Recently someone asked of this forum how to balance yin and yang on an all raw plant food diet. This has always interested me too, so I thought I'd share a few things that I've picked up in hopes that it will help others with these questions as well.

First of all, the principles of yin and yang are pervasive. They apply all the way up and all the way down. Even a single carrot has a yin side (the tip) and a yang side (the stem end). So there are yin plant foods and yang plant foods; vegetables that are more yin than yang and vice versus and fruits that are more yang than yin and so on...

Compared to animal proteins and grains, fruits and vegetables are more yin, but compared to one another, which is how one would think if undergoing a raw diet, yin and yang are both present. The tomato and the cucumber, for example, are more yang fruits than the orange or apple. Foods that grow low to the ground are more yang while fruits that grow on trees are more yin and so on....

In the Orient, where Macrobiotics originated, the art of cutting originated to help balance yin and yang within a single food. Take the carrot again: slicing the carrot at a diagonal maintains a relative balance of yin and yang with every slice.

If you make a smoothie of spinach (yang) and apple (yin), you've effectively balanced yin and yang right there.

Interesting huh?

Any thoughts?

khale

wow thanks khale :] ive always wondered about this... so what bout if you wanted 2 eat just apples would you have 2 balance it out right away with something like cucumber or can you wait a couple hours later....also is there a list of yin and yang RAW fruits and veggies?

Whenever I eat more than one banana I simply HAVE to have spinach or celery right afterward or I seem to get a little bloated.

Are you familiar with Sapoty Brooks? He has a website that lays out the acid/alkaline properties of raw foods really intelligently, in terms calcium/phosphorus and sodium/potassium balances. Reminds me of macrobiotics.

Sharrhan:


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hey fuzzysox...personally, I don't think of it like that. I think its more a question of overall balance in the diet over time, ya know? Instinctively (or is it more by habit?) I eat more "yin" in the morning - early parts of the day, and more "yang" at night, but that's just me. Truthfully? I don't think in terms of yin and yang at all...lol, but then I don't consciously think in terms of any principles when its time to have a meal. This question has come up from time to time and I share the interest, but I have neither the knowledge of macrobiotics necessary nor the long-time experience with raw foods to arrive at any conclusions. I'm just saying...; )

I don't think there is a unique chart of yin/yang raw plant foods, but a good text on macrobiotics should give you an understanding of the basic principles so that you can devise your own list if you want. Yin represents contraction and yang expansion roughly...so yin foods tend to be smaller, denser, more concentrated and digest relatively quickly while yang foods tend to be larger in size, more watery or pulpy and have a slower transit time through the digestive system.

Yes Kwan, I do know of Sapoty Brooks and his chart but reading it makes my eyes cross a bit, if you know what I mean. But the principle of balance is ubiquitous in life, and so its always a concept that grabs my attention.

khale