This is the traditional symbol for the forces of yin and yang, sometimes described as two fish swimming head to tail. The left half is yin and the right half is yang. Taken literally, yin and yang mean the dark side and sunny side of a hill.
People commonly think of yin and yang as opposing forces. However, it is really more appropriate to view them as complementary pairs. The Chinese believe problems arise not when the two forces are battling, but when there is an imbalance between them. Floods, divorce, or even a fire in the kitchen - all can be attributed to disharmony in the forces of yin and yang.
How does the concept of yin and yang relate to food?
A basic adherence to this philosophy can be found in ANY Chinese dish, from stir-fried beef with broccoli to sweet and sour pork. There is always a balance in color, flavors, and textures.
However, belief in the importance of following the principles of yin and yang in the diet extends further.
Certain foods have yin properties, while others have yang properties - Cooling or warm, fat or non-fat, high-calorie or low- calorie, and etc.
Almost no foodstuff is purely yin or yang - it's more that one characteristic tends to dominate. It also reinforces that it is not so much the individual ingredients, as the the balance and contrast between ingredients in each dish, that is important. Interestingly, cooking methods also have more of a yin or yang property, as the list below demonstrates.
Some people don't really understand how important eating healthy food is to us. Let's look at some statement:
1. Over a billion people worldwide are now overweight and 300 million are clinically obese. People who are overweight have a higher risk of developing serious health problems in later life, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, type 2 diabetes, bowel cancer, and high blood pressure. Most people put on excess weight because their lifestyles include an unhealthy diet and a lack of physical activity.
2. According to Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, post-menopausal women may reduce their risk of developing cancer by 35% if they eat a healthy diet and lead a healthy lifestyle. This result was based on 29,564 post-menopausal women, aged 55-69 for a research period of 13 years.
3. People who ate three or more servings of fruit per day have 36% lower risk of developing the sight loss than people who ate less than one and a half servings per day. (According to Archives of Ophthalmology)
4. Eat low fat food regularly can reduce the chance of developing heart disease and certain cancers.
5. Calorie reduction can increase life expectancy by up to 30 percent
6.Vitamins can cut cancer death rates by 37%
7. Foods that contain the mineral selenium and plant-based chemical sulforaphane in combination may have a 13 times greater ability to protect against cancer than when the food compounds are used separately.
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