The Healing Cuisine of China 300 Recipes for Vibrant Health
and Longevity
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CONTENTS
Cover Image
Title Page
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Origins and Theory of Chinese Medical Knowledge
THE TAOIST THEORY OF YIN AND YANG
THE FIVE ELEMENTS
QI, “VITAL ENERGY”
Chapter 2: The Causes of Illness in Chinese Medical Theory
WAI YIN, “EXOGENOUS PATHOGENS”
NEI YIN, “ENDOGENOUS PATHOGENS”
BU NEI BU WAI YIN, “NEITHER ENDOGENOUS NOR EXOGENOUS PATHOGENIC
FACTORS”
CHINESE THEORY AND THE WESTERN PARADIGM
Chapter 3: Eating for Health
HOW TO EAT
WHEN TO EAT VARIOUS FOODS
PERSONAL CONSTITUTION
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS QUESTIONNAIRE
Chapter 4: Foods and Their Healing Properties
FRUITS
VEGETABLES
NUTS AND SEEDS
GRAINS AND BEANS
MEAT AND POULTRY
FISH
EGG
HERBS AND SPICES
SWEETENERS
BEVERAGES
CONDIMENTS
Chapter 5: Chinese Home Remedies for Common Health Conditions
COOKWARE
METHODS OF PREPARATION
SPECIAL INGREDIENTS
ABDOMINAL PAINS
ACNE
ALCOHOLISM
ANEMIA
ARTHRITIS
ASTHMA
ATHLETE’S FOOT (TINEA PEDIS)
BLOODY STOOLS
BURNS AND SCALDS
COMMON COLD
COUGHS
CONSTIPATION
CORNS
DIARRHEA
DYSENTERY
FOOD POISONING
GASTRITIS
HAIR LOSS AND PREMATURE GRAYING
HEADACHE
HEMORRHOIDS
HEPATITIS
HYPERACIDITY
HYPERTENSION (HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE)
HYPOTENSION (LOW BLOOD PRESSURE)
INDIGESTION
INSOMNIA
MENOPAUSE
MENSTRUAL CRAMPS (DYSMENORRHEA)
NAUSEA AND VOMITING
OBESITY
PREGNANCY
SEXUAL PROBLEMS
SMOKING DEPENDENCY
STOMACHACHE
WHOOPING COUGH (PERTUSSIS)
Chapter 6: Longevity Banquets
SNACKS AND APPETIZERS
SOUPS
VEGETABLE DISHES
BEEF DISHES
LAMB AND MUTTON DISHES
PORK DISHES
CHICKEN DISHES
DUCK DISHES
EGG DISHES
SEAFOOD DISHES
TEAS
WINES
Chapter 7: Exercising for Health
NEI DAN QI GONG
Appendix 1: Daily Requirements of Protein, Minerals, and Vitamins
for the Healthy Adult
Appendix 2: Mail-order Resources
SOURCES OF HERBAL SUPPLIES
Footnotes
Endnotes
About the Authors
About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company
Copyright & Permissions
PREFACE
In China we take many facts about food, eating, and health habits for
granted. When I first traveled to the United States in 1988, I was intrigued
by many of the differences between Chinese and Western culture. Above all
I was surprised by the differences in eating habits.
People in America seem to be obsessed with the concept of a healthy
diet. Nutrition facts are printed on every jar, can, and package; everything is
“fat free” or “low in cholesterol.” People seem to know so much about
food. They talk about organically grown foods, about fiber and vitamins
and health. All this set me thinking about my own Chinese traditions.
When I lived in China I paid very little attention to tradition. Like most
young people of my generation, I believed that everything Western was
superior and that our Chinese culture was too old-fashioned to take
seriously. Nevertheless, without realizing it I was absorbing many of my
cultural traditions. In America, therefore, when I heard people rhapsodizing
about low-fat vegetarian and “New Age” diets, I was perplexed. The
precious organically grown tomatoes or cucumbers and the cooking
methods that people so enthused about appeared to me to be perfectly
ordinary. I soon realized that what was considered a normal diet in America
must be something quite different from what I was used to.
Indeed, even “Chinese food” in America turned out to be different from
what I expected. While there are thousands of Chinese restaurants in the
United States, few of them serve the sort of food we expect to eat in China.
In China we combine colors and flavors in ways that please the eyes and the
palate. We balance our diet to consume a little of everything in the right
combination and sequence: too much meat increases internal fire; too many
raw vegetables give you a stomachache.
In China we always consider the health merits of what we eat. We don’t
like to deep-fry because frying is poison. We eat garlic because garlic
cleanses the intestines, destroying harmful microorganisms. We select our
foods according to the climate and time of year: when it is very hot, we eat
cooling foods; in winter we eat warming foods.
We consume our drinks warm—even water is drunk hot. Hot water
dissolves fats, assists digestion, and cures colds. As everybody in China
knows, iced water blocks digestion. We drink soup at the end of our meals
in order to clean the esophagus. Soup for us is a nutritious preparation in
clear broth, nothing heavy or creamy. (Cream, milk, and cheeses have no
place in Chinese cuisine.)
We know that you get a stomachache if you eat outdoors facing the wind,
that green tea is important for burning fats, and that ginger kills germs.
Confucius said, “Ordinary people regard food as heaven.” Eating is
something that we do every day. The way we eat affects the way we live.
Good, healthy cuisine not only improves the quality of our eating; it leads
to a healthy body and mind, to harmony, and to a long life. When I stayed
several months in America in 1993 I found myself thinking about food and
the eating habits of our two cultures more than I had ever before. I decided
then that I should write something about health and cuisine.
In my experience writing projects begin with a seed of an idea that makes
its way onto a sheet of paper. From there it can either fizzle into oblivion or
develop into a research project that engages most of one’s waking life. The
latter is what happened in this venture; the desire to write about Chinese
ideas of health and cuisine led to two years of travel and research in China.
During the course of my research I realized that we Chinese have perhaps
the vastest pharmacopoeia of food remedies of any country in the world.
Other cultures hand down a few practical remedies from generation to
generation. In China we have made a veritable science out of our traditional
knowledge. In fact, we cannot separate traditional food remedies from
traditional medicine in any meaningful way, beyond stating that the latter
sometimes uses herbs and minerals that are harder to come by than raw
foods.
I began my research by focusing on the Taoist theories underlying
Chinese traditional medicine. At the same time I started collecting remedies
and recipes. Some I tried on myself; some I tried on others. Most have
proved amazingly efficient. I suffered from premenstrual cramps until I
discovered the old Chinese remedy of ginger and brown sugar. Now I drink
this broth regularly before my period and have, as a consequence, never
needed to concern myself with the problem since. Whenever I suffer from a
cough I drink daikon, ginger, and scallion soup to give relief. To anyone
suffering from constipation I recommend honey, or, in more stubborn cases,
fig tea. They work. When traveling rough in Tibet my husband and I
protected ourselves by eating a clove of raw garlic with every meal. It may
not be a coincidence that while everyone with us fell victim to the “runs,”
neither of us had the slightest problem.
Convinced by the evidence, we set about systematically recording and
categorizing our facts. This led to a winter spent with a portable computer
on a beach in India and then, with the help of my husband, George Ellis, to
a manuscript. This book is the end result.
Zhuo Zhao
Arcata, California
INTRODUCTION
To the Chinese, longevity is the greatest blessing of a good life.
Consequently, it is a Chinese belief that the central duty of every man and
woman is to cultivate health and fitness throughout one’s entire lifetime.
Out of that belief has developed a vast system of preventive methods for
maintaining health, consisting of exercise, diet, rest, healthy living habits,
and preemptive diagnoses.
When, despite efforts at prevention, disease does arise, the cause is
sought in some underlying imbalance between the individual and his
environment, and is corrected by proper eating. Only when all else fails
does one resort to doctors and medicines.
This book is about the role of Chinese cuisine in the prevention and cure
of disease. It also examines traditional Chinese methods of prevention
through exercise and healthy living. It describes simple recipes, or
“prescriptions” if you like, that anyone can prepare at home, with little
expense, in order to cure many common and chronic ailments. Most of the
ingredients we mention can be found in the nearest supermarket; a few may
have to be obtained from a store specializing in Oriental foods.1 None of
the remedies in this book require particular attention to dosages or mode of
preparation: all the ingredients but one are categorized by the Chinese as
“high-grade” drugs. Basically, this classification means that they are food
items: wholesome beyond their purely medicinal function, they can
therefore be taken continuously over a period of time with no ill effects.2
Examples of such ingredients are garlic, ginger, celery, and coriander, or,
when we get more complicated, jujube (Chinese dates) or cardamom seeds.
Traditionally the line separating “food” from “medicine” has never been
clear. In the same way there has never been a precise division between
popular home remedies and official Chinese medicine. People in China take
whatever is available locally to cure their ailments. Even today, more than
80 percent of the population in China live off the land. They eat what they
grow in their own fields and when they fall ill they take the traditional
remedies of the land. The people have been there for millennia; experience
has taught them or their forefathers, or their forefathers’ forefathers.
Sometimes by pure chance, or on the basis of an intuitive hunch, someone
might stumble across a new and unexpected therapeutic effect of a common
spice, fruit, or herb. They tell their friends and family. Others try it. Word
spreads until the new remedy comes to the notice of one of China’s
traditional wandering doctors. He tries it himself, uses it on his patients, and
records it for posterity.3 In this way a home remedy becomes an official
remedy. This process of testing and transition is called the empirical
method. Over a single lifetime the empirical method does not go far. Over
nearly five thousand years of recorded history, the trials and errors of a
people bent on staying physically fit must surely yield results.
These results form the basis of the rules, prescriptions, and remedies in
this book, which we have collected from original Chinese sources, ancient
and modern, published and unpublished. We hope that by publishing them
in English we may both further the understanding of Chinese medical
theory and practice in the English-speaking world and, above all, provide
access to centuries of clinical experience that may improve the quality of
life for anybody willing to try the ancient Chinese way to health through
food.
There are several circumstances in which this book might prove useful.
You may wish simply to prepare good, wholesome Chinese cuisine with a
view to keeping you and your family healthy. Or you may wish to follow a
Chinese dietary and fitness regimen for generic disease prevention or for
weight control. The suggested recipes and prescriptions will provide relief
from many minor and chronic health problems—a headache, a blocked
nose, an allergy—that often do not merit the time and expense of a visit to
the doctor. Other conditions might require surgery (a hemorrhoid problem,
for instance) but your preference would be to try alternatives first. There are
occasions when you might be dealing with a common illness—influenza or
a cold—when you may not wish to poison your body with chemical
medicines, the ill effects of which might take at least two weeks to wear off.
Or you might be suffering from one of those ailments, terminal or
insignificant, most of them chronic, that Western allopathic medicine
simply cannot cure. Chinese medicine cannot guarantee results either, but
some of these conditions have been known to regress, if not to disappear,
under the influence of Chinese natural remedies. Hypertension, asthma,
obesity, anorexia, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, and some forms of cancer
are but a few of these.
At a time when dissatisfaction in the United States with mainstream
allopathic medicine seems to be on the rise and when leading research
institutes, as well as many of the “alternative” therapies, seem to do little
more than contradict everything we knew last year—Is cholesterol bad or
isn’t it? Are eggs good for the liver? Does alcohol damage the heart or
guard against coronary disease?—it seems only reasonable to pay attention
to what one-fifth of humanity has been preaching, and practicing, for
millennia.
This is not to say that one should go completely in the other direction and
put wide-eyed trust exclusively in Chinese medicine. It has its limits. First
and foremost, Chinese natural medicine takes time to act, often taxing the
patience of all but its most resolute adherents. Secondly, it fails to deliver
on some occasions when a mere two-week course of antibiotics could
provide a quick and permanent cure.4 Finally, there is the problem of
understanding the theoretical basis of traditional Chinese medicine. When
discussing the effects of foods and recipes we refer to imbalances of Yin
and Yang or the Five Elements, to “hot” and “cold” syndromes, to the “evil
wind,” and to “upward,” “downward,” “outward,” and “inward”
movements of foods and drugs. Furthermore, Chinese medicine seems to
ignore some of the basics that Westerners take for granted. It makes no
mention of familiar terms like bacteria, viruses, vitamins, or enzymes. This
can be confusing.
In order to render the concepts of traditional Chinese medicine
meaningful we have attempted, in chapter 1, to illustrate as synthetically as
possible the underlying theories behind traditional Chinese beliefs
regarding health and illness.
Chapter 2 examines the exogenous and endogenous pathogenic causes of
disease, and also discusses some of the doubts and misconceptions that
might arise from attempting to fit Chinese theory into the Western
paradigm. Both the successes and failures of Chinese medicine are
considered.
The rest of the book is about Chinese food remedies themselves. Chapter
3 describes the methods of preparing and eating traditional Chinese cuisine
for health. It also provides the reader with a questionnaire for recognizing
his or her physical characteristics, with a view to selecting the most suitable
balanced diet for perfect health.
Chapter 4 looks at the ingredients used in the recipes and prescriptions.
Chapter 5 provides the reader with recipes and prescriptions for curing
common ailments. Chapter 6 takes the form of a cookbook as it instructs the
reader in the ancient art of preparing easy but complete meals for health and
longevity.
Finally, chapter 7 describes traditional Chinese qi gong exercises as a
means of keeping healthy.
It is with the traditional Chinese augury of a long and healthy life that we
leave you to the exploration of the joys and proven health benefits of
Chinese therapeutic cuisine. Chang ming bai sui—A long life of one
hundred years!
Chapter 1
THE ORIGINS AND THEORY OF CHINESE
MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE
According to legend, sometime between 2697 and 2597 B.C. the renowned
first Yellow Emperor, Huangdi, otherwise known as Shen-nong or “King of
farming,” tasted one hundred wild herbs and grasses.1 He was trying to
ascertain their values as cures to various ailments from which he was
presumably suffering. As a consequence, the Yellow Emperor is credited as
being the first person in China to institute the art of healing.
For the following two thousand years people continued to test herbs,
fruits, fungi, and barks on themselves, as well as on some unfortunate
patients, and to record the results. Gradually this hit-ormiss approach—
tempered, we would hope, by the observation of animals’ eating habits and
by some sort of primitive ideas about physiology and illness—led to the
development of a comprehensive theory of health, disease, and treatment.2
Inevitably, medical theory was made to fit into contemporary beliefs about
the nature of the world. These beliefs have come down to us under the name
Taoism—pronounced dow-izm—meaning “the Way.”
By the so-called Warring States period (475–221 B.C.), Taoist medical
theory was sufficiently developed to warrant the systematic compilation of
all the then-known facts about human anatomy and physiology, and disease
pathology, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. The compilers of the first
such record appear to have been various medics working as a group. Either
because they were following the fashion of the times (attributing everything
to ancient origins), playing modest, or seeking some sort of legitimacy for
wild new theories, the authors called their book Huangdi’s (the Yellow
Emperor’s) Internal Classic (Huangdi Nei Jing). They wrote it as if it were
a dialogue between the Yellow Emperor and his chief counselor, Qi Bo.
Whatever the origin and true antiquity of the ideas presented by them, the
authors of Huangdi’s Internal Classic laid the foundation for Chinese
medical theory and practice a foundation that is valid to this day.
The Huangdi Nei Jing is divided into two parts. The first part, Su Wen
(Plain Questions), considers human anatomy, physiology, and pathology
within the Taoist theory of yin and yang and the Five Elements. The
remedies it espouses are principally herbal. It is on the basis of the Plain
Questions that all subsequent medical theory was founded.
The second part is called Ling Shu, or Miraculous Pivot. It discusses the
anatomical theory of vital energy (qi) channels within the body and
regulation of the circulating qi and the Five Elements by means of
acupuncture.
THE TAOIST THEORY OF YIN AND YANG
Figure 1: Energy of the moon and energy of the sun, signifying Yin and
Yang
Taoism is a theory of the equilibrium of all nature. Based on early animism
and formalized in approximately 500 B.C. by the writings of Lao Tzu (Old
Sage), and subsequently by those of Zhuang Zi (Chuang-Tzu), Taoism
envisages a world in which the ideal condition is harmony—a perfect
balance between human beings and the environment, and among human
beings themselves.3 Taoism emphasizes relationships between opposites,
aiming toward the perfection of equilibrium. The equilibrium itself is never
permanent. Life is an ongoing process of give and take, of energy
absorption and energy loss. As a consequence, every living process in
