Yin and Yang of Eating

The concept of food as medicine doesn’t start and end with chicken soup–or as a spoonful of cod liver oil, for that matter. Chinese and other Asian cuisines have embraced such an approach for centuries, according to author Nina Simonds, who explains it all in an excellent cookbook, A Spoonful of Ginger.

Simonds’ interest in food as a catalyst for good health was piqued in Taiwan in 1972. She had just arrived as a student and in no time flat was felled by a stomach ache. A doctor trained in both Chinese and Western medicine recommended she change her diet to better balance the yin (cool) with the yang (warm) foods.

She was cured, she explains, because the imbalance of foods in her diet was corrected. The idea of balance and harmony of life forces–the yin and the yang–is central to the Chinese healing methods that use food and herbs as medicine, according to Simonds.

In this holistic universe, disease is seen as the result of imbalance of energies in the body. For example, if you eat too many yin (cold) foods, such as fruit and vegetables, you should offset them with yang (hot) foods, such as beef, to offset any unhealthy effects.

Food can also be classified as sweet (earth), bitter (fire), sour (wood), pungent (metal), and salty (water)–and each, in turn, supposedly affects specific parts of human body.

Chapters on "Are You Yin or Yang?", "The Seasonal Diet" and "Life Passages" are all helpful in determining what body type you may have, although Simonds recommends yin-yang diagnoses by qualified Chinese doctors. Particularly helpful is a list of common conditions and ailments, with a page reference to the recipe or food that might help alleviate the condition. For example, anemia can be treated with a lamb dish, because lamb, a "warm" food, increases qi, or body energy. And that spoonful of ginger? That can prevent motion sickness as well as remove fishy odors.

The book’s 200-plus recipes, which comprise dishes adapted from China and many other parts of Asia–plus some of Simonds’ own inventions–are a veritable road map to holistic good health. Each recipe details its therapeutic properties. We learn, for example, that vegetarian pad thai has "noodles (that) tone the body, energize the system, and strengthen the spleen."

The well-written recipes are easy to follow: The ingredients are highlighted in color and the numbered instructions go step-by-step. Although the book is geared toward those with some familiarity with Asian cooking techniques, Simonds also keep the novice in mind. She has a brief introduction explaining how to use the recipes. As a result, A Spoonful of Ginger is comprehensible to even the greenest of cooks venturing into herbal stores for the first time to find ingredients, as the herbs in the recipes are set forth in Chinese characters, phonetic Chinese and English, and even Latin, when appropriate.

Also helpful to readers unfamiliar with Asian ingredients are the sections on soybean products and wild Asian mushroom glossary, detailing fungus from enoki to oyster to shiitake.

Sandwiched between chapters and recipes are profiles of practitioners of the Chinese holistic approach, such as Dr. Albert Leung, a Chinese-born doctor who swears by the healthful attributes of soybeans.

After trying a few of recipes, it is soon apparent that health-inducing food can also be palate-pleasing.

"Miso chicken soup with snow peas and tofu" had a delicate, slightly vegetal flavor, but could have used a bit more salt. Still, the textures of the snow peas, with their slight crunch, and firm tofu made for a hearty but soothing one-dish meal.

The "ginger-scallion root tea"–good for stomach colds–was a refreshing pale-brown liquid with a nice bite of ginger backed by a pungent flavor of scallion sweetened slightly by maple syrup. The "flash-cooked ginger beef" was heavy on meat and well-balanced with ginger.

Lest you become too enthusiastic about food as medicine and are tempted to jettison all Western medicine, Simonds is quick to note: "Herb, foods and other natural remedies are not substitutes for professional medical care. For a specific health problem, consult a qualified health-care giver for guidance."