Chinese diet therapy
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, diet and nutrition play a very important role. Each food has individual therapeutic properties that not only used to maintain health, but also to contribute to the treatment of illnesses. Chinese diet therapy dates back from the 11th to the 18th century BC and is seen as a sub-group of Chinese herbal medicine.
The philosophy behind Chinese diet therapy is that everything must be balanced. This begins by discovering the polar opposites of foods that are available and combining them for a middle ground. Yin and yang are the philosophy that is used for foods, giving the best combination of elements for health. Yang is known to increase body heat, which will raise the metabolism to process nutrients. Yin then combines with this to decrease the body heat, which will balance the nutrients that are being processed in the metabolism.
According to Chinese medicine, improper meal and unbalanced diet can be one of the major causes of illness. Not eating balanced and proper meal can lead to an obstruction of the energy flow in your body, causing your body not to have the ability to process its nutritional needs correctly. The alternative that is suggested is Chinese diet therapy, where there is a balance between the food that you eat and the nutrition that you get.
In order for Chinese diet therapy to work properly, there has to be an understanding of how your body reacts to specific things. If you are completely balanced, too much of either yin or yang will cause a reaction by your body, allowing you to stay balanced. Everything that your body does, when using Chinese diet therapy, will be communicating to you how to use your food and balance it out properly.
The ideas of yin and yang are used in the sphere of food and cooking. Yin foods are believed to decrease the body's heat (e.g. lower the metabolism) whileYang foods are believed to increase the body's heat (e.g. raise the metabolism). As a generalisation, Yang foods tend to be dense in calories, especially fat calories while Yin foods tend to have high water content. The Chinese ideal is to eat both types of food to keep the body in balance.
The eastern view of nutrition works in the same way that the eastern view of medicine works. That is to provide a global framework that is flexible enough to be uniquely suited to an individual based on their state of health and also allowing room, in the case of nutrition, for an individual preference.
Most therapeutic food dishes are eaten as meals or with meals and repeated for days or sometimes weeks until the body has enough nutrition to repair itself. The results are more comprehensive and permanent. After recovery, repeating the recipe at regular intervals is recommended for maintenance purposes.
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1 Whitehorse Rd Deepdene VIC 3103 (cnr of Whitehorse & Burke Rd)