Copyright (c) 2009 Stephen Lau

Foods are not just foods. Be mindful of what you eat. Foods may affect all your body organs in different ways, positively or negatively.

In Western medicine, foods are considered in terms of calories, fats, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals.

In Chinese medicine, foods have a direct impact on your body organs, and hence your overall health and wellness. Specifically, they affect as many as ten body organs in terms of dietary treatments and cures. Foods, with their five flavors (bitter, pungent, salty, sour, sweet), their five energies (hot, warm, cold, cool, neutral), and their different movements (yes, some foods move outward, such as inducing perspiration, while others move inward, downward and upward), affect your body organs directly or indirectly.

For thousands of years, Chinese doctors have been using foods on diseased organs for cures and treatments. For example, your eyes are closely associated with your liver. So, if you have blurred vision or any eye disease, you may have a dysfunctional liver, and foods which are good for your liver may help your eye disease. Foods enhancing liver health include black sesame seeds, celery, chive, leek, peppermint, plum, and vinegar.

Again, your ears are related to a body organ – your kidneys. If you are hard of hearing, you may want to eat foods that help your kidneys, such as, black sesame seed, chestnut, chive, cinnamon bark, clam, egg yolk, grape, string bean, tangerine, walnut, and wheat, among others.

In the same manner, your nose is associated with your lungs, your mouth is related to your spleen, and your tongue is a reflection of your heart. To illustrate, for centuries, the Chinese have extensively used tongue diagnosis of disease as well as an individual’s overall health. Any discoloration of the tongue may indicate a disorder present in the body: bluish tongue, defect in the heart; yellow-greenish tongue, disorder in the liver; whitish tongue, problems in the stomach. Any depression on the surface of the tongue may also indicate a health problem, such as a crooked line in the center of the tongue may suggest back ache, while cracks on the surface of the tongue indicate disorder in the colon. In general, your tongue is a good indicator of your overall health. Therefore, look at your tongue in the mirror, and observe closely the size, shape, the contour surface, the margins, and the color of your tongue.

Some of the common foods good for your lung health are button mushroom, carrot, coriander, garlic, ginger, grape, green onion, honey, leek, licorice, lily flower, olive, pear, peppermint, radish, walnut, and water chestnut.

Foods which help your spleen are barley, bean curd (tofu), beef, carrot, chestnut, chicken, clove, coriander, cucumber, eggplant, fig, ginger, green pepper, red pepper, and soybean, among others.

Foods which benefit your heart include cinnamon twig, green pepper, mung bean, watermelon, and wheat, among others.

The Chinese eat foods for balance and harmony, based on the concept of “yin” and “yang.” This concept of balance and harmony originates from the “Five Elements” (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), which not only are fundamental to the cycles of Nature, but also correspond to the different organs of the human body. In addition, each of these elements also corresponds to a specific color. This is one of the reasons why you should eat foods with different colors, such as green, yellow, red, white, and black (or dark color). For the Chinese, eating is an art as well as a science because it affects all the body organs.

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