19

Shaping Characters

So far, we’ve been referring to character and temperament in terms of what is inherently born to a food. However, after a plant is picked or an animal is prepared, the process of change continues to color the life of food.

Like anything in life, foods constantly experience actions and reactions of compliant and dominant food combinations and of the interplay of contrasts in food on different levels.

When you take an active role in bringing different foods together—whether combined in one recipe or organized into a complete meal—you are the director of what will happen and how, on an energetic level.

Learned Temperament

The inherent temperaments of a particular food may be altered conditionally in such a way that it acquires a new set of characteristics. I call this a food’s learned temperament.

A food’s learned temperament will contribute different effects than the food originally would produce in and of itself. A food’s learned temperament is affected by a number of variables, including the combining with other foods and the methods of preparation you choose for it.

Like a particular food, your human constitution is largely determined at birth, with various alterations occurring during your growth process, and these acquired or conditional alterations tend to color your constitution—your inherent nature. These alterations or conditions go through many changes during your lifetime, yet the basic foundation of your constitution remains the same.

For example, if you are out of shape and decide to exercise, your condition will change, and this will add a different dimension or color to your constitution. If you are hungry and eat, your condition will change; if you become seriously ill and receive medical treatment, your condition will change. Through all of these changes, your constitution, which you are born with, will remain the same.

Altering Temperaments

The inherent temperament of a food can be altered by the addition of other foods. When this happens, the inherent temperament of the original food takes on and learns some of the qualities of the other foods, sometimes to a great degree and other times to a lesser degree. The degree to which a food acquires a different temperament than its original one can be determined by how strong or dominant are the foods with which it is combined and the method of preparation.

For example, the essential character of dandelion greens is cool and dry. When you cook them with garlic and olive oil, they acquire a learned temperament that will produce a warm and damp effect. The cooked oil adds both the warming and damp qualities to the dry, cool, and bitter dandelions. Dandelions also have an upward and inward direction, and the oil and heat of cooking tend to partially reduce the upward nature of the greens while the garlic disperses the inward nature.

The inherent temperament of tofu is cold and damp, yet if you deep fry tofu, the acquired effect becomes warm and damp. (Although not much: it takes a lot to warm tofu!) Seaweeds have inherently cold and dry temperaments. These can be enhanced by soaking the sea vegetable and using it in a salad, which maintains its cold, dry temperament. Hiziki (a sea algae) prepared this way is very different from when soaked and rinsed, then cooked for an hour or more with added fat and more warming vegetables, such as carrots and onions. The acquired effect would then be warm and damp.

When you acquire a taste for a particular food, you also acquire the energetic properties of that food; likewise, a particular food can acquire and thus be influenced by—even dominated by—the energetics of another food or method of preparation.

Food temperaments can be expressed by a single food or by a prepared combination of foods. They can also be expressed in a particular diet overall.

The Five Energies

Another important working model, originating in the ancient healing model of traditional Chinese medicine, and one that will help renew your knowledge of food energetics is the nature of the five flavors. The five flavors or tastes include: sweet, bitter, sour, pungent (spicy), and salty.

The qualities of each of these five flavors vary in their degree of intensity. For example, one food may taste very sweet and sugary, and another may taste subtly sweet as well as slightly sour. Each food has a predominant flavor and often one or more subtle flavors.

Each flavor has a tendency to enter one or more specific organs of the body, where it creates a particular condition in that organ. Some of the ancient works on Chinese medicine and healing contain detailed explanations of the five flavors and their relevance to health and sickness. It is in these translated works where we find the clearly expressed—yet often misinterpreted—explanation of the potential energetics of the five flavors.

In the classic texts of Chinese medicine there is mention of how each of the five flavors enters and resonates with an associated organ. The flavors of sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salty enter their respective organs: spleen and pancreas, liver, heart, lungs, and kidneys. The energetic potentials and associated organs of the five flavors are listed as follows:

These corresponding relationships between flavors and organs are often mistakenly described as the flavors being “good for” those organs. In actuality, the flavors are neither “good” nor “bad” for those organs. Rather, they produce an energetic effect that results in a quality of emptying out or filling. (It is also important to note that the many other associated phenomena—other than five flavors, that is—described in Chinese medicine to a particular organ are not necessarily always beneficial to that organ.)

Each of the five organs can have one of the three following conditions: empty, full, or balanced. Using the liver as an example, let’s describe two conditions of the liver to get an idea as to how a flavor (in this case, the sour flavor) can influence an organ.

The sour flavor enters the liver, regardless of whether it is empty or full. However, the sour, tart flavor has an astringent quality, which has an emptying tendency. Think of the sour flavor as having the ability to shrivel and cool, not unlike a wet sponge that is being squeezed and its liquid released. Or, imagine biting into a fresh lemon and how the astringent quality of the sour juice causes you to pucker up.

When you apply these qualities to a full condition in the liver—a condition where one’s liver tends to be overheated and congested, where one’s temperament is hot and angry—the sour flavor likely will have a beneficial effect. But if the liver’s condition is empty to start with—as in the disease of cirrhosis, where the liver cells are replaced with inactive scar tissue—and the liver is weak and depleted, the sour flavor may create further weakness and not benefit the organ.

The five flavors are relative to each situation to which they are applied.

Another common misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the five flavors is a strict categorizing of foods within a particular flavor or element. For example, the spicy or pungent flavor corresponds to the “metal” phase of energy, which includes the corresponding organs of the lungs and large intestine. This is often interpreted as meaning that “spicy foods are good for the lungs and large intestines,” and numerous spicy foods are often listed as aiding the lungs and large intestines.

As you already know, spicy foods enter, yet are not necessarily beneficial for, the lungs and large intestines. What’s more, each spicy food has its own unique energetic effect. Spices are dispersing, with the ability to release stored energy. If one’s lungs are filled with accumulated energy, the spicy flavor can support a dispersal of that condensed energy. On the other hand, if the lungs are depleted of energy, the spicy flavor may not be supportive, but may even be injurious.

Raw daikon (long white radish) has a spicy flavor and therefore enters the lungs. However, boiled daikon has a sweet flavor, and thus enters more the spleen/pancreas or “soil” category. Fried daikon has a bitter flavor, and thus enters the heart/small intestine and “fire” category.

When used to determine the energetics of foods, the five flavors cannot be thought of as static or fixed categories of foods, each with its single purpose.

A practical application of the five flavors for daily use would be to make sure you have all five flavors present in your main meal. Whether it is lunch or dinner that is your main meal of the day, try to have each flavor present. Below are some examples of how to find these flavors.

Sour

Lemon, lime, green apple, and other fruits with a sour flavor, vinegar, wine, fermented foods (pickles, olives, sauerkraut, etc.). The sour flavor is usually used in small quantities as seasoning or a side dish of fermented foods. However, there are those of us who may enjoy a glass of wine or two on occasion with nice meals.

Sweet

Winter squashes, pumpkins, carrots, beets, many whole grains and grain products, many fruits (dried and fresh), natural sweeteners (grain malts, maple syrup, agave syrup, honey). Natural sweet foods have long played a major role in traditional diets; in agricultural diets, in the form of whole grains, and in hunter-gatherer diets, in the form of roots and tubers. The quantity of sweet flavor in a meal is usually higher than other flavors; when it is not, one will tend to crave additional sweets (often in the form of unhealthier, refined sweet foods).

Pungent (Spicy)

Onions, garlic, ginger, chives, peppers, curry seasoning, spices. Like the sour flavor, traditional diets tend to use small quantities of spicy foods to enhance the flavors of a meal, as well as for other, equally important reasons, which we will discuss later.

Bitter

Some leafy green vegetables, some root vegetables, some herbs, grilled foods, roasted or toasted foods, including seeds and nuts, chocolate, coffee, tea. Traditional diets usually incorporate small amounts of bitter foods. You can see how more extreme bitter foods, such as coffee and chocolate, are often consumed in large quantities by those not consuming quality vegetables, seeds, and other quality bitter foods. Not that chocolate is necessarily a poor-quality substitute for the bitter flavor, but one who eats bitter greens, grilled foods, and toasted seeds and nuts will have significantly less desire for large amounts of chocolate and coffee.

Salty

Sea salt, marine algae (sea vegetables), salt water fish, some dried and smoked foods. Traditional diets include regular amounts of mineral-based foods or foods with high mineral content in reasonable quantities. Salts of varying types were also used to concentrate flavors of foods.

Quality is an important factor in determining how you support your health with the five flavors. When a flavor is not present in one’s daily diet, one will inevitably experience a craving for it and more than likely compensate by indulging in poor-quality substitutes, especially what is familiar. Therefore, it is important to introduce additional foods with different flavors that may be unfamiliar yet highly supportive to your health.

Here is a simple rule of thumb. As much as possible, get all five flavors in your main meal and you will notice a marked difference in how you feel and what you crave.