Ancient Chinese medicine or science believe that our universe, everything around us including our bodies are made up of yin and yang energy. Yin means cold, and Yang means heat. Yin and yang are better understood as opposing but at the same time complimentary forces that together create balance.

As an example, the Moon is mostly Yin and the Sun is mostly Yang, the woman is mostly Yin, and the man is mostly Yang.
This means that all the foods we eat also have Yin and Yang properties. It is more like a range between two ends going from one to the other, but to make things easier we are going to separate them into categories. You can understand Yin as inner, down, passive, night, cold, soft, wet, winter, shadow, moist. Yin foods generally grow in earth or darkness.

Yang, on the contrary, is outer, up, positive, active, day, heat, dry, summer, sunshine, powerful. Yang foods generally grow in the air and sunshine. The term “shang” or up fire means too much Yang foods or heat in our bodies This happens quite often in the form of anger, frustration, nose bleeding, dry skin, chapped lips, sore throat, and acne.

If you eat too many foods containing Yin properties it can also cause problems such as various stomach pains, cold hands and feet, hypersensitivity, nervousness and so on.

Our bodies need to be balanced of Yin and Yang. If you realize that in your general diet is mostly of only one of the categories then you will know that your body is not in balance, either overheated or too cold.

For me, for instance, I really love to snack on chocolate, peanuts, cherries, and that definitely contributes to some of my breakouts and I really love to eat stakes, cakes, and sweet things as well, so that doesn’t help eighter but the good thing is that I also love to eat vegetable dishes, fruits, crab, fish.
So I think the most important thing is to eat moderate portions of a little bit of everything so we don’t be too picky when it comes to food.

Yin and Yang foods

Yin fruits: banana, grapefruit, kiwi, lemon, orange, pear

Yang fruits: cherry, longan, lychee, mango, nectarine, pineapple

Yin vegetables: asparagus, celery, cucumber, eggplant, lettuce, mushroom.

Yang vegetables: chives, leek, onion, pumpkin, squash,

Yin meat, dairy, sea food: egg, crab, lobster, duck, seaweed.

Yang meat, dairy, sea food: butter, ham, lamb, eel, mussel, goat milk.

Yin beverage, condiments: chrysanthemum tea, green tea, peppermint tea

Yang beverage, condiments: coffee, garlic, ginseng, ginger, vinegar, chilli.

This is just the basic of yin and yang foods. If you really want to get into it, it is a little more complicated. I know you might be wondering, why you consider certain foods yin or yang, but it is just how it is.

So, certain foods have different elements of nutrition and effects on your body, similar to Weston nutrition studies that have categories of acid and alkaline forming foods, so there are also other categories of detoxing and strengths generating foods that can be both of Yin and Yang properties.