What are the four qi in nutrition and diet adjustment?

The "four qi" mentioned in nutrition and dietary supplementation are the core concepts of the traditional Chinese medicine dietary therapy system. They refer to the four properties of cold, hot, warm and cool that the food itself has, and are often called the "four properties". In addition, there is also a type of food that has no obvious cold and hot properties and has a gentle effect, which is classified as "flat property" and is an extension of the four qi.

A while ago, I helped Aunt Zhang in the community adjust her diet plan. She always said that she got angry and had a toothache. After drinking wild chrysanthemum tea for less than half a month, her teeth were not healed but she started to suffer from acid reflux, and it hurt when she ate something cold. To put it bluntly, she didn't understand the four qi properties of food - wild chrysanthemums are the food of the Great Cold, and her internal heat is a deficiency of fire caused by insufficient body fluids in her old age. Her spleen and stomach are already weak, so if she gulps down something cold, something will definitely happen.

In fact, this concept first appeared in the "Shen Nong's Materia Medica". It was originally used to mark the action tendency of medicinal materials. Later, it was gradually extended to daily food. It is completely based on the rules summarized by the ancients based on actual experience: after eating, the whole body will feel hot, and even the mouth and tongue may be prone to sores, which are classified as warm, such as mutton, pepper, and longan.； Foods that can cool down the body heat after eating, or even cause diarrhea if eaten too much, are classified as cold foods, such as crabs, watermelons, and mung beans. To use an analogy, the four qi are like the "characters" of food. The warm ones are impatient, and they are busy adding fire to the food when it enters the stomach. The cold ones are chronic, focusing on cooling down and moisturizing. The flat ones are peacemakers, and have a mild temper. Most people will not have any overreactions after eating them.

There are actually different schools of thought regarding the four qi. Supporters of traditional Chinese medicine and dietary therapy prefer to judge by the human body's reaction after consumption, and do not advocate forcibly linking it with modern nutrients.； Some modern nutrition researchers have conducted relevant experiments and found that warm and hot foods generally produce more calories and have a higher protein or sodium content, while cold and cool foods are mostly rich in water and high in potassium and dietary fiber. They believe that the four qi can actually be roughly quantitatively divided by nutritional components. ； There is also a neutral group of people who believe that the Four Qi are the result of thousands of years of experience. There are currently not enough large-sample studies that can fully correspond to modern nutrition indicators. There is no need to forcefully bind them. You can just refer to them when using them in practice. Don’t take it too seriously.

Oh, by the way, there are still many people who are confused about which category a certain food belongs to, such as the common apple. Some medical books say it is warm in nature, and some say it is cool in nature. There is no guarantee of accuracy after arguing over it. I once met a little girl who loves fitness. She was fine even if she came to eat iced strawberries. But another girl who has been sitting for a long time and has cold hands and feet would have stomachaches if she ate too many strawberries at room temperature. This is actually the difference in individual tolerance. There is really no need to memorize the food attribute list online. After you eat something and you feel comfortable without any uncomfortable reactions such as acid reflux, diarrhea, irritation, or flatulence, then the "qi" of the food is in line with your constitution, which is more accurate than any amount of information you can check.

I have been a dietary guide for so many years, but I rarely give people a list of "never eat cold food" and "eat more warm food". After all, eating is a very personal matter. A few days ago, a friend said that he was cold, but he couldn't help but want to eat two bites of iced watermelon in summer, and he didn't feel uncomfortable after eating it. Do you have to hold it in just to conform to the theory? Of course it's not necessary. Whether it is the traditional four-qi theory or the modern nutritional combination, the core is to make people eat comfortably and healthily. There is really no need to torture your mouth just to stick to the rules, right?