Warming winter foods and your yin and yang balance

Hang on, we’re about to get a little woo-woo here. This column is about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the idea of eating special seasonal foods to counteract the effects of the weather (in this case: winter weather). 

Last month was the beginning of the Chinese Lunar Year, of course (happy year of the pig!). But I’ve just been thinking generally about the TCM recommendation that, when it’s very cold, you should eat foods that are warming and that heat up your body, especially your kidneys.

I won’t be so bold as to try and explain all the complexities of the concepts of yin and yang in the body but if you want to learn more, go to this convincingly scientific website at www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/yang-deficiency. Suffice it for me to say that, obviously, when it’s cold your organs get cold, especially your kidneys. So you want to warm them up, otherwise you’ll become pale, listless and mentally sluggish. If you’re of child-bearing age, you can have fertility problems.

Cold stuff in TCM is identified as yin and you want to ingest more of it in summer, to balance the warmer yang forces.

Conversely, in winter, you want more yang foods to protect your kidneys and your inner Fire of Yang. I’m sorry, that’s what it’s called, but you know instinctively of course that whatever you call it, the essence is that in winter, when it’s cold, your body wants you to eat warming foods. 

Meats, especially ones that have been slow-cooked, are warming. Spices such as ginger and cinnamon are warming; hot spices are warming in small amounts but if you eat too much of them you’ll have the opposite effect and they will cool you off (which is why the foods of tropical nations are so often so spicy). 

 Some people think, incorrectly, that coffee is a yang food. This is deceptive; coffee creates an adrenaline spike so it seems like it’s warming you up, but according to the previously cited Science Direct website, coffee “is false Yang, and eventually consumes reserves rather than stimulating them.”

This whole yin and yang thing is complex. Americans tend to go whole hog, so to speak, on whatever food craze has taken hold of them (all carb,  no carb, low fat, no gluten). This column consistently preaches the importance of moderation and balance. That’s also kind of the essence of the TCM yin and yang balance. 

You want to eat more warming, stewed, slow cooked meats and vegetables. But you have to be careful not to overdo it. 

One food that is recommended to help counterbalance your warm yang tendencies: radishes. I love radishes and have found very beautiful bundles of them lately at all the grocery stores around here. 

They make wonderful appetizers before a dinner party because they tend to stimulate your appetite. They also help you digest heavy and fatty foods (there is a long explanation about how radishes stimulate your bile ducts, which helps your liver to do its best work, but I’ll spare you the details). 

Try serving a bundle of radishes with their greens intact before your next dinner party. Carefully slice off the little radish tail to make them easier and more appealing to eat. I like to actually slice them in half from the bottom up, being careful when you cut through the top that a bit of the greens stay attached to the red root (it’s just prettier, there’s no other reason). It’s easy to break off a half radish and then dunk it in some hummus. Radishes are also an excellent foil to rich, creamy cheeses. 

And they are a perfect side dish when you’re making rich beef foods. We don’t do this a lot in the Northeast, but if you order beef tacos in many parts of Southern California and Mexico you will get a radish alongside your taco. 

Radishes are generally just good for you, no matter the season. They have a lot of vitamin C, which is that antioxidant that we all believe helps to ward off the common cold. They have a lot of potassium, which is supposed to help keep your muscles healthy and to stop your legs from twitching and cramping.

And they have a lot of folate, which is an essential nutrient for pregnant women and helps the baby to develop a healthy spine. 

If you don’t want to eat raw radishes during the cold winter months, here’s another idea: Radishes taste great when you cook them. You can sautée them on their own; you can add them to a roast or a stew (I am not kidding, they taste great); and they are delicious and beautiful when you put little matchsticks of them on top of a steaming hot bowl of ramen noodle soup.