Selecting Food For Your Temperament

The following two food charts illustrate foods that will increase heat or coolness. The first chart shows foods that will increase heat with dryness and moistness, and the second chart shows foods that will increase coolness with moistness and dryness. Therefore, if you have a Choleric Temperament (hot and dry), you will need to be choosing foods from the second list of cooling and moist foods. If you are a mixture of Phlegmatic and Sanguine Temperaments (hot damp/ moist), you will need to be choosing foods that are cooling and drying. It is therefore important to understand your individual Temperament. A Choleric Temperament will be affected adversely by hot and dry foods, and least affected by cold and damp foods. During summertime, a Choleric Temperament needs to be eating cooling foods, as they will become quickly imbalanced if they are eating hot foods.

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Based upon the effect the food groups have upon the body, Traditional Persian Medicine classifies the macronutrients as follows:

Proteins have an overall effect of dryness with varying degrees of heat or coldness, but have the least moistness of the food groups.

Fats have an overall quality of heat with varying degrees of moistness, but have the least amount of dryness and coldness of the food groups.

Carbohydrates have an overall quality of moistness with varying degrees of heat and cold, but have the least dryness of the food groups.

Water has an overall quality of cold with moistness, although hot water is considered to be hot and moist. Minerals have an overall cold and dry effect on the body.

The differing Temperaments of the main food groups:

Macronutrients are the nutrients we need in larger quantities that provide us with energy: in other words, fat, protein and carbohydrate.

The following table illustrates which foods are most suited to your Temperament. A is the most recommended column of food to eat from in the food charts above, while D is least recommended, so either to avoid these foods or keep them in strict moderation.

Note that you would not be a Phlegmatic Choleric type because the two types are opposite each other; likewise for Sanguine and Melancholic. The combinations are therefore:

Choleric and Sanguine
Choleric and Melancholic
Melancholic and Phlegmatic
Sanguine and Phlegmatic

The Six Tastes

Traditional Persian Medicine also recognises six tastes which are as follows:

Selecting Food For Your Temperament

The Six Tastes

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