What, No Salad?
Yes, that's right. If you're dieting this winter, don't eat salad!
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), food is medicine. In TCM theory, all foods have a distinctive energetic nature. Five flavors and five temperatures are taken into consideration when determining the energetic profile of a food. Food can be used to treat a disease and can be the cause of a disease. Generally speaking, you keep your digestion strong by eating cooked foods. The Chinese have been giving this advice for centuries.
The digestive system is sometimes compared to a pot of boiling soup. You have the fire below providing the energy of transformation to the substance inside. When the soup is at the right temperature, you will see steam rising above the pot. This represents the energy we get from our food. If you put in a bag of frozen vegetables in the pot, the temperature will fall very quickly and the steam will not form. It will take more energy to bring the soup up to the right temperature to make steam. Over time, the fire could burn out before the soup has made steam.
It takes energy to transform the food we eat. Eating warm foods saves our energy for the demanding process of digestion. It lightens the load, so to speak, so that we can build a surplus of energy. By preserving the digestive fire, you will keep your metabolism strong. You will transform your food into energy more completely, and you won't have as much bloating and fullness-- this is the biproduct of weak digestion.
Warm foods include not only cooked vegetables, but also specific foods such as the following:
Coriander, chives, onion, leek, green onion, asparagus, sweet peppers, pomegranate, apricot, peach, cherry, raspberry, chestnut, pumpkin, rice, dates, walnut, pine nuts, mussels, eel, lobster, shrimp, chicken, mutton, venison, ham, brown sugar, cumin, clove, fennel, garlic, fresh ginger, dill seed, nutmeg, rosemary, sweet basil, coffee, vinegar, and wine. In addition, fermented foods are a great way to strengthen your digestion.
The best diet food is a hearty stew with lots of vegetables. It will warm you up and keep you full. Try to eat soup every day.
If you simply must have your green juices or smoothies this winter, be sure to add spices from the above list in generous amounts to "warm"up the juice, and drink it at room temperature!