THE PROPERTIES OF FOODS : Cooling . Warming . Moistening . Astringent .
In his book, No Recipe, Edward Espe Brown shares the following story:
A seeker in search of a Sufi master travels for weeks and weeks through the desert.
When she finds the wise Sufi master, she asks,
"What's this life all about? What's the meaning of life? I'm having a difficult time understanding."
And the Sufi master replies, "The secret of life is to make wise decisions."
"Well, how can I make wise decisions," the student asks?
"You can make wise decisions based on your experience," the Sufi master replies.
The student then asks, "So how do I gain experience? "
And the Sufi master replies, "By making poor decisions."
This is a very basic introduction to help nurture a more connected way of eating and making food choices. It's not about right or wrong. It's not about perfection, it's about greater and greater connection! It's about developing a sensitivity and understanding for what choices at a given time support or bring balance, asking: What are my internal properties at the moment? What are the external properties right now? What will satisfy my body and bring wholesome pleasure to my soul? We can learn form the times that a particular choice did not bring balance. Living is a learning process, mistakes are inevitable.
Both Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Ayurveda classify foods in terms of their warming, cooling, moistening, and/or astringent natures. There is some universal agreement between both TCM and Ayurveda, and there are also differing opinions even within each individual system. If it starts to get a bit too confusing, bring your awareness back to yourself and measure the theory against your own experience.
As you begin to understand the properties of food, keep asking yourself, “what does balance feel like?” Start by giving yourself a break from industrialized, processed, refined foods. Once you experience what good energy and digestion feel like, your enteric nervous system (your direct gut-brain connection) will have a clearer voice. Learning to hear, to listen, and to respond with attunement to the wisdom of your "gut" can truly help you navigate all the "noise" out there about "good" foods and "bad" foods and what you should or shouldn't eat. Through thoughtful, methodical eating experiments, you will discover which foods you really love and which foods work best for you at what times.
Warming Foods:
Tend to have longer growing periods (root vegetables).
Foods that have been dried tend to be warmer.
Cooling Foods:
Tend to have shorter growing periods (lettuces).
Tend to hold a high water content; hence fresh foods tend to be cooler than dried.
Western medicine also has something to say about how our cooking methods matter, especially when it comes to cooking meat. Check out this article from Harvard Health:
Vegetables vary quite a bit in terms of their properties, So a diet rich with variety helps bring balance. You've heard the saying:
Eat the rainbow :)
Fruits, in general have a cooling, cleansing nature.
Legumes are astringent in nature, and in their whole form can help clear dampness, that water logged, heavy feeling.
Grains in refined, flour forms are dampening, a combination moist with a sticky quality.
Nuts and Seeds are moistening and lubricating due to their oily nature; they keep things flowing smoothly, but too many can cause damp accumulation.
When choosing dairy, choose full-fat and raw when possible. Click to read article: 5 science-based reasons to choose full-fat dairy.
A Predominantly Plant Based Diet will be more cooling and balancing than a diet in which meat is the main event at meals.
A vegetarian diet will be the coolest.
*** These graphics are to be taken uber-literally; for example, kiwi might be cooler than apple ;) They are meant to give you a basic starting point. ***