The Energetics of Chocolate and Chinese Medicine
Great Scholar
Hello All
I've been trying to find out the Chinese Medicine Energetics of Chocolate. I believe Bob Flaws mentions something about it being a exterior resolver to some extent in a nutritional course he offered many years ago.
Does anyone have any information about Chocolate and it's energetic effects in chinese medicine ?
Thanks !
Comments
Energetics of Chocolate
The flavor of Cocoa is bitter, clears heat, moves Qi. The cocoa butter/sugar/milk/ etc. is warm/damp. So the I look at the function as related to the darkness of the chocolate. I view it as similar to Coffee and Cola in the way of clearing heat and moving Qi, and see cravings for these as diagnostically important. The strongest cravings for chocolate seem to be in those with Liver stagnation with heat. Those patients tend to also find that the darker the chocolate, the less they need to satiate their cravings ( less heat/damp countering the heat clearing and movement functions).
David Bock
David Bock
Properties of chocolate
Hi,
I'm not familiar with Bob Flaws' classification of the TCM actions of chocolate, though I prick up my ears when he has such observations to make.
In my own experience chocolate is without doubt a Nourish Yin herb with a very light Tonify Qi action. It acts, as far as I can see, rather like Shu Di Huang with Shan Yao. Whether the depletion of Yin/Qi in the person is derived from Stagnation, I have found the Nourish Yin facet of chocolate to be the salient one. I find this confirmed regularly: when patients with chocolate craving are given Nourish Yin formulas, their chocolate craving tends to decrease or vanish.
This also explains why couples will often enjoy a cup of cocoa about an hour before going to bed. There is an old poem somewhere on this subject, which ends with the words "....cocoa coursing through their veins!"
If there is any Clear Heat action of chocolate, it appears to me to be more related to Nourishing Yin to Clear Deficient Heat.
I find chocolate can't be compared to coffee.
I'd be interested to hear what other herbalists have observed on this subject.
Robert.