Finding Yin Yang Balance In Your Food Choices

Duck is cooling, chicken is heaty. Green tea is cooling, black tea is heaty. Crabs are cooling, shrimp are heaty. To an outsider, these classifications might seem as randomas the gender of French nouns, e.g. water is feminine, milk is masculine. What’s a hungry human to do?

A Chinese friend shared a classic incident of pantry shock in her cross-cultural work environment. Her non-Chinese colleague, watching her prepare chrysanthemum tea, asked why she loved it so much. She answered, “It...