foods. Dr. Henry C. Lu in his book Chinese System of Food Cures recommends these foods to “soften blood vessels” help prevent hardening of arteries (arteriosclerosis) and stroke: kelp, mung bean sprouts, fruits; reduce animal fats, and add foods that reduce blood pressure such as celery, hawthorn, banana and persimmon.
• Green, oolong, white, black and pu’er teas are balancing and detoxifying while they support energy and emotional wellness.
This is just a taste of how we can start to look beyond “vitamins” and “minerals” to the energetic, emotional, physical, and even spiritual qualities of the foods we eat. Through a more nuanced view into how each food can influence and support our health and healing, we can start to incorporate a “food as medicine” approach to our diet and life.
For professional training on healing foods and how to prepare them properly according to individual needs, for the best seasonal diets, herbs and supplements, become a Holistic Health Coach at the Academy of Healing Nutrition online, in New York and London.