This page features notes I have found on dietary guidelines in Chinese medicine. They are based upon pattern diagnosis and designed to balance the excesses and deficiencies within our bodies.
One important factor in Chinese dietary therapy is taste, for which this article in Herbal Reality provides an excellent introduction based on the Su Wen ch. 22. Following is my own analysis and comparison to Su Wen ch. 10 which appears on the surface to contradict this and challenge the generally accepted notion that each flavour supplements its associated Zang.
Su Wen ch. 22 says:
On this basis we can see that each Zang's own flavour tends to drain, while its opposite supplements, with the exception of the Spleen. Sweetness encourages relaxation and return to the centre, supplementing the Spleen, but excessive centralisation results in a lack of movement which can lead to stagnation and Dampness. Meanwhile bitterness, that has not been applied to draining for the aforementioned taboo on controlling the Sovereign, is instead applied to the Spleen. Fire has an energetic, rising quality, and bitterness, which should drain Fire, counters this with a strong downward movement towards the lower orifices. This makes it ideal for expelling Dampness which should naturally gravitate towards the bladder (and occasionally bowel) to be purged. Bitterness is also described as hardening, which can be rationally seen as the opposite of the relaxing property of sweetness.
This is contradicted by Su Wen ch. 10 which states:
"If one consumes large quantities of saltiness, then the blood vessels will congeal to become impeded and the complexion changes. If one consumes large quantities of bitterness, then the skin will desiccate and the body hair is plucked out. If one consumes large quantities of acridity, then the sinews become tense and the nails dry. If one consumes large quantities of sourness, then the flesh hardens and shows wrinkles and the lips peel. If one consumes large quantities of sweetness, then the bones will ache and the hair on the head falls off. These are the harms resulting from the five flavours. Hence, the Heart longs for bitterness, The Lung longs for acridity. The Liver longs for sourness. The Spleen longs for sweetness. The Kidneys long for saltiness."This appears to be using the later model of the Wuxing as a circle and the controlling cycle but a closer examination reveals some inconsistencies with this idea. The flavours mentioned are said in Su Wen 22 to drain the associated Zang, so it should end up decreasing that Zang's controlling influence. It could be explained away by simply saying that the two chapters were from two schools of thought, and this is clearly the case in the flavours each Zang "longs for" which opposite in most cases, but clinically it helps if we have a consistent system to decide exactly what a flavour does to our body instead of having two contradictory answers. It can be resolved if we consider that in Su Wen 22 the all Zang yearn for their tonifying flavour to counter a sudden deficiency, while in Su Wen 10 they yearn for their draining flavour, except the Spleen, with bitter this time applying to Fire and the Heart without the taboo against draining it directly. This does imply different schools of supplementing and draining, but with less contradiction. It is also notable that the Zang of East and South, the two Yang directions, seem to suffer from Excess conditions (sinew tension, suggesting Qi Stagnation, and congealing Blood, suggesting Blood Stasis), while the Zang of the West and North suffer mainly deficiency (dry skin, suggesting Blood deficiency, and aching bones with hair loss, suggesting Jing deficiency). Moreover, the South and North seem to be exclusively Excess and Deficient, while the East and West have some of both (brittle nails suggesting some Blood Deficiency, while the hair being "plucked out" suggests some Excess Pathogen forcibly removing it, rather than it simply falling out). The Spleen is an unusual Zang in that it actually moves in all four directions, raising clear Yang while Stomach Qi descends, holding the Blood (inward) while governing the transforming of food into Qi and transporting it around the body (outward). In its pathology, excess sourness causes a roughly equal amount of Excess and Deficiency and a combination of the primary pathologies of the Liver and Lung (hardening of the flesh, similar to the sinews becoming tense, while the wrinkles and peeling lips suggests the Exterior becoming deficient and dry like in pathology of the Lung). Since sourness contracts it is reasonable to expect a tendency towards Excess in the Interior (flesh hardening) with Deficiency of the Exterior (wrinkles and peeling skin). Meanwhile, sweetness is the one flavour that supplements its associated Zang, but in Su Wen 22, also gently drains the Heart by returning its extreme to the centre. This tendency towards centring could be seen as disrupting the dynamism between the two polarities of Yin and Yang that the Kidneys represent, and its draining of Fire makes it particularly affect the Kidney Yang aspect of Jing that manifests in the bones and hair.
It therefore becomes possible to annotate the above description with the following descriptions of what the flavours do and how they achieve that result:
The links below give some specific dietary recommendations for each major TCM pattern of imbalance. These may not have all the subtleties of the Nei Jing discussion above, but can be useful guides to distribute for patients. Please note that you should not restrict yourself to eating only the foods on the list but use them as suggestions for what to incorporate and avoid in your diet. Other dietary plans can also be considered and incorporated into these. Where a complex pattern is diagnosed, compare the sheets for the relevant patterns and make decisions based on the weighting of the diagnoses.
