People resolve to follow a constitutional diet, find a chart online, and start dividing foods into never and always. Within weeks there is nothing left to eat, the stress has mounted, and the whole thing is abandoned. The problem is not the chart. It is treating the chart as the answer. This article is about how to follow a constitutional diet in a way that survives contact with ordinary life.
In Summary
- The core is not eating only beneficial foods and never harmful ones.
- It is making a routine of the few things that matter, and holding everything else flexibly.
- Eating identical food all year produces nutritional imbalance and a poorer life. The routine has to be one you find yourself.
- A constitutional chart is prior information, not an answer sheet.
- Season — seasonal food carries the qi that season requires. A slightly unsuitable food in season can be eaten in small amounts.
- Illness — when well, emphasise eating plenty of what suits; when ill, avoiding what harms matters more.
- Life stage — cool foods do little harm to a body full of heat in its teens and twenties, and the calculation changes with age.
- Stress and environment — do not try to defeat your environment with diet.
- Emotion and preference — food that carries good memories is worth eating in moderation. And vary the routine; a body kept in a greenhouse grows weak.
- Genetics beyond the eight constitutions — plenty of traits are not captured by constitution at all. Trust your body’s response over the theory.
The Core Is a Routine, Not a Rulebook
The core of constitutional eating is not eat only the beneficial and never the harmful. It is this: make a routine of the essentials, and keep the rest flexible.
Eat the same foods every day for a year and you invite nutritional imbalance and a diminished quality of life. People’s living patterns differ, and the essential routine is something each person has to work out for themselves.
An Example Chart, and What It Is For
Take Vesicotonia, whose stomach tends to be cold and whose digestive function is on the weaker side. The textbook diet looks roughly like this — and I want to be clear that this is prior information, not an answer sheet.
Unsuitable
All cold foods — ice, ice cream, cold drinks, cold noodles, barley tea. Raw foods — sashimi, uncooked vegetables. Some meats — pork, egg white. Some grains — barley, adzuki bean. Some seafood — clams, prawn, oyster, sea cucumber, crab, octopus, squid, snakehead, carp. Some fruit — melon, strawberry, banana, pineapple, persimmon. Also perilla and perilla oil, pufferfish, beer, cucumber, water parsley.
Exercise that produces heavy sweating is unsuitable, as are saunas and hot baths.
Suitable
Some meats — chicken, lamb, goat, venison, beef. Some grains — glutinous rice, rice, brown rice, potato, corn. Seaweeds — laver, sea mustard, kelp. Warming items — spring onion, onion, ginger, mustard, pepper, curry. Some fruit — apple, tangerine, orange, black grape, mango, tomato, pear, peach. Also scorched-rice water, sesame and sesame oil, cinnamon, jujube, radish, garlic.
Exercise that does not raise much sweat — swimming, calisthenics, walking, meditation, yoga.
For Vesicotonia, though, the quantity and timing of meals matter more than which foods appear on the list.
The Seven Things the Chart Leaves Out
Eat like a robot from the list above and you will tire of it quickly, and it may not help. Apply these and you can build a flexible diet of your own.
1. Vary it by season
Seasonal food is necessary, because it carries the qi that particular season calls for. A food slightly unsuitable for your constitution can be eaten in small amounts if it is in season.
Oysters, for instance, sit on the unsuitable side for Vesicotonia — but in winter they can serve to bring down heat accumulated inside. (With the caveat that Vesicotonia is vulnerable to norovirus, so care is needed.) In spring, wild greens such as shepherd’s purse suit well.
2. Change the emphasis when ill
When you are well, eating plenty of what benefits you is the better emphasis. When you are ill, avoiding what harms becomes more important — recovery requires removing the obstacles first.
This is the practical version of the priority question this site discussed in the companion article: which side to emphasise depends on which situation you are in.
3. Life stage matters
The body differs by age. Cool and cold foods do little harm to teenagers and people in their twenties, whose bodies carry plenty of heat, and may actually help.
Conversely Gastrotonia — the opposite case to Vesicotonia — should eat food on the cool side, but in older age needs it moderately cool or even warm to avoid trouble.
4. Stress and environment
If you work in an environment that punishes the respiratory tract, something like platycodon or deodeok may serve you well even if it departs slightly from your constitutional diet.
Do not try to overcome your environment through diet. Set the diet with the environment taken into account.
5. Emotion and preference — and variation
A food unsuitable for your constitution is worth eating in moderation if it carries good memories or provides emotional steadiness. Food supplies more than nutrients; it supplies consolation.
And always introduce variation. Become accustomed to a single diet and the body can grow frail — like a plant raised in a greenhouse. Varying what you eat lets the body stay adapted to a range of conditions.
6. Genetic factors outside the eight constitutions
A great many genetic traits are not sorted by constitution at all. You should not think constitution decides everything.
There are plenty of foods classified as beneficial for a constitution that nonetheless upset a particular person. Trust your body’s response over the theory.
Summary
You do not need to follow the basic chart perfectly. Step out of the mechanical sorting and account for season, age, environment and your own responses.
The chart tells you where to start looking. Your body tells you what is actually true for you — and between those two, the second is the one to believe.
Related: Avoid the Harmful or Seek the Beneficial? · When a Water Type Runs Hot
