It is important to remember that both buildup and breakdown processes are necessary to life. A dietary approach that emphasizes buildup foods while neglecting the breakdown foods is certain to cause problems of accumulation. In the opposite case, when breakdown foods are in excess, there may be problems of deficiency and, in severe cases, even malnutrition. FIVE-PHASE THEORY A more complicated, yet more detailed, model for understanding balance is that offered by the Chinese Theory of the Five Elements, or Five Phases. It is based on the notion that the life energy moves in specific cycles that are chartable and thereby predictable. As it moves, the energy passes through five changeover points, which have been called Wood( or“ Tree” energy), Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. One phase feeds or nourishes the next one; but in order to keep the energy from getting too strong, each phase also controls or holds back the opposite. Each phase is associated with specific seasons, organ systems, colors, flavors, moods, foods, activities, and emotions. There is a tremendous amount of detail in this model, and it would be too complex for the purposes of this book. It needs, in fact, a whole book of its own; please refer to the reading list for the titles already available. 15 I will be using some of the concepts of this model without specifically identifying them, especially in the sections entitled“ Can Health Food Make Us Sick?”( chapter nine),“ Cravings and Binges,”( chapter ten),“ The Effects of Food on Mood”( chapter thirteen), and“ Home Remedies”( chapter twelve). * In traditional Chinese cosmology, yang stands for, among other things, sun, heaven, day, fire, heat, dryness, light; it tends to expand, to flow upward and outward. Yin stands for moon, earth, night, water, cold, dampness, darkness; it tends to contract and flow downward. Yang ascends to heaven, yin descends to earth. Yang has also traditionally stood for Heaven, the male creative energy, whereas Yin was seen as Earth, the female, receiver and transformer of Heaven’ s creative energy. Ohsawa, because he felt it would make more sense to Westerners to conceive of the earth as the active, creative( yang) force, and heaven as the passive, receptive( yin) element, partially reversed the old theory in popularizing it: the earth-bound, contractive force he associated with yang, and the heaven-bound, expansive forces with yin. Some people have found this confusing because in Ohsawa’ s macrobiotic classification heat is then associated with contraction( both called yang), whereas cold is lined up with expansion( both called yin), a system that does not agree with daily experience.( Traditional)( Macrobiotic)
YANG YIN