The Stomach with its downward movement and the Spleen with its upward movement are like
crucial crossroads in the Middle Burner. In disease, Qi easily flows in the wrong direction and,
in the case of the Stomach, it may flow upwards leading to nausea, vomiting, hiccup or belching.
The nature of the food and the conditions in which it has been eaten very easily affect the
Stomach. We will consider the quantity of food, the nature of food and the conditions of eating
separately.
Quantity of Food
Problems with the quantity of food may lie in eating either too little or too much. In affluent
industrialized countries it would seem strange that anyone could suffer from insufficient food
intake, but even here there are pockets of extreme poverty and certain groups in the population
may suffer nutritional deficiencies simply from not having enough food. Secondly, nutritional
deficiencies can arise when people subject themselves to very strict slimming diets. In some
cases these lead to severe anorexia. Thirdly, people may have a deficient diet not because they
do not eat enough, but because they eat de-vitalized foods which are devoid of any nutritional
value. Fourthly, although when properly applied vegetarian or vegan diets can be perfectly
healthy and also ecologically and ethically sound, people who follow them may unwittingly
deprive themselves of essential nutrients, seen from the point of view of Chinese dietary
principles. For example, some vegetarians may tend to eat too much cheese (which produces
Dampness) or salads (which produce Cold and injure Spleen-Yang). On the other hand, they will
not eat warm Blood-producing foods such as meat, and there are few vegetarian foods with such
a quality. A person who suffers from severe deficiency of Blood, for example, would benefit
from a small amount of meat in the diet. Finally, old people who live alone often tend not to eat
enough because they lack the stimulation of eating in company and "cannot be bothered" to cook
for one person only.
Eating too little in the various ways described above causes a dull epigastric pain, tiredness and
weak muscles.
Eating too much is of course a very frequent cause of stomach disorders! By this we mean eating
too large meals, rather than constant nibbling which will be discussed below. Eating too much
very simply leads to retention of food so that Stomach-Qi cannot descend. This causes sour
regurgitation, epigastric pain and fullness, belching and foul breath.
Of course, there is no single fixed standard which lays down the ideal quantity of food eaten;
much depends on a person's occupation and someone who is engaged in heavy physical work
should obviously eat more than someone whose work is sedentary. As the amount of food eaten
should be regulated according to one's physical activity, it follows that at week-ends, when most
people are inactive, one should eat less than during the week; in most countries, the exact