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Fruits, Good or Bad?
Be careful what fruit
you are eating
By Dr. Martin Wang (MD (China), Ph.D, R. Acupuncturist)
Nowadays
people like to take more fruits than carbohydrates to maintain
their health. Especially for women, they eat much more fruits,
or drink fruit juices, but less other foods, with the hope to
obtain more vitamins, minerals and to keep their face and body
beauty. However, they do not know (from the current education
system, they will never know!) that most of the fruits are Cold
in biological nature after coming into the body. More taken of
such Cold fruits will damage the Spleen system. This system in
Chinese Medicine response to the digestion, absorption and the
storage and burning of the nutrition (including fat), as well as
to sense and monitor body function (including immune defense
system)[1].
The result is: one feels bloating, giggling, burping, heart
burn, diarrhea, and chronic fatigue. One will easily gain body
weight, one of the worst things that worries modern women. Again
and again, many more trouble will come since the Spleen system,
in Chinese Medicine, is responding to supply vital energy to the
other parts of the body. For instance, one may start to feel
cold in feet and hands, poor sleeping, palpitation, dry skin,
easy sweat, etc. It may also make the cancer growth easier since
the Spleen system fails to pass signal to our Heart system[2]
to launch a cleansing mechanism to correct the abnormal cell
growth in the body.
Many women
believe that fruits contain more water, which enable skin
water-like[3].
They do not know that too much Cold fruits damage the Spleen
system, the water we drink can not be evaporated to nourish the
tissues and cells in the body[4];
the skin still feels and looks dry, and the hair is fragile,
lips are dry too. Their skin looks no bright tint, and looks as
obscure, pale and puffy. Cold things come into the body, will
press the fire of the body floating up, resulting in acne, skin
rash, ulcer in mouth, and sore throat. When no enough fire to
warm the lower part of the body, one may feel constipation[5],
frequent urine, lower desire for sexual life, and for women, may
have more discharge and pain in the lower stomach before the
period.
In some
culture, people bring fruits to visit ill friends in the
hospital. They are kind heart of course wishing the friends get
recovery sooner by taking the fresh fruits. However, the
patients are usually weak in the stomach-spleen system after
heavy disease stress. More Cold fruits will make them weaker in
the defense system to against disease attack. The cold fruits
will actually work as spill a bowl of cold water to the fire in
winter.
In Chinese
Medicine Bible, it is said that fruits can be used as assistant
to health. Assistant means that it can be taken occasionally,
not as routine diet. If one takes fruits as the main meal daily,
they risk their health actually.
You should
understand that we are not recommending you NOT to eat fruits,
but recommend that you should take the kinds of fruits according
to your body nature. If your body nature is Cold, you should
take relatively more Warm fruits, and if your body nature
belongs to Fire, you should of course take relatively more Cold
fruits[6].
Cold body nature:
If you have
following feelings or conditions, your body belongs to Cold:
desire to
spice food, like hot pepper, garlic, onion;
like warm
or hot drinks;
easy to
have ulcer in mouth and have sour throat but no fever;
easy to
have diarrhea with little stomach pain from time to time or easy
shift to constipation;
urine is
long and clear as pure water;
cold in
feet and hands;
easy to
catch cold or flu;
frequent
onset of allergic reactions, such as skin rash, asthma, sinus
problem;[7]
easy to
have sweat after mild physical or emotional works;
easy to
have palpitation, short of breath;
pale or
dark as black in lips;
have purple
or black tint in the tongue;
have white
or black tongue covering;
feel
chronic fatigue, drowsy in daytime;
feel less
ambitions for work and life;
tend to
have less talk, or with low voice in talk;
for women,
the discharge is more and white in color but without strong
odor.;
pulse feels
weak or deep;[8]
Fire body nature:
If you have
following feelings or conditions, your body belongs to Fire:
craving to
less spicy food;
wish to
have room temperature or cold drinks;
have dry
mouth and eyes;
desire to
drink more water;
tends to
have constipation and gas;
urine is
short but frequent with hot feelings in the urine tract;
no sweat
but more hot flash;
or sweat
follows the hot flash;
poor sleep
with more dreams;
feel
discomfort hot in the palm and/or sole;
irrigable,
annoyed and easy to get upset;
tend to
talk and the voice is loud.
For women,
the discharge might be less but with strong terrible odor and
the period tends to be earlier;
pulse feels
floating and faster;
For quite a
few people, the body nature is not so clear to make a
conclusion. One may feel as to the Cold, but some other
phenomenon makes him suspecting as Fire body too. This is a
quite common clinic situation.[9]
For one with clear Cold body nature, but
suddenly have
extreme headache, fever, red in face, deafness, dizziness, sour
throat, diarrhea, extremely bad odor from mouth or body,
bleeding from gum, nose, eye, anus… similar to the onset of a
Fire, it is not the true Fire but a very dangerous condition:
the body’s primary life fire[10]
comes out now. If we do not know this, and misdiagnosed it to
use large amount of Cold remedies for the treatment, such as
Cold herbs or large amount of biotics, the doctor actually
speeds up the exhaust of the one’ life.
If you
cannot make clear decision, ask your Traditional Chinese
Medicine doctor.
[11]
Many times,
the nature of the body can also change after medical
treatment/intervention. If you take too much Cold medicine, such
as Cold herbs[12]
or antibiotics, the body could shift to Cold; and if we take too
much Fire medicine for a long time, such as Hot herbs or Steroid
compounds, the body may turn to Fire.
Now let us
see what kinds of fruits belong to Cold and what to Fire:
Fruits that belong to and have
biological property as Fire (or warm):
Plum (mei);
Peach (tao); Apricot (Xing); Chinese date; Langon (long yan);
Chinese hawthorn (shan zha); Litchi (Li zhi); Chinese Flowering
Quince (mu gua); Chestnut (Li zi);
(Fire fruit –
Plum)
Fruits that belong to and have
biological property as Cold:
Apple;
Pear; Persimmon (Shi zi); Banana; Straw Berry; Watermelon;
Orange, Kiwi, and Mango.
(Cold
fruit – Apple)
Fruits that belong to neutral
property (neither too Cold or Fire):
Grape and Pineapple.
Cold fruits
balance the Fire body nature[13];
but worse the Cold body nature, resulting in the slow down of
the transport and metabolism of the fat tissue, and then the bad
result is: over weight.
(Grape is neutral in nature)
On the
other hands, Fire food balance the Cold body[14],
but makes the health condition worse for the body nature that
belongs to Fire already. It will makes the one more dry in
mouth, having red eyes, burning session in the urine, poor
sleep, irrigable, or more acne, or skin rash.
Now you
understand that fruits affect our health not only by supplying
us vitamins, minerals,
pectin and water, but
also cause some troubles if we do not take them in a proper way.
Now we turn
back to the old Traditional Chinese Bible and realize that for
most people with over weight, the reason is mostly the
stagnation of the function of the Spleen system in the body,
which has been damaged by long term taking of Cold beverages
(include ice cream) and Cold fruits[15].
With the Warm herb therapy, combined with acupuncture and
special losing-weight massage, our lose weight program works
much better than ever!
Now, if you
know that your body nature is Cold, so you take much more Hot
fruits and no Cold fruits at all, or if your body nature is Hot,
so you take only Cold fruits but no Hot fruits, you are wrong
again. We should not go from one extreme to another.
The best
way concerning the fruit taking is if your body nature is Cold,
you should take two parts of the Hot fruits but one part of the
Cold fruits, wise versa. We mean relatively, not absolutely yes
or no. We should also consider the nature of other food we are
eating and drinking together with fruits.
Also we
mean the relatively balance of the Cold and Hot nature of the
diet within a day or two, not means within every meal. You do
not need to do things so precise. In one meal, you may take more
apple, and in next meal, you can take more plum or some other
Hot food or drinks.
Considering
that we also take vegetables every day and the vegetables may
also be Cold or Hot in nature. If you have taken more Cold
Fruits, you can take more Hot vegetables to balance it. You can
still enjoy your fruits!
Hot vegetables:
Hot pepper;
ginger; garlic; leaf mustard (Jie cai); rutabaga (Da Tou cai);
pumpkin; sword bean (Dao dou);
Cold vegetables:
Tomato;
bitter gourd (Ku gua);celery (Qing cai); spinach (Bo cai);
amaranth (Xian cai); rape (You cai); radish (Luo bo); Eggplant (Qie
Zi); Cucumber (Huang gua); Wax Gourd (Dong gua); Towel gourd (Si
gua); Mushroom; Green bean spouts; Romaine lettuce (Sheng cai);
Vegetables not Hot or Cold (e.g.
balanced):
Cabbage
(Juan Xin Cai); Sweet potato (Yu tou); Carrot (Hu Luo bo);
Potato; Hyacinth bean (Bian dou); pea (Wan dou); cowpea (Jiang
dou); Young soya bean (Mao dou); yellow bean sprouts (Huang dou
ya); Kidney bean (Yun dou); Black edible fungus (Hei mu er);
Xianggu mushroom; Straw mushroom (Cao gu); Cauliflower (Hua cai).
\
You may ask
what about the main diet every day. Yes, we know that corn is
Cold and
millet
is Hot in nature.
Green tea
is Cold but fertilized tea, such as Wu Long tea, Tie Guan Yin
tea, are neutral-warm. Coffee is Hot, of course, which causes
constipation, -
just let you know.
You know
what you should do.
Now you may
feel easier to understand that not every one should take more
garlic[16];
not every one should drink at least 8 cups of water every day;
and not every one should take hands of vitamins and mineral
tablets (especially if they are artificial products).
[17] Each people is
different.
We are the
product of Nature God, not the product from automatic resembling
lines!
[1]
This is one of the reasons that a cancer cell can exist
in the body without being prevented for abnormal growth.
The biological function of spleen, heart, lung, kidney
and liver in the Traditional Chinese Medicine is largely
different from the conventional medicine.
[2]
One of the functions of the Heart system is as the king,
control and make sure that every part of the body
functions properly. The spleen responsible to report to
the Heart any abnormal situation in the body.
[3]
They do not test if there
skin will be such water-like when they drink much water
per se. How humidity the skin is does not depend only on
the amount of water coming into our body, unless we are
in a extreme thirsty condition. If we do not feel
thirsty, more water will damage our Kidney system,
making the kidney cells work hard to filter the extra
water, and the circulation system working hard to
transport the extra water too. You should know that the
water that comes into the body, can come into the
circulation, but not necessarily into the space between
the cells (we call it connective tissue) or into the
cells.
[4]
This is another function of the Spleen system in the
body.
[5]
No wonder there are so many people in the North America having constipation!
[6]
Note that we mean “relatively”, not “absolutely”.
[7]
Cold herbs are needed from time to time to make a quick
control of the allergic onset, but for prevention, the
Hot herbs to correct the Spleen function are more
important. In our
clinic, we also use Hot herbal formula to control the
allergic reactions.
[8]
Normally, pulse is deeper in winter but floating in
summer, and deeper in overweight one than in slim one.
So doctor should be careful to identify the normal pulse
and the abnormal pulse.
[9]
This is true when disease come deeper into the Shao Yin
and Jue Yin stages.
[10]
There are two kinds of life Fire in the body. One is the
primary life Fire, which comes into the body during the
birth from heritage and is hidden and stored in the
Kidney system. It comes to work to assist our body to
combat life threatening stress in extreme conditions,
such in extreme cold, hot, stress, trauma, hungry,
tired, less sleep, etc.. Hormones such as cortisones are
part of the primary life Fire. Our daily life is
maintained by the later life Fire, which comes from the
diet though the works of the Spleen system. The later
life Fire from the Spleen system nourishes and maintains
the primary life Fire in a rich condition ready to work
anytime when our body is under extreme conditions, such
as extreme cold, hot, hungry, tired, fear, stress, etc.
If the Spleen system is weak, so less the later
life Fire and also the primary life Fire. It will result
in less overall defense system of the body to again life
stress including the virus and bacteria attacks.
[11]
Here is one of the
challenges for a TCM doctor to identify the patient in a
true or false Yin Xue and Yang Kang condition.
“Xue” means deficiency and
“Kang” means “extra” condition. If it is in a
true Yin deficiency and Yang Kang condition, Gingseng
products work well, otherwise it is forbidden. The
Yin-Yang diagnosis is much difficult to learn than the
Five-Element diagnosis system – the writer’s clinic
experience.
[12]
As we know that many women with over weight is under the
Cold body condition. The major reason for their
overweight is the weakness of the Spleen system.
However, many lose weight program works to cause
diarrhea. It will further more damage the Spleen system.
Here we have to remind that never evaluate a herbal
therapy to see its ingredient, but its final function.
For instance, the herb Da Huang belongs to Cold herb, it
is one of the major ingredient in many weight loss herb
formula, but if there are other ingredients in a formula
work together to warm the Spleen, the whole formula
might be the good one to loss weight but also make the
Spleen system stronger.
[13]
A good example for this is the taking of Cold fruits by
people who drinks cow’s milk or take lots of dairy
products.
[14]
A good example for this case is the taking of hot pepper
by people who usually like warm water, feeling cold in
hands and feet.
[15]
This is especially wrong in summer, in which the inside
of the body is already in a “cold” condition. More Cold
beverage and fruit or other things will further more
‘freeze” the inside of the body, retard the function of
the Spleen system, resulting in the slow down of the fat
tissue metabolism to cause accumulation of fat in the
stomach area.
[16]
Garlic belongs to “Fire” food, as other spicy food. It
is not suitable for one with Fire body nature.
[17]
Any ingredient, once isolated from its nature source,
may have different therapeutical property compared with
its original source, so may yield different hazard to
the body. This is why a so called “active ingredient” of
a herb, once isolated and purified, no longer functions
as its original form for the treatment and shows more
side effects – it becomes as many artificial chemical
drugs. To isolate “active ingredient” from herbs has
been proven completely wrong effort in last decade!
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