Some people love spicy food, some people get diarrhea.
Have you ever noticed yourself having different reactions to the same food your family or friends eat?
In Chinese medicine, every food and herb has its characteristics.
The foundation of TCM observes the connection between nature and humans. Medicinal herbs and food both serve one purpose: to correct the imbalance, fortify the physical function, and preserve the essence. Because of this principle, traditional Chinese medicine has a long history of using food as medicine.
Before we use food as medicine, we must understand that TCM uses herbs, minerals, and animal products for healing. Healing is not just the reduction of symptoms. It’s about your body and mind living in harmony and truly building resilience and adaptability to the changes in the internal and external environment.
In TCM, the rhythm of nature reflects in the healing property of the food or medicinal herbs. That’s what TCM practitioners call “medicinal characteristics.” And these medicinal characteristics are not limited to the herbs, but also in the food. Medicinal characteristics are the reflection of nature and manifest in their taste and actions. These healing actions include purging, astringent, tonifying, dispersing, and drying.
So why would people react so differently to food or herbs?
Because our body has different characteristics just like the medicinal herbs. Our body also reflects the change of nature.
You can think of a person who constantly has low body temperature, feels sluggish and has really weak digestion as someone’s internal environment constantly operating in wintertime. And in winter, nothing grows. So eventually, this person with internal coldness will also suffer from issues with hormones and neurological conditions.
So what happens if this person constantly eats food or medicine that acts as cold and purging (suppressing), such as antibiotics (TCM sees most of antibiotics as cold purging medicine)?
We can see the negative effects on Spleen, stomach, and Kidney.
Interestingly, there is research linking the use of antibiotics and non-autoimmune thyroiditis in adolescents (Research Article).
In another scenario seen commonly, we can see the love of spices, such as cayenne pepper, used in many cuisines. But different people react differently to the spice. Sometimes we can see breakouts or GI discomfort after consumption.
That’s because cayenne pepper has medicinal properties of heat and dispersing. These two characteristics can move the stagnant and disperse the stagnant to the surface or out of the body. That’s why there are people complaining about breakouts or diarrhea after eating spicy food.
You might be asking, what about processed foods?
I am definitely not a fan of processed foods (although I am guilty of always having a bag of frozen dumplings for emergencies!) The reason is because processed foods don’t preserve much of the natural properties and medicinal characteristics compared to raw food. Imagine something as simple as fruit juicing. Just by the process of juicing, fibers are taken out of the juice, and we no longer reap the benefits of fiber compared to just eating the fruit.
Our body is incredibly adaptable, but in both good ways and bad ways. It can adapt positively or maladapt based on what we’re providing it. Relying on processed foods would lead to the maladaptation of our body to low nutrient, high processed food, depletion of nourishment, healing, and take away the opportunity and ability to heal ourselves through food.
