Eating Seasonally Might Be the Right Thing for Your Health

A TCM perspective on eating

Today’s post is a guest post by Lauca’s Tales and TCM Insights. Rooted in the European culture, but passionate about Asian cultures, especially China. Her journey lead her to studying Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the healing art of Qigong. She expresses herself through stories, but she loves to share insights about Qigong, TCM, her travels or the odd question.

I often write about listening to the body when it comes to food. The body has tremendous insight on what we should eat or not eat. Traditional Chinese Medicine also offers wisdom when it comes to eating, as it takes a holistic approach to health. Please enjoy this guest post, I’ll be back on Saturday!~Janine

When I mention Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) most people would think about acupuncture. But TCM has 5 pillars, and acupuncture is only one of them. The other 4 are herbs, tuina (massage), qigong and nutrition.

The aim of TCM is to help the body restore its balance. Our body, like everything in the world, is in constant movement and evolution. It has its own intelligence and when it is knocked out of homeostasis, in most cases, it has the power to restore it. With age, constant use or misuse, and external harmful or man-made factors such as climate, pollution or stress, the body struggles to regain its balance. Glitches in the body regulations appear here and there, usually targeting the weakest part of the system, which is different for each individual. These minor glitches become the seeds of any health problems, which may become a serious illness.

What I love about TCM is that I can apply its principles in my daily life: for example, acupressure, qigong and nutrition are available at little or no costs and you can use them to help the body repair the glitches and thus improve your health.

I would like to share a few points about nutrition, which may help you to boost your health.

Our digestive system likes it warm

Photo by Odiseo Castrejon on Unsplash

Imagine a pot: inside are the food and liquids we ingest. The fire under the pot is our internal fire, with which the food and liquids can be processed. If we put cold food and liquids in the pot, our digestion will take much longer and at the same time it will consume more fire, leaving us feeling colder. It is very interesting that in our western mind, eating a salad is healthy (veggies, yeah).

But according to TCM, eating salads too often, and generally a raw cold diet, can deplete our energy and weaken our digestive system. Veggies are good, but a better option is to alternate raw salads with slightly cooked vegetables. Corn, meat, and beans should always be cooked.

Drinking cold liquids with meals may cause digestion to slow down. What I find fascinating is that while the Spleen gets weaker, the Stomach can on the other hand get overheated due to the extra work it has to do to warm the food it needs to digest. Thus, even in summer, it is better to avoid very cold liquids or food such as ice creams with meals.

But there is one point to remember: the quantity of colder versus warmer food depends on a person’s constitution, life phase and environment: there is no one size fits all.

Cool is for summer, heat is for winter

When I was a child, in Italy, I remember that the local “bar” (basically a café) did not sell any ice-cream in winter: ice-cream was for summer. Just like you won’t find any mulled wine, typical for German Christmas markets, in summer.

Eating according to the season is a simple yet effective way to keep a healthy balance. When it is very hot in summer, having an ice cream, a salad, a cold drink or soup (think Gazpacho, an cold Andalusian tomato soup) helps your body get rid of excess heat. But eating the same thing in winter can produce unwanted side effects, like diarrhea or stomach pain. Eating according to the season is an intuitive behavior that you may already have.

The 5 food categories

Every food has its own intrinsic “temperature” or nature, which has nothing to do with the physical temperature. For example, spinach is cold in nature, which means that even when consumed hot, it will still have the property to help the body to cool down.

There are 5 different categories:

• cold

• cool

• neutral

• warm

• hot

Most foods are either warm, neutral or cool, far fewer are hot or cold. When there is no specific health issue and the body is in balance, choosing food belonging to neutral, with a balanced mixture of warm and cool foods is a good option.

On the other hand, when life or illness causes the body to have too much Heat or too much Cold, you then have the option to choose foods to cool or to warm the body as needed.

Frequent meals, small portions

I was quite shocked by the size of the portions when I first visited the US: the small cup of coke was already a large one for me. In recent years portion inflation is a trend also in Europe. Restaurants increase the size of their dishes to justify the price, allowing them to have a higher return per meal. This trend, coupled with the idea (or urge) many have to finish whatever is on their plate, leads many to eat way more than their body needs.

When we have a weak digestion, due to older age or other health issues, reducing the portions can be helpful, as can adding meals.

These few tips can already do a lot to help your body regain or keep its balance. Choosing the right food for your body can be rewarding and help you feel your best.

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If you enjoyed this article and you want to know more about TCM, please check out Laura’s publication Lauca’s Tales and TCM Insights.