The Yin and Yang of Foods and the Body

Yin Yang TaiJi

According to Chinese Medicine foods can be classified into cool, neutral or warm according to their nature. From the Yin and Yang perspective, foods grown in shady and cool environment or in water are Yin in nature; foods grown in sunny and warm areas are Yang in nature. From the functionality perspective, foods that can cool the body down are Yin, and foods that can warm the body up are Yang, and foods with neutral properties do not exert a strong influence either way. And remember there are always exceptions to the rules.

Yang symptoms of the body are associated with too much (excess) fire in the body. When the body has too much fire, it can manifest into symptoms like constipation and foul smell of the mouth (stomach fire excess), irritability, insomnia and PMS for women (liver fire excess), palpitation and bright red tongue tip (heart fire excess). Eating foods that are Yin in nature can help ease these conditions by bringing balance to the body. Avoiding foods that are Yang in nature is equally important so you don’t make things worse.

Yin Symptoms of the body are associated with not enough fire (deficiency) in the body.  The most common form of deficiency is the kidney deficiency, it can manifest into dull pain and sore in the lower back, cold hands and feet, nightmares and night sweats, early awakening and not being able to fall back to sleep and dark circles under the eyes.

To learn how to balance our body is to learn how to recognize signals our body sends us about its current conditions. Metaphorically speaking, each of your organs has a Twitter account, they frequently twitt messages that appear on your face and your skin. You need to learn how to read these messages and take care of the problem your body has before it has a chance to develop into an actual disease.