Healthiest Fall Foods Are White Foods

In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), color doesn’t only reflect the energy of each of the five energetic seasons. Color indicates ways and gives us clues about how we can live in harmony with the season. TCM’s colors of energetic Fall are blue (yang energy) and silvery white (yin energy aspect).

The colors for all five seasons of TCM are:

• Spring: warm green and teal

• Summer: red and purple

• Between seasons(1): yellow and ochre

• Fall: blue and silver white

• Winter: deep violet and black.

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White foods are Fall Foods.

White foods will help fortify your health during energetic Fall.

The white foods we mention here we suggest as complements to your diet or as seasonal replacements for certain fruits and vegetables.

TCM is all about balance so keep this concept in mind when you’re in the throes of Fall food prep. And just because white foods are optimal during Fall, don’t eat white foods to the exclusion of most others.

The organs of Fall in TCM are lung (yin) and large intestine (yang).

Our skin is so closely associated with the element of the season, Metal, and particularly associated with the lungs that TCM refers to the skin as our third lung. Lung needs to be strong enough to keep the dryness-causing wind out during Fall.

White foods nourish the lungs. TCM considers white foods clear foods which are very beneficial for skin and for nourishing the lungs at a time when our bodies need good lung energy the most. 

Pear is just about as efficient as apple in Autumn. Its nature is cold and nourishing, balancing the yang in our bodies and helping to prevent dryness and coughing. Its properties are particularly activated when adding white flesh pear to warm soups.

White or snow fungus is one of the most popular fungi in the cuisine and medicine of China and is very nourishing to the skin. It can also help reduce lung damage caused by smoking. It has a refreshing taste and is best used in sweet soups along with pear mentioned above.

Some flower bulbs can be eaten and are enormously nutritious. The lily bulb is one of them. These bulbs can be gathered in Autumn, cleaned and sun-dried. The lily bulb’s nature is moist and it helps to pacify emotional anxiety and uneasiness as we transition from one season to the next. Consume sun-dried lily bulb with white fungus and honey or sautéed with garlic and celery.

Lotus seed has strong properties for healing colds and reducing fevers. Use less than a handful of lotus seeds (purchased in Chinese grocery stores and pharmacies) and make a warm, sweet soup with the above-mentioned ingredients (pear, white fungus and lily bulbs). Cook all together with some crystallized cane sugar (not common refined sugar) on low heat.

The water chestnut is very good for clearing the lungs and again, very beneficial for people who smoke. 

White beans are very detoxifying and rich in minerals. They also contain a little known trace mineral, molybdenum responsible for manufacturing a number of detoxifying enzymes. They fight against the storage of energy as body fat and their high antioxidant content provides anti-aging properties.

Abounding in vitamin C, lotus root helps to maintain the integrity of blood vessels, organs and skin. (Vitamin C is both antioxidant and an important component of collagen.) Lotus root can be steamed, stewed or fried.

To treat dryness that comes with Autumn, here is a more exhaustive list of white foods that can be very effective. They can help clear heat, promote fluid production and moisten the lung.

• almonds

• apple

• bamboo shoots

• cauliflower

• hempseed kernels

• jicama

• sun-dried lily bulb

• lotus root

• lotus seed

• pear

• pine nuts

• rice

• tofu

• water chestnut

• white bean

• white fish

• white fungus

• white mushrooms

• white radish

• winter melon

…

Endnote:

(1) Between seasons relates to the four 18-day transitional periods of the year sandwiched between each of the four major seasons. Earth is the element of these between seasons periods of the year.

Source:

Liu, Zhan-Wen, et al. Health Cultivation in Chinese Medicine. Peoples Medical Publishing House (PMPH), 2012.

Eat Consciously. Get These Tips.

Most people are now aware that fast foods are generally bad for their health and that consumption of fried foods should be kept to a minimum.

There are many slimming diets on the market, but too often they are not balanced meals for proper ongoing nutrition.

We are all very different physically and so are our nutritional needs. It makes sense to try to find an approach that is adapted to you, rather than following government sponsored guidelines that are flawed. These guidelines treat everyone as if they were made by the same widget factory.

The concept that Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo outlines in his book, Eat Right for Your Type, makes sense because it recognizes our individual differences based on our blood type (one of four) corresponding to different metabolic capabilities and, consequently, different nutritional needs.

Ayurveda also teaches nutrition according to the three doshas or energetic types known as pitta, vata, and kapha. Ayurveda also illustrates the need to adapt to our specific composition or dominating energies.

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D. challenges, in an informed and documented way, what they call the “Diet Dictocrats” who are all the governmental and quasi-governmental agencies more bent on defending the interests of powerful corporate lobbies than promoting the well-being of the people.

Energetic Food: Traditional Chinese Medicine offers an approach to nutrition based on the five elements. That is the basis for the FoodScan program created by the German company, Medprevent whose approach is very complementary to the PHYTO5 method. And the work of Dr. Haas, author of Staying Healthy with the Seasons, is in total harmony with the PHYTO5 approach.

From an energetic point of view, it is good to remember that food releases energy during the metabolism process. Both the quantity and the quality of energy matter.

Food contributes to the vital energy that we need, but that energy comes with a certain bulk that needs both energy and oxygen to process.

It is advisable to eat what is energetically rich (natural nutrients) with limited bulk and to avoid what is abundant in bulk but limited in energy. In this respect, the model of good food is a genuine farm egg that is free of added antibiotics and hormones. It represents great concentration of nutrients for a small volume.

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The worst is any bulky food heated in a microwave oven that kills all the nutrients and remains void of vital energy. Many people have a bulk-rich diet void of nutrients and vital energy. As a result, they remain hungry and eat more bulk that eventually accumulates in their body. It becomes a vicious cycle. It is one of the real issues in the standard American diet, yet few people speak about it in those terms because the politically powerful food industry is more about bulk than nutrition.

The energetic quality of our food is either yin or yang.

Meat is more yang than vegetables. Red meat is the most yang; veal or pork are less yang; and poultry the least yang of meat.

Although, some fish, such as tuna, is quite yang, fish is more yin than meat.                                                   

Vegetables that grow in the ground such as potatoes and beets are more yang than leafy vegetables.

It is recommended to eat cooling or yin food during the strong yang season such as Summer and to eat yang food during the strong yin season of Winter.

It makes more sense to have a steak and mashed potatoes in the Winter than on a hot summer day when salads and fruit are more appropriate.

It is always recommended to eat the food of the season because they are in balance with the energy of that season. The color of fruit and vegetables is often used as a telltale sign of when it is best to eat them.

For example, yellow fruit and vegetables are recommended during the transitional Earth season happening now (the period of 18 days between seasons), while a (red) tomato is preferred during the Summer, the season of the Fire element according to traditional Chinese medicine).