SC - Visiting the East

[Michael F. Gunter]

Tara Sersen wrote:
> 
> Ok, it's not exactly a period reference, but more of a modern reference to something
> period that has amused me...
> 
> I'm sitting here researching a company who's business we are looking to solicit.
>  They sell vitamins and nutritional supplements.  There is a changing "Did you
> know" banner on the top of their webpage.  One of the "facts" that it proclaims
> is: "Improper food combinations can cause gas, belching, bloating, stomach discomfort
> and mental dullness."
> 
> Ok, by reputation chili dogs and baked beans could cause the first 4, but is
> that really the combination?  Wouldn't chili dogs or baked beans alone, in suitable
> quantity, do it too?  And, mental dullness?  All I could think was, Humoral
> Theory is alive and well in the Alternate Medicine subculture...

I don't know how many people worldwide practice or are treated with a
system of Chinese herbal medicine, but it probably easily equals the
population of medieval Europe, certainly that percentage of medieval
Europeans who cared about humors in the food they ate. 

Modern Chinese materia medica seem to support a humoral system
consisting of only two humors, each of which has a degree of heat and
moisture (one is hot and dry, in Cantonese pinyin something like niet
hee, the other cold and moist, or liang), but this may not always have
been the case. My mother-in-law has much to say about my long-standing
love of beef sauteed with green chilies and garlic.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com