中国文化概论

Five Elements and dietary therapy to keep in good healthChinese culture, long in history, varied in form and rich in content, has remained one of the most original, ingenious, and vital traditions among all civilizations. Different people will have different interested in various aspects of the Chinese culture. I will talk about the influence of Five Elements on dietary therapy to keep in good health. Now, I am telling you something about the definition of Five Elements and the relations among them. The Five Elements consist of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The five elements were conceived as overcoming one another or producing one another. Wood can overcome earth; metal can overcome wood; fire, metal; water, fire; and earth, water again. Wood can produce fire; fire can produce earth; earth, metal; metal, water; and water, wood again. Each of the Five Elements has its period of rise and decline. Besides, in human bodies, there are viscera corresponding with Five Elements. Liver corresponds with wood; heart corresponds with fire; spleen, earth; kidney, water; lung, metal again. Just like the relations of generation, restriction, subjugation and reverse restriction among the five elements, there exist the interdepending and inter-restraining relations between the five viscera. Disfunction of any organ will influence the related organ. For example, if it results from heart trouble, that is regarded as” fire subjugating metal;” if it is caused by liver trouble, that is referred to as” wood reversely restricting metal.” According to the Five Elements theory, different people have different constitutions. For example, some people belong to the property of earth while some belong to the property of metal. Just like that, all food we eat in daily life has its own property. Nowadays, with the growth of the development of people living standard, more and more people pay more attention to the food they eat for the purpose of keeping in good health. There are more and more people believe that dietary therapy is a perfect way of keeping fit. The following I will talk about how the Five Elements affect on the dietary therapy to keep in good health. Then, I am sharing something about the influence of Five Elements on the dietary therapy of different constitution people in eating different property food. Firstly, the Five Elements theorists believe that the people who belong to the property of metal are full of Yang and Yin which the former is more than the latter. And those peoples long-life health is mostly based on the regulating of the lung and kidney. To nurse their health, they had better to eat more plant foods, like bean, cucumber, potato, sweet potato, grape and so on. Whats more, those people should eat a bit of foods which belong to the property of fire. And those people most appropriate time of dietetic invigoration is in the morning. The Five Elements theorists think that if people who belong to metal can take care of their health using those dietary therapy methods, they will have more advantage on owning the stronger body than those who do not use. Secondly, the Five Elements theorists believe that the people who belong to the property of wood are full of Yang and Yin in their body which the former is letter than the latter. Besides, their livers are tend to be hot and they can easily adapt to the spring and summer but they have difficulty in accommodating to the winter so that they are likely to fell depression. The most important thing to them is to regulate the heart and the liver. To make balances in their body, those people should eat more food which can disperse liver and promote blood circulation, just as watermelon, ormosia, bamboo shoots, mung bean and so on. In addition, people who belong to the property of wood should drink as little wine as they can except that some wines that like Angelica wine can promote blood circulation, for most of the wine is harm to their health. Furthermore, eating some foods that taste bitter is contribute to those people inner balance. Thirdly, the Five Elements theorists consider that the people who belong to the property of water are full of Yin and Yang in their body which the former is more than the latter, that is to say, those people are lack of fire. What they should do are to warning-yang and nourishing-qi and eating more food whose property is fire. As we all kwon, some meat like pork, mutton, and beef is full of fire. Besides, playing ball games and running are also good to their health. Whats more, ginger is another perfect food for those people. It is said that ginger is the best thing given to the people who belong to the property of water. But what people should take into account is that it is not wise to eat too much ginger at a time. Fourthly, the Five Elements theorists consider that the people who belong to the property of fire are full of Yin and Yang in their body which the former is less than the latter. Their method of dietary therapy to keep in good health is to develop Yin and restrain Yang and to take good care of their heart and kidney. To balance their hot, some fruit which are full of water is a good choice. Fruits like watermelon, mangosteen, honey peach, and so on all are good. But what people should pay attention to is that there are fruits belonging to the property of water, so as the property of fire. Dont eat all kinds of fruits without any thinking. Finally, compared with other property people, those people who belong to the property of earth have advantages on their balance of Yin and Yang. Those people do not have apparent defect of their conditions. And to a certain degree, they just need to pay more attention to their intestines and stomach. Foods like potato, soybean, sweet potato and sticky rice are good to them. Actually, those people just like opportunist, they eat all the things which are suitable for each season to eat.There are no deny that the things a person eat is very important to his health. Paying attention to the thing you eat is taking good care of your health. I hope that this article about Five Elements and dietary therapy to keep in good health can give you some health in keeping fit.参考文献：李其忠.我们的国家中医与中药M.复旦大学出版社.上海，2012.8 唐君毅.中国文化之精神价值M.江苏教育出版社.南京，2005.10 葛秀梅.中华膳食养生大全M. 上海科学普及出版社.上海，2012.5 国医绝学健康馆编委会.国医绝学健康馆-本草纲目中的养生智M. 上海科学普及出版.上海，2011.8 郭尚兴，盛兴庆.A History Of Chinese CultureM.河南大学出版社.开封，1993.12