All foods have their own specific properties, just like the banana. The obvious ones are chillies (hot, acrid: help to warm internal cold), cucumber (cold, sweet and slightly bitter: cools internal heat, diuretic). Others are not so obvious, such as: walnuts (warm, sweet: strengthens kidney and lungs); black tea (neutral and bitter: stimulates stomach and intestines); zucchini (cool, sweet and bitter: cools stomach and liver heat).

From this, we can see that whatever we put in our bodies will influence us in some way. Too many chillies will heat us up, especially if we are already of a hot constitution. Too many bananas will cause loose bowel, especially if we have a weaker/inefficient digestive system. We therefore need to be aware of what we are eating and drinking, and if nothing else, we should avoid over-eating a particular food, or type of food (we should also avoid over-eating, full stop, as this weakens the digestive system which then becomes inefficient at its job).

This is a very basic concept, and one which is usually overlooked in the doctor’s surgery. For more information on how to decide what foods to avoid and which ones to increase, call me and we can go into the details applicable to you. We are what we eat, they say…so true!