Food therapy should go first for any chronic disease, followed by medicine if they are not cured. This is a famous quote by Dr. Sun Si Miao of the Tang Dynasty.
Chinese nutrition is the delicious counterpart to Chinese herbal medicine. The Chinese people have known for centuries that ordinary foods contain powerful healing properties. Based on the principles of TCM, namely that of the Five Element Theory and the principle of Yin and Yang, each food is characterized by its flavor, energies and actions. Diet therapy regulates and treats the different organs of the body according to the properties of the food.
Before suggesting a therapeutic diet, a doctor of Chinese medicine must first take many different factors into consideration. The practitioner studies the patient's constitution, the nature of the patient's illness, type of syndrome, even the season and climate. The doctor selects the proper diet for the patient based on all of these factors, not just upon the disease alone (the holistic approach).
