“That’s something I’ve noticed about food: whenever there’s a crisis if you can get people to eating normally things get better.“
Madeleine L’Engle
Overview, What You Eat Matters:
You learned in detail how important your relationship with food is on the previous page. If you haven’t found yourself there yet I would suggest starting with that page and come back to this one when you are ready, I cannot overstate how important your relationship with food truly is. That being said, what you eat is also very important and can quickly move you towards a state of thriving which is why I will be teaching about it today.
Let’s Start With a Quick Recap:
The section just below is a review from your relationship with food. Today I will be going over the first 2 in much greater detail on the following pages.
SO WHAT FOODS ARE GOOD OR BAD?
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine ALL food is both good and bad depending on what you are trying to heal from. All of the specifics are under the relevant “pick your struggle” however there are some very simple basics, and remember that the most important thing is to NOT OVERTHINK THIS.
- Food and drink can be broken down into 2 basic categories:
- Food that builds the body up.
- Food that cleans the body out.
- Dr. Natasha McBride did a great blog on this here, but it basically boils down to the idea that the body goes through periods of building and periods of cleaning and different food helps in different ways.
- Another way we can classify food or drink is by the “biproduct” left over after it is digested:
- All food has a digestable part and a “waste product” after digestion. In Chinese Medicine many food sensitivities come from eating to much food with the same “waste product.” To make this simple just imagine that everything you eat, drink, or are exposed to in your environment creates “toxins” that need to be cleaned out.
- We group “toxins” into 3 primary groups; Damp, Heat, and Cold. If you live in a cold weather area, eat lots of ice cream, and don’t turn your heat on you can accumulate too much “cold” toxin. When the amount of “toxin” reaches the breaking point you start to develop symptoms (in this case feeling cold and cramping type pain.)
- A final way to easily classify food and drink is by the “organ” or “system” that digests it:
- Digesting food requires effort from many different organs. Your stomach, liver, gallbladder, and intestines are examples of this.
- Each food requires more effort from 1 organ and less effort from another. The liver and gallbladder being in charge of digesting fats are an example of this.
- The other common cause of food sensitivities comes from eating too much food that requires most of the effort from 1 organ rather than spreading it over all the organs. An example of this would be eating a high fat, high protien diet with few carbs or vegetables which requires the liver and gallbladder to do all the work rather than a more balanced diet which allows some of the work to be done by the stomach and intestines.
- A final point on good vs bad food:
- From the perspective of Chinese Medicine…ANY diet that EXCLUDES categories of food long term (no carbs, no meat, no vegetables etc.) WILL ALWAYS lead to dis-ease eventually. Life is about balance, not extremes.
Up Next: Food That Builds You Up, and Food That Cleans You Out