A 2019 review, Antinutrients in Plant-Based Foods: A Review, discussed naturally occurring compounds such as phytates, tannins, lectins, and oxalates that are found in many plant-based foods, including grains, legumes, nuts, leafy vegetables, root vegetables, and fruits. The review also examined how food preparation can affect these compounds.
Modern nutrition often emphasizes eating more fruits and vegetables, and raw salads, fresh fruit, and vegetable juices have become increasingly popular. From a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective, however, the question is not simply whether a food contains nutrients. How the food affects the body as a whole also matters.
What Does “Cold” Mean in Chinese Medicine?
When TCM describes a food as cold or cooling, it does not necessarily mean that the food is physically cold.
There are two different concepts.
The first is physical temperature.
Eating or drinking something very cold can temporarily lower the temperature of the digestive tract. The body then has to restore its normal internal temperature. For a healthy person, this may not be particularly significant. But when digestion is already compromised or the body is under stress, TCM traditionally considers excessive exposure to cold foods and drinks potentially burdensome to the digestive system.
The second is the energetic or functional nature of a food.
In TCM, foods are traditionally classified according to their overall effects on the body — such as warming, cooling, drying, or moistening. These classifications were developed through generations of clinical observation rather than through modern chemical analysis.
This is one reason why the TCM concept of cold cannot be directly equated with a specific chemical component or nutrient.
Why Does TCM Often Recommend Cooked Foods?
TCM traditionally places significant importance on digestion. Cooking is thought to make many foods easier for the digestive system to process, particularly for people who already experience digestive weakness, bloating, loose stools, fatigue, or a tendency toward feeling cold.
This does not mean that raw vegetables or fresh fruit are inherently “bad.”
Rather, TCM considers the individual, the quantity, the frequency, the season, and the person's digestive capacity.
A food that feels refreshing and beneficial for one person may not have the same effect on another.
What About Raw Salads and Green Juices?
In clinical practice, some patients consume large amounts of raw salads, fresh fruit, or raw fruit-and-vegetable juices on a daily basis — sometimes replacing a cooked breakfast with a large cold smoothie or juice.
Some people feel lighter or more refreshed when they first make this dietary change. However, if a person already has digestive symptoms or a tendency toward what TCM describes as Cold and Dampness, a long-term diet heavily centered around raw and cooling foods may not be ideal from a TCM perspective.
Patients may experience symptoms such as bloating, loose stools, reduced appetite, fatigue, or a persistent feeling of coldness.
TCM would not necessarily attribute these symptoms to one particular food or compound. Instead, practitioners look at the overall pattern of symptoms, digestion, sleep, energy, tongue, pulse, and other individual findings.
What About Adding Ginger?
Some people add fresh ginger to smoothies or juices because ginger is traditionally considered warming.
Ginger can certainly be a useful food and herb, but from a TCM perspective, adding ginger does not simply “cancel out” the cooling nature of a large amount of raw food.
TCM does not generally view foods and herbs as mathematical opposites that cancel each other out.
For example, within a herbal formula, a warming herb and a cooling herb may each have a specific purpose. They work together according to the overall design of the formula rather than simply neutralizing one another.
The same principle can be applied to food.
Balance Matters
The message is not that everyone should completely avoid raw vegetables or fruit.
For a healthy person with strong digestion, enjoying a fresh salad or some fruit can be perfectly reasonable. Food is also part of enjoying life, and there is no need to turn every meal into a medical treatment.
The TCM perspective is simply to pay attention to how your body responds to what you eat.
If you frequently experience bloating, loose stools, fatigue, poor appetite, abdominal discomfort, or a tendency to feel cold, it may be worth considering whether a diet heavily focused on raw, cold, or cooling foods is working well for you.
Sometimes, simply changing the way food is prepared — such as lightly cooking vegetables, choosing warm meals, or reducing large quantities of cold drinks and raw foods — can make digestion feel easier.
At Shamrock Acupuncture, we look beyond individual symptoms and consider the overall pattern of the body. The goal is not to label a food as universally good or bad, but to understand what may be appropriate for your body at this particular stage of life.