Creating a food practice: Temperature

From a Chinese medicine perspective, each food has a unique profile.

This profile includes qualities like temperature, directionality, flavor, and organ/meridian affinity. Foods are also categorized as building or clearing.

At first, this may seem complicated, but after a bit of tinkering with the concepts, I hope to help you see how this way of looking at food can make food selection, combining, and meals much more simple and therapeutically effective. The emphasis in this food practice is on simple meals that are easy to digest and assimilate.

Today I’ll write about temperature, and in the weeks to come, I’ll share more about all of the qualities that create an energetic profile for each food.

Temperature

Temperature refers to the thermostatic influence of the food. The broad bins that foods go in range from cold to hot in this way:

This temperature refers to both the energetic temperature of the food and the literal temperature of the food. In general, raw foods are cold or cooling, and we add warmth through methods of cooking (e.g. roasting, baking, etc.). For example, bean sprouts are cold, but when we saute them slightly, they become a bit more warm (from cold to cooling). Chicken is very warm, often heating. Chile peppers are hot. When we eat cooling or cold foods, we introduce this temperature and energy into our bodies - the same goes for warming or hot foods.

With this idea alone, we can begin to shape our food practice - the foods we choose and the way we eat - with a bit of Chinese medicinal strategy. A “hot” cold, for instance, may present with a sore throat, fever, and yellow phlegm. In this case, something like chicken soup would be contraindicated, as chicken is very warming, and many of these soup recipes contain onion, garlic, and warming spices, which add more heat to the food. Eating hot foods while experiencing a “hot” cold will only make matters worse.

On the other hand, if you have a “cold” cold, which often presents with chills (more chills than fever), clear mucus or phlegm, and body aches, a warming chicken soup may be an excellent therapeutic food to warm the body and help the push the pathogen away.

Sometimes people talk about heat in the body in terms of inflammation. It is not a direct translation in Chinese medicine, but the idea provides a springboard from which to understand the concept. When there is more inflammation in the body, there is often more heat. If we are getting a lot of headaches, experiencing reflux or GERD, or noticing constipation, these are all signs of heat. We can tailor our food choices toward more cooling or neutral selections, like to gently sauteed sprouts, cooked carrots, a vegetable soup (without onions and garlic, use scallions and ginger instead), tofu, mint tea.

If we have painful periods, with cold hands and feet, this may be a sign of an accumulation of cold in your body, especially in the uterus. By adding warming foods like ginger tea, cinnamon, roasted beets, and beef stew, we can introduce some much-needed warmth to the body, which will support and guide the resolution of this imbalance.

These concepts can also help when we’re craving foods that may not be the best for us. Take the example of a chocolate chip cookie. (I’m not against the occasional cookie. 🙂) Baked wheat is warming, and chocolate and sugar are both heating. Chinese medicine helps us learn how to notice what is going on in our bodies and make choices accordingly if we wish. If you notice you’ve got a lot of heat in your body, maybe you decide to wait on the cookie, knowing that it may exacerbate your current imbalances.

A solid food practice is such a central part of being well. I can remember a time when I was soo stressed out about food - I never knew what to eat and I had seemingly unsolvable digestive issues. Dietary therapy is one of my favorite parts of Chinese medicine, and it’s something I love to learn about. Temperature is a good starting point, next week I’ll write more about food flavor and directionality in the body.

Warmly,

Artemisia

Clinical Herbalist | Chinese Medicine

innervillagehealth.com