June 15, 2005
Chinese Food Therapy

This article was published by Topics Magazine a publication of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei in February 2005

Eating Your Way to Good Health

Go to any traditional street market in Taipei and you will find any number of stalls selling Chinese medicinal dishes. Ginger stewed chicken, pork rib soups, duck and oyster stew, and black chicken and herb soup are some of the most common such dishes, eaten for their ability to prevent a multitude of common or more serious ailments. This practice is thoroughly entrenched in Taiwanese culture.

In downtown Taipei, for example, not far from Warner Village in the glitzy Xinyi District, celebrity Chinese chef Kuo Yueh-ying serves up bowl after bowl of her "healthy cuisine" at her popular restaurant. The author of many cookbooks and host of a TV cooking show, in addition to being a restaurateur, she has built a reputation on making healthy food delicious (some of the older-style dishes were known to be a bit challenging for many palates). It is clear that eating for health is a far more complex process than we have in Western society, and that we have a lot to learn from the well-documented practice of alimentotherapy.

Chinese medicinal cuisine takes the fundamental elements of nutrition as we understand it in the West and then adds healing properties in the form of herbs and roots to elevate the status of the dish from food to medicine. It actually makes a lot of sense in contemporary developed society where we suffer malnutrition not from undernourishment but from over-indulgence to eat food that not only provides the basic food groups but also preventative care.

A few years ago, I was asked along with a photographer with whom I worked to do the food styling for a cookbook here. This book was for modern Taiwanese women who wish to follow the custom of zuo yuetzi, which literally translates as "doing a month" This is a practice, also common in other cultures, which aims to restore the health of women after childbirth by giving complete bed rest and a special diet for one month.

Traditionally these women were cooked for and cared for by their mother or mother-in-law, but nowadays this is not always possible. Enterprises such as the Wellcare Health Co., which sponsored the cookbook, are attempting to fill the niche. You can either stay at one of their clinics, where they will care for you and the baby, or you can opt to have the food delivered to your home every day for a month, at a cost of about NT$70,000. The cookbook was meant for those who wish to follow the practice with home cooking.

With the help of the company director, we cooked, styled, and photographed 64 dishes in three days. Some came from Wellcare¡'s factory near the Qili An MRT Station in Shipai, and some we made from scratch. Featured in many of the dishes were copious amounts of ginger, rice wine, and sesame oil, all of which are considered to be warm foods, along with strange (to me) roots, berries, twigs, and bark.

It is no wonder that Taiwanese mothers recover so well after having a baby. Doing the month includes complete bed rest, round-the-clock help with the baby, and a carefully planned restorative diet. It must work, because new Taiwanese mothers seem to look fabulous, get their pre-baby figure back in record time, and can face the arduous task of parenting from a nurtured beginning. It was clear to me that there had to be something pretty special about Chinese medicinal cuisine, so I did some background reading.

Food therapy for survival

Historians believe that Chinese Food Therapy (CFT) originated around 2000 B.C., but the earliest records that have been found date from 500 B.C. The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, also known as the Neijing, was written around 300 B.C. and became the CFT bible. It classified foods according to four food groups and five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), as well as by their basic natures and characteristics. Although modern approaches continue to evolve, the fundamentals have remained much the same.

It was not until the Han Dynasty (16 B.C.) that food therapy was really taken seriously. The emperor placed so much weight on its benefits that he employed a food specialist for the imperial court. By the start of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), food therapy had become widely practiced, and it was at this time that many classic books began to emerge. With responsibility for health in Chinese society left to the individuals, the majority of people ¡V many of them very poor ¡V feared the consequences of ill health.

Preventive healthcare became a necessity for survival. Of the four pillars of health lifestyle, diet, exercise, and mind ¡V diet became the focus because food was considered to be the primary cause of ill health, as well as the route to achieving longevity. That background helps explain the amazing lengths that families go to in the pursuit of eating healthy food. And I find it a delight to see young children here eating green vegetables and other important foods without a fuss.

Yin, yang, and qi

The overriding principle of Chinese Food Therapy is that maintaining a proper balance between yin (cold) and yang (warm) ¡V and combining an understanding of the nature of food, the body's constitution, and the role of qi (vital energy) is essential to well being. Balancing yin and yang is a constant job, as your body changes with your activity during the day. Take exercise and you become more yang; sit at a computer or watch TV and you become more yin. These two energy forces can easily adapt themselves to our changing needs in a relationship referred to as ¡§mutual constraint.¡¨ But when someone is ill, this constraint collapses and an imbalance of yin and yang occurs. Herbs, tonics and remedies, and medicinal foods are used to restore balance.

Chinese scholars have identified as many as 32 different types of qi. These all relate to a mixture of energies that we gain from the range of foods we consume. Different foods release qi in different ways as they are absorbed by the body. Heart qi, for example, is the action of the heart, not just a state of energy and its balance will depend on an individual's state of health and diet.

Matching the food you eat to the season is also seen as a fundamental part of maintaining qi. Ancient Taoists preferred to eat cool foods in winter, as they are more in harmony with your body and its chilly environment. Spicy foods were preferred in the summer (note the diet in many tropical Asian countries). In the West, seasonal extremes are not so apparent, as people enjoy central heating in the winter and air-conditioning in the summer months. The temperature extremes tend not to be as sharp as in Taiwan and mainland China. In addition to eating foods that match the seasons, people are also encouraged to match their own personal balance as assessed by a doctor.

Medicinal dishes and ingredients

The content of the "medicinal dishes" makes sense from a purely nutritional point of view. New mothers, for example, consume herbal chicken soups, kidneys and liver cooked with heaps of old ginger in rice wine and sesame oil, and many other slow-cooked herbal dishes to help restore blood, contract the uterus, nourish the kidneys, and bring the mother back to her pre-pregnancy health level. Many of the same foods are also recommended by Western nutritionists. Offal, for instance, is high in haem iron, which is taken up very easily by the body compared to the non-haem iron found in green vegetables. It is therefore recommended as a natural way to build up depleted stores of body iron. The emphasis on consumption of the main food groups ¡V cereals, fruit and vegetables, meat, and fish ¡V are similar to Western nutritional guidelines.

The addition of Chinese herbs during cooking makes this style of food preparation unique. But it is not just herbs that are believed to have healing powers. Some foods that are common in global cuisine are also considered to have additional powers over and above their basic nutritional contribution to the diet. Chestnuts, for example, are low in fat and high in protein and complex (slow-release) carbohydrates. Chinese food therapists also know that they are sweet and warm in nature (yang), beneficial to qi, and helpful for backache, weak legs, strengthening the kidneys, and restoring energy. Eggplant ¡V a commonly found vegetable prized in the West for its flavor and texture ¡V here are valued for its cold nature and ability to detoxify, improve circulation, relieve pain, heal swelling, and serve as a diuretic.

Masters of potions

A walk down DiHua street takes you into a world that to many Westerners may seem like something out of a Harry Potter book. I almost expect to bump into Snape, Master of Potions at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, shopping for ingredients at one of the shops. In this neighborhood, as you pass shop after shop brimming with herbs, roots, and strange-looking berries, you realize just how important Chinese medicine is to residents of this city. Other stores are Chinese apothecaries displaying dried seahorses, animal bones, and other weird and wonderful wares. This is the area in Taipei where locals come to buy their essential ingredients from trusted suppliers. Here you can seek expert advice from practitioners who will prepare a prescription for you after careful examination to determine your state of health and qi. Packs of herbs are carefully measured and wrapped for soups, tonics, and decoctions (the boiling of herbs to release their healing properties). Some of the benefits are subtle but immediate; others appear only after long-term consumption.

In Taiwan, there are three specialized herb alleys where fresh ingredients can be purchased. One is a narrow lane off XiYuan Road in the Wanhua District of Taipei, and the others are located in Taichung and Kaoshiung. In all three places, vendors sell herbal decoctions (called teas) that they brew outside their shops to their own secret recipes and then sell on the street by the glass or bottle. Even sweetened with sugar, the flavor of some of the herbs, such as aloe vera, can be quite bitter. A first-timer may wish to stick to the mixed herb detoctions on offer. In any case, it is intriguing to think that this thirst quencher will also sort out the disharmony in your internal organs.

Medicinal cuisine restaurants

Although many Taiwanese housewives like to prepare these dishes at home, there are also a number of restaurants serving herbal cuisine in Taipei. As many of the dishes are eaten according to the season, at certain times of year various dishes will not be available. Cold sesame noodles, which are eaten in the summer, disappear from sight as soon as the cold weather kicks in, but in their place hawkers emerge selling hot sweet potatoes dipped in honey. On JiHe Road near the Zhishan MRT, there is a row of street stalls famous for selling pork-rib and beef-tendon soups, all cooked with special herbs. They do a roaring trade, especially in the winter.

Even if you only do it once, try to sample some of this magical medicinal cuisine as part of the experience of living in Taipei. These are dishes prepared from ingredients that took centuries of testing and research to identify for their ability to heal. Certain dishes may be too unusual for some, but most of us couldn¡¦t fail to enjoy a ginger-stewed duck in rice wine on a cold Taipei winter evening.

Where to go!

Ms. Kuo¡¦s Healthy Cuisine: B-2, 12 SongGao Road. Tel: 8780-9966.
An interesting menu of Chinese medicinal food and wine. Located in the basement of the Shin-Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store.

UDD Herb: 19 AnHe Road, Section 1. Tel: 2721-8899.
Famous for using wild herbs and free-range black chicken.

Huang Gong Healthy Cuisine: 233 ChengGong Road, Section 2, Neihu. Tel: 2729-0596.

Golden Dynasty Mountain and Medicinal Foods Restaurant: 48 HuaXi Street (Snake Alley). Tel: 2302-1247. Open 4 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Jinjia Stew Sesame Chicken: 552-2 LinSen North Road. Tel: 2597-7811.
A reputation spanning over 30 years for a warming, nourishing stew, ideal for cold weather.

Mozaiyang Lamb Cuisine: 30 BeiNing Road. Tel: 2577-5415.
Close to the NanJing East Road MRT, this restaurant makes slow-cooked herbal dishes from Australian and New Zealand Lamb. The straws on the table are for patrons to suck the nutritious marrow from the bones.

Shunyi Healthy Cuisine: JinZhou Street, Lane 231, No. 23.
Located a short walk away from the MinQuan East Road MRT, this restaurant features Jiaqi chicken renowned for improving blood circulation and lung capacity.

Herb Alley: The best way to visit this area is by MRT. Go to Lungshan temple on the Blue line, which is just two stops from Taipei Main Station. Leave by Exit 1.

If you are interested in reading more about this subject, you will find many books in any of Taipei¡¦s better book shops, such as Eslite, Caves, or Page One. A good starter is Chinese Herbal Medicine by Penelope Ody, published by Dorling and Kindersley (ISBN 0-7513 3566-5).

There are also some bilingual cookbooks around that make fascinating reading. I recommend The Basic Medicinal Cuisine (Hundred Tastes Cooking) by Lin Meihui and Lee Chia Hsung and published by Taiwan Food and Beverage Publishing Co. (ISBN 957 -97803-1-5).