During the Spring and Autumn Period (about 770 B.C.) in China, the famous physician Bianque (扁鵲) was invited to Qi State to meet with Duke Qi (齊桓侯). He said to Duke Qi: “You have illness under your skin. If untreated, it will get serious.” Duke Qi refused and said: “I am not ill.” Five days ...
There is a passage in The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine (Huángdì Nèijīng) that says that there are “100 types of illnesses that are caused by climate conditions — damp, cold, heat, wind and rain, an imbalance of the two basic forces — yin and yang, emotion, diet, and the environment.” This one sentence ...
In Chinese medicine, the human body is divided into five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Human organs and tissues correspond to the five elements. The body’s five elements not only automatically self-regulate according to the laws of yin and yang, but also coordinate with the five elements from the outside world in order ...
Traditional Chinese cooking takes the theories of balance and seasonality very seriously. Its strict adherence to the yin-yang theory arises from the idea that food is medicine, and different foods are closely tied with different parts of the body. Here is some of the science behind eating from the Chinese perspective. Briefly, the theory of ...