Energetics of food

May seem like a rather bizarre, or even trivial topic.

Initially, the thoughts may run something like,

“Coffee is an energetic food… And pasta makes me feel sleepy…”

To tune into the direct action a substance has on us does take a bit of refinement.

To listen a little deeper, to feel the movement in the body, the organs, and our ‘systems’.

*Side note -The term “Systems” in western medicine refers to a combination of various biomechanical components, such as the Cardiovascular system, endocrine system, and immune system. In Chinese medicine, it is the ‘meridian lines’ or ‘elements’ being referred to.

There are four basic criteria for the energetic classification of foods.

They are:

Thermal nature – Hot, warm, neutral, cool, cold

Flavour – sweet, acrid, sour, bitter, salty

Organ network (traditional Chinese medicine) – Spleen, stomach, lung, large intestine, kidney, bladder, liver, gall bladder, heart, small intestine.

Direction of movement – upbearing, floating, down bearing, falling

That might seem like a bit to digest!

We could also just start by putting them into two categories

YIN & YANG

Yin foods are cool or cold foods and have a cooling effect on the body.

They include dairy products, fruit (especially tropical), tomatoes, and wheat.

Yang foods are hot and warm foods, having a warming and invigorating effect.

Such as acrid spices, meat, coffee, alcohol, and oats.

Practical example –

Someone is feeling lethargic, pale, tired, shivering?

- Replenish yang with energetically warm foods and avoid those cold damp ones.

When I lived in the Kimberly, I heard multiple reports of people experiencing severe food poisoning after eating fried chicken that had been brought to them from the nearest fast-food restaurant, which lay over 500km away in Port Hedland.

If we are to look at the “energetics” of this situation. 1. Fried chicken is hot in nature. 2. The Kimberley is very hot environmentally. 3. A person's strong craving for a certain food is likely to indicate a hot constitution/appetite.

Without being in a science lab and identifying the exact strain of salmonella spp. that caused the food poisoning, we can see simply that there is way too much heat going on and is likely to flip the individual's homeostasis. If just one of these factors changed, say that it occurred in a cold climate, or the food being transported was a cool summer fruit, it is a completely different story.

Now if someone is willing to pay an absurd price for fried chicken from a vast distance in the tropics, educating them on the energetics of food probably is going to be no more than a slightly useless exercise.

I just give this story as an extreme example.

Have you ever finished your breakfast and felt tired, or cold? Had trouble falling asleep due to feeling too hot, or itchy? Craved something that you know is going to have a negative effect on the way you feel physically or emotionally once the initial tastebud satisfaction has passed?

Learning how to tune into what we are consuming has an incredible capacity to improve not only our well-being but also our longevity. The best way to start is to just notice how you feel after eating certain foods. How were they prepared, were they in season, what time of day was it? We can start with noticing, internally documenting, then later refining to find what actually suits our physiological needs. Later you will be ready to move into more depth, learning the energetic criteria, and then using the food as medicine!

The purpose of this is not to become some odd hyper-obsessive foodie that won't eat an apple because of an acute bout of spleen chi vacuity and the coolness of that particular fruit will deplete your chi for the next 3.5 hours. It is to tune into your beautiful body with a little more clarity, to prevent ill-health and disease, so to be able to offer your greatest service back to your community and nature.