What is TCM Food Therapy?

A Historical Perspective
Food therapy has a long-standing history in China, dating back to the Zhou Dynasty, where there were specialized practitioners known as “food doctors” who researched and developed ways to manage diseases through diet. The classic TCM text, Huangdi Neijing, emphasizes that while herbal medicine dispels pathogens with its properties, five grains provide nourishment, five fruits provide supplementation, five animals provide benefits, and five vegetables provide fullness. The flavors and energies of food combine to replenish the body’s essential energy and substances. Beyond merely providing nutrition and sustaining life, certain foods have medicinal properties that can be comparable to herbal remedies. For instance, foods like white hyacinth bean, white radish, kelp, pear, watermelon, hawthorn, jujube, wheat, wolfberry, and lamb can be used both as food and medicine. This is why there is a saying in TCM that food and medicine share the same source.

The Importance of Food Therapy in TCM

1. Nourishment Beyond Medicine: The nourishing effects of food on the body cannot be replaced by medicine alone. Therefore, for patients with weak constitutions, it is crucial to combine food therapy with medicinal treatment.
2. Personalized Diet Based on Constitution: General dietary advice can be misleading because different body constitutions require different foods. For example, I had a patient diagnosed with liver and kidney yang deficiency according to TCM principles. He was advised to eat more fruits and drink more water to detoxify. However, due to his yang deficiency, consuming cold fruits and drinking large amounts of water that burdened his kidneys was inappropriate. Such general “healthy eating” habits can harm his health rather than help.
3. Correcting Unhealthy Eating Habits: By choosing the right dietary plan, food therapy can help patients break unhealthy eating habits, such as picky eating, overconsumption of sugar or salt, and other unhealthy practices.

Three Main Types of TCM Food Therapy

1. Herbal Tea: This involves soaking medicinal herbs that are also suitable as food in hot water to make a tea. This form of therapy is gentle yet effective in maintaining and improving health.
2. Soup/Congee: One of the most common forms of food therapy involves cooking food materials that are both edible and medicinal into a congee or soup. Why is congee so central to TCM food therapy? The key reason is that it is easily digestible and absorbable by the body, especially when the body is battling illness, and the internal struggle between pathogenic and healthy energy is intense. Congee is quickly absorbed by the body and the grains used help to strengthen the stomach energy, rapidly providing the body with righteous energy (vitality). The long cooking process required for congee also ensures that the medicinal components of the food materials are more effectively extracted.
3. Meals: The third type of food therapy involves creating meals suitable for daily consumption, particularly after a patient has largely recovered from an illness. These meals are tailored to the individual’s constitution to maintain health.

Dr. Ma’s Approach to Food Therapy

1. Customized Food Therapy: Dr. Ma’s food therapy is based on TCM health preservation principles and tailored to the patient’s constitution to determine the most appropriate dietary therapy.
2. Soup/Congee During Treatment: During the treatment phase, food therapy primarily involves customized soups or congees, which are most beneficial for patients undergoing TCM treatments.
3. Herbal Tea for Post-Treatment Nourishment: After completing medicinal treatments, Dr. Ma recommends a period of constitution strengthening with herbal teas to help the body fully recover.
4. Daily Health Maintenance: For long-term health maintenance, Dr. Ma provides meal recipes that align with TCM dietary principles and the patient’s specific constitution.