I have been intrigued by the recent BBC2 programmes “The Men
Who Made Us Fat”. Not only by the profit
motive that contributed to the increase in portion sizes in fast food outlets,
but by the huge shift that this kind of eating created in our average UK diet,
from the 1960s and 1970s onwards. The
addition of sugar and simple starches (more or less the same as sugar), in
order to make “low-fat” foods more palatable, is another factor in creating
addiction to sweet-tasting food and excessive consumption, leading to
obesity. These foods play havoc with
blood sugar levels, making us unnecessarily hungry and therefore eating to
excess. Too much sugar is also metabolised by the body into fat, creating the very
effect a dieter avoiding “high fat” foods is trying to avoid. How unfair is
that? And I have been struck by how
different this is from eating habits in China – more of this later.
Our western trend to obesity and poor eating has been made
worse by the availability of ready meals in supermarkets, another phenomenon of
the sixties, which none of us would now choose to be without. How amazingly convenient it is, in our very
busy lives, to be able to collect so many things we need from just one
shop!
So I do not have an objection in principle to supermarkets,
but I do regret the ubiquity of huge portion fast food outlets, ready meals and
ready mixed condiments, sauces, desserts etc.
Even more, I am troubled by the relatively low price tags attached to
these items, compared to the price of fresh foods. Along with this, I suppose, goes the reduction
in parents having time to teach their children how to cook meals, and the lower
amount of time at school, devoted to domestic science. I understand that now, instead of being
taught the basics of putting a balanced meal on the table, children are taught
food technology. All these factors, in
my opinion, create a lack of confidence about cooking and providing nutritious and
appealing food for oneself and one’s family.
As a “foodie”, I find all this quite heart-breaking! I love food, and I love sitting down to a good
meal. Good food is a source of such
pleasure! And as an acupuncturist, aware
of the traditional diet in China, balanced so carefully and naturally for
nutrients, weather, time of year, time of day, and the constitution of the
eater, it amazes me. The Chinese never
had problems with obesity until western food habits reached China, and still
have much less of a problem than we do. Part
of the reason for this is that the Chinese cook food from scratch. In fact, their desire for fresh food is what
makes them buy fish live from the market, rather than frozen from the supermarket
deep freeze, or chilled from the fresh fish counter. Being a bit squeamish, I find it easier to
buy my food the western way, but I do like it as fresh as possible, and certainly
eat as little processed food as I can.
In traditional Chinese diet, as well as being fresh, food is
categorised by taste and also “energetically” – this describes foods in terms
such as hot, cold, damp and drying. We
can relate these terms to some extent to western descriptions. A drying food would probably be described by
us as astringent. Cold foods, apart from
raw foods, are those that you would choose to eat on a hot summer’s day, such
as melon or strawberries because they cool you down. Yoghurt and mint are other examples of cooling
foods. A hot food is something like curry,
or red wine or, interestingly, coffee.
Taste in Chinese diet is not quite the same as in western
food. I am not thinking of stereotypical
ideas of unusual Chinese foods such as birds nest soup or chicken’s feet, but
of everyday foods, that we are just as likely to include in a good meal. The Chinese have five tastes: sour, bitter,
sweet, pungent and salty. A day’s food
should balance these five tastes, all of which have different digestive
properties. A good meal will also balance
those five tastes (and the energetic properties described above) for the
individual benefit of the eater. So somebody
who feels the cold and feels generally sluggish, might benefit from energetically
hot foods, and a bias towards pungent tastes.
A hot food such as curry would be balanced with a cooling food such as
yoghurt.
How to ascribe a particular taste to a particular food is
also not quite the same as in the west.
Many vegetables and meats in Chinese diet would be described as sweet,
not the first word that would spring to mind in the west! Sweetness is not seen as bad in Chinese medicine;
it can be a useful way of “moving the Qi”, a way to relieve stress, but the
Chinese medical idea of something sweet would be half a teaspoon of honey or a
small square of chocolate – not a whole bar!
In acupuncture consultation, I often find it useful to suggest foods which
a patient might add to their diet, or ones they might reduce, in order to help
their state of health, and these can be individually worked out, once I have
made a Chinese medicine assessment.
I would like to wish all my patients and friends a very Happy Festive Season. I wish you all a happy time, with plenty of good food, enjoyable exercise and an opportunity to have good quality rest. As the days have grown shorter and shorter, I have found myself contemplating a Chinese Medicine view of the ebb and flow of light. In this perspective, the year has a flow between Yin and Yang, in the same way that the diurnal cycle moves from Yin to Yang and round again. 
