Diet taboos for spleen deficiency

Don’t touch things that excessively consume your spleen, don’t eat things that directly damage spleen yang, and don’t do things that will block the spleen’s transportation and transformation. The one-size-fits-all statements posted on the Internet such as "You cannot eat fruits if you have a weak spleen", "You cannot drink milk" and "You cannot eat cold food" actually all depend on the individual and the situation, and there is no absolute standard answer.

I treated a post-95 Internet operator girl last week. She was used to drinking a glass of iced American milk to wake her up every day when she came to the company. She drank it continuously for more than three months. In the past half month, she had diarrhea every morning. Her tongue stuck out and the tooth marks were as deep as a ring of lace. She was weak even when she spoke. Her pulse and spleen pulse were so weak that she could hardly feel them.

Don’t think that only ice-cold ice cream is considered cool. Ice-cold watermelon, ice salad, raw pickled seafood just taken out of the refrigerator, and even cold apples brought directly from the outside in winter are all easy to damage the spleen yang. However, there are also different opinions here: some traditional Chinese medicine practitioners of the febrile disease school believe that as long as people have internal heat, eating something cold can balance the heat, and there is no need to completely avoid food. The core judgment criteria are actually very simple: if you don’t have diarrhea, stomach pain, or a cold feeling in your stomach after eating, then it’s fine. If you run to the toilet as soon as you eat something cold, no matter how nutritious others say it is, you should eat less.

Oh, by the way, many people don’t know that something so sweet that it makes you sick is actually more harmful to the spleen than something cold. A while ago, a man in his 40s came to me to adjust his blood lipids. He said that he had abdominal distension every day, his mouth felt sticky, his stools were so sticky that he couldn't flush them down the toilet, and when he stuck out his tongue, his tongue coating was so thick that it looked like a layer of paste. After asking about food for a long time, he said that he was afraid of the heat in summer and had at least two bottles of ice cola every day, and he had to eat ice cream as dessert after meals. Think about it, the spleen is like a small mill responsible for transportation and transformation. If you pour sticky sugar syrup into it every day, it won't be able to grind it. Eventually, it will get stuck in it and become wet and turbid. No wonder his belly is as big as a six-month pregnancy.

There is also an interesting disagreement here: many nutrition enthusiasts will say that eating sugar to replenish energy, how can it be bad? In fact, it’s not that you shouldn’t eat it, but don’t overdo it, and don’t eat things that are filled with refined sugar. Eat steamed pumpkins and steamed sweet potatoes with natural sweetness. That kind of sweetness can be transported and replenished, and it can replenish your spleen. It is completely different from the added sugar in cola cakes.

There is also an invisible taboo that many people don’t realize at all: bad eating habits can hurt the spleen more than eating the wrong things. When I was working on a book manuscript two years ago, I ate takeout every day while revising the manuscript. I often ate for an hour at a time. Sometimes I didn't react until I was so full. During that time, I also woke up in the morning with a swollen face, unformed stools, and heavy breath. Later, I deliberately changed my habit. I put my phone aside when eating, chewed each mouthful of rice 20 times, stopped eating when I was seventy percent full, and poured out all the oily red sauce soup in the takeout. In less than half a month, all those uncomfortable symptoms disappeared.

Think about it, the spleen needs to be attentive when working. If you are distracted while eating, its power to move and transform is already insufficient. If you stuff a lot of things in again, it will not be able to rotate at all, but it will stop working.

Finally, let’s talk about some of the most controversial taboos on the Internet: Can I eat fruit? Can I drink milk?

In fact, there is really no unified answer. Take fruits, for example. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that most fruits are cool in nature. People with spleen deficiency and heavy dampness will easily have diarrhea if they eat too much. However, if you have spleen deficiency and are often constipated, eating steamed apples or boiled pears can moisten the intestines and make your stomach feel comfortable after eating, so you can eat them. If you can't stop eating dragon fruit or kiwi fruit, you must eat less.

The same goes for milk. Some people are lactose intolerant and experience flatulence and diarrhea after drinking it, so they should definitely not drink it. However, if you drink warm Shuhua milk or sugar-free yogurt, you will not feel uncomfortable after drinking it, but can supplement high-quality protein, so there is no need to avoid it. I know many old Chinese medicine doctors who have been practicing for decades. They themselves drink warm milk every day and have no symptoms of spleen deficiency.

To put it bluntly, the dietary taboos for spleen deficiency are never about memorizing the cold "taboo list". The core judgment criterion is always your own body's reaction: if you feel comfortable eating it, and you don't experience bloating, diarrhea, sticky mouth, or thickened tongue coating after eating, then this thing is no problem for you.

If you are really hungry and want to eat something cold or sweet, then eat it at noon when the yang energy is the strongest. Eat a few bites less, and drink two sips of warm tangerine peel tea as a cushion after eating. There will not be a big problem - after all, health care is about making yourself comfortable. There is no need to make yourself like an ascetic.