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Nutrition Part II
The Five Flavors of Food
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The essential elements of the Chinese diet involves not only the energetic property of food (what temperature the foods do to our bodies, whether they generate hot or cold, warm or cool or neutral sensations) but also its flavors and movement. The different food groups have been categorized as to their energetic property in the first part in our Nutrition series.
In this part II, we will learn about the five flavors of food – whether they are pungent (acrid), sweet, sour, bitter or salty. The flavors of food are important in the Chinese diet not only for the obvious reason of its effect on the taste buds and therefore the pleasure it gives us during meals but more importantly, different flavors have their respective effects upon the internal organs. Consistent with the five element theory in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for example, foods that have a pungent flavor (ginger, green onion, peppermint) act on the lungs and large intestines. Foods with a sweet flavor (honey, sugar) nourishes the stomach and spleen, sour flavor foods (lemon, plum) affect the liver and gall bladder, bitter flavor (asparagus, wild cucumber) on the heart and small intestines and salty foods (kelp, salt, seaweed) act on the kidney and urinary bladder. Some foods have a combination of flavors and therefore have a more complex action on the human body.
The following table lists foods according to their flavors:
| Bitter |
• Apricot seed
• Asparagus
• Bitter gourd
• Wild cucumber
• Celery
• Cherry seed
• Coffee
• Grapefruit peel
• Hops
• Kohlrabi
• Lettuce
• Lotus
• Lotus plumule
• Radish leaf
• Sea grass
• Vinegar
• Wine |
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Slightly Bitter
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• ginseng
• pumpkin
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Light
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• Job’s tears
• kidney bean
• sunflower seed
• white fungus
• Chinese wax gourd
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| Pungent (Acrid) |
• Black pepper
• Castor bean
• Cherry seed
• Chive
• Chive root
• Chive seed
• Cinnamon bark
• Cinnamon twig
• Clove
• Chinese parsley
• Cottonseed
• Dill seeds
• Fennel
• Garlic
• Ginger (fresh/dried)
• Grapefruit peel
• Green onion
• Leaf and white head
• Green pepper
• kumquat
• leaf mustard
• leek
• marjoram
• nutmeg
• peppermint
• radish and radish leaf
• red pepper
• rice bran
• rosemary
• soybean oil
• spearmint
• star anise
• sweet basil
• taro
• tobacco
• white pepper
• wine
• kohlrabi |
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| Slightly Pungent |
• Asparagus
• caraway
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| Salty |
• Abalone
• Barley
• Chive seeds
• Clam (sea and fresh water)
• Crab
• Cuttle bone
• Cuttle fish
• Duck
• Eel blood
• Ham
• Kelp
• Milk (human)
• Oyster
• Oyster shell
• Pork
• Salt
• Sea grass
• Seaweed |
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| Sour |
• apple
• apricot
• crabapple
• sour plum
• grape
• grapefruit
• hawthorn fruit
• kumquat
• litchi
• loquat
• mandarin orange
• mango
• olive
• peach
• pineapple
• plum
• raspberry
• strawberry
• small/red adjuki bean
• star fruit or carambola
• tangerine
• tomato
• vinegar
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| Extremely Sour |
• Lemon
• Pear
• Sour Plum
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| Sweet |
• apple
• banana
• beef
• black sesame seeds
• Chinese cabbage
• castor bean
• chestnut
• white yolk
• cinnamon twig
• coffee
• corn silk
• red and black dates
• eel, eel blood
• grape
• hawthorn fruit
• hyacinth bean
• kohlrabi
• licorice
• longan
• lotus(fruit/seed)
• mandarin orange
• mung bean
• olive
• peach
• persimmon
• pork
• radish
• adjuki bean
• saffron
• shrimp
• spinach
• star fruit
• sugar cane
• sweet potato
• taro
• water chestnut
• wheat bran
• wine
• apricot seeds
• barley
• beet roots
• black soybean
• carp
• celery
• chicken
• Chinese wax gourd
• clam (fresh water)
• common button
• mushroom
• crabapple
• dry mandarin
• orange peel
• fig
• grapefruit/pee
• honey
• job’s ears
• kumquat
• lily flower
• longevity fruit
• malt
• mango
• musk melon
• oyster
• peanut
• pineapple
• potato
• raspberry
• rice bran
• sesame oil
• soybean oil
• squash
• strawberries
• sunflower seed
• sword bean
• tomato
• watermelon
• white fungus
• yellow soybean
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