When a Chinese uses the terms 'heaty' or 'heatiness' to describe the kinds of
foods he/she would like to have or avoid, most Westerners would probably have no
idea what those concepts are or find them strange.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the notion of heaty (yang)(as opposed
to cooling or yin) is related to the balancing of ‘yin’ and ‘yang’. To most
people, especially the Chinese, in Asian countries such as China, Hong Kong,
Malaysia and Singaporeans, such concepts are very much part of the indigenous
culture.
Excessive “cold” energy in the body, on the contrary, will make us feel weak,
lethargic, tired and restless.
The constitution of each person is influenced by congenital factors as well
as the acquired lifestlye (e.g diet, stress level, amount of exercise and sleep,
living environment), and this varies from person to person. In other words,
different foodsact upon the human body in different ways and affect our state of
health. The body's metabolism, functioning of organs and organ structure all
combine to determine our susceptibility to these heaty and cooling effects of
foods.
Examples of cooling and heaty foods:
Cool (yin) Foods: bamboo shoot, banana, bitter gourd, clam, crab, grapefruit,
lettuce, persimmon, salt, seaweed, star fruit, sugar cane, water chestnut,
watermelon, lotus root, cucumber, barley, bean curd, chicken egg white,
marjoram, oyster, pear, peppermint, radish, strawberry, tangerine, and yogurt,
broccoli, cauliflower, zuccini, corn, tomatoes, pineapple, turmeric.
Neutral (balanced yin and yang) Foods: honey, corn, abalone, apricot, beef,
beetroot, black fungus, carp, carrot, celery, chicken egg yolk, cuttlefish,
duck, fig, kidney bean, lotus fruit and seed, milk, olive, oyster, papaya, pork,
potato, pumpkin, radish leaf, red bean, plum, sunflower seed, sweet rice, sweet
potato, white fungus, yellow soybean, brussels sprouts, snow peas, sweet potato,
taro, dates, figs, raspberries, raisins, sage, rosemary, thyme, brown rice,
apple.
Heaty (yang) Foods: pepper, cinnamon bark, ginger, soybean oil, red and green
pepper, chicken, apricot seed, brown sugar, cherry, chestnut, chive, cinnamon
twig, clove, coconut, coffee, coriander (Chinese parsley), date, dillseed, eel,
garlic, grapefruit peel, green onion, guava, ham, leaf mustard, leek, longan,
mutton, nutmeg, peach, raspberry, rosemary, shrimp, spearmint, sweet basil,
tobacco, vinegar, walnut, jackfruit, durian, leek, shallots, spring onion, apricots, blackberries, black currant, mangoes, peaches, cherry, mandarin
orange, grape.