Uncontrolled Diet
There is an ancient Chinese saying: “To let children be healthy, offer them one-third of hunger and one-third of cold.” “One-third of hunger” means avoiding overfeeding them, so that the food can be more easily digested. “One-third of cold” means not to wear excessively warmth clothing. This is to enhance the body’s ability to resist cold.  This is not only for children. The same is true for adults.

Diet Without Timing
After food goes into the stomach, the food that is easy to digest can be digested within one to two hours; food that is not easy to digest will take four to five hours to leave the stomach. Some people are busy; they conduct their business wholeheartedly, but they disregard their diet. When they are hungry, they hurriedly eat food without chewing it enough. This makes the stomach lose its normal functioning.

Inappropriate Dietary Habits

1. Eating too much cold food. Chinese like to eat warm and cooked food, which is very beneficial for the stomach. Chinese traditional medicine has the concept, “cold leads to stagnation.”

Cold food easily stagnates qi and blood, and leads to many illnesses, such as dysmenorrhea. Many ailments are caused by cold food. Raw vegetables and meat, especially raw meat, interfere with the normal gastrointestinal functioning. Some people may become infected with parasites from eating raw food.

2. Eating too much at the wrong time. In the morning, we should eat food that is easy to digest. At noon the stomach’s ability to digest food is the strongest. Because supper is near sleep, one should not eat too much. Modern people usually do not eat breakfast, eat too much at supper, and sometimes include a midnight snack, which leads to the dysfunction of the gastrointestinal system, resulting in many diseases.

3. Eating when using the brain too much. Eating while watching television, reading newspapers, and discussing matters can easily impair the stomach’s function. After dinner, one should not immediately sit down to work, and one should avoid using the brain.

Dr. Benjamin Kong from Sweden and Dr. Xiu Zhou from Germany are the principal editors of the China Research Group.

China Research Group
Epoch Times Staff