Food as Medicine: Six Principles

Six principles that travel

1. Eat with the sun Largest meal at midday when digestive fire is strongest. Light supper before sunset.

2. Warm and cooked over cold and raw Raw food is heavy to digest. A small salad with a warm meal is fine; a large cold plate as dinner is not.

3. Six tastes in the day Sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, astringent. Modern diets over-serve sweet and salty and neglect the last three. Add bitter greens; add astringent legumes.

4. Do not drink cold water with meals It douses the digestive fire. Warm water in small sips is ideal.

5. Sit down. Eat slowly. Chew. Half of digestion is in the mouth. The other half needs a nervous system that is not scrolling.

6. Leave a quarter of the stomach empty This ancient rule — *two parts food, one part liquid, one part space* — prevents the sluggishness that follows a full meal.

The frame that holds it You are not what you eat. You are what you digest. Every principle above serves digestion.