Historically, Confucianism, together with Taoism and Buddhism (spread to China in the first century AD), influenced the values of Chinese society, including food practices. Today, 18.2% of the total population is Buddhist and 1.8% is Muslim, the majority of whom live in north and west China. Very few people follow Taoism (1).


Buddhists usually follow vegetarian diets on the first and fifteenth day of every lunar month. On the


eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, people eat congee that consists of at least eight ingredients, including whole grains and nuts to celebrate the birth of Buddhism. It has become a custom that non- Buddhists also celebrate this day by eating the congee (32). Chinese Americans eat this type of congee year around, not necessarily to celebrate the holiday. However, congee is a high GI index food, even though the ingredients are mostly whole grains and nuts.


Although very few people follow Taoism today, the philosophy of Taoism influences Chinese daily


dietary patterns. The daily diet is deeply influenced by traditional Chinese medicine, the yin-yang, and the five elements theory of traditional Chinese medicine, all of which is derived from Taoism. Yang stands for sun, heaven, day, fire, heat, dryness, light, and related subjects. Objects associated with the yang property are thought to flow upwards and outwards. Yin represents the moon, night, earth, water, cold, dampness, darkness, and related subjects. Objects associated with the yin property are thought to flow downwards and inwards. The yin-yang principle represents the entire universe, including the body, the seasons, foods, and so on. For example, the human body is divided into six regions and each region has its property of yin-yang. A healthy body is considered to have yin and yang in harmony. Regarding food, each food has its property of yin-yang. That means a food can be yin, yang, or in between. The goal of using food as medicine is to reach the balance of yin-yang by selecting a combination of yin food and yang food. For example, most vegetables are considered yin, and should be cooked with yang food, such as ginger and garlic. However, this concept is not limited to the combination of food. It is also applied to seasons, the status of health, climate, cooking methods, etc. The goal of a healthy lifestyle is to balance activities and nature. For example, in summer people eat cucumber salad to balance out the heat, but in winter spicy hot pot with a lot of meat is popular for its warming up property.


The concept of yin-yang is further broken down into five elements, which are metal, wood, water, fire,


and earth. Everything from seasons, grains, bowels, tissues, flavors, odors, and climates are all represented by the five elements. Take flavor for example—sour belongs to wood, bitter belongs to fire, sweet belongs to earth, pungent belongs to metal, and salt belongs to water. The ultimate goal of health is to reach the harmony of the five elements (33).


Traditional Chinese medicine divides food into six categories: beverages, starches, condiments,


vegetables, fruits, and animals with hair and feather (eg, pork, beef, lamb, birds) or animals without hair or feather (fish and worms). Each food has its own function as it relates to specific body organs and a yin- yang property (34). While older Chinese still take the yin-yang property of foods seriously, younger generations may not even know about it. In addition, many foods in the United States are not included in the traditional Chinese medicine books, so their properties are uncertain.


As of December 2004, there were 2,422,970 (0.86% of total population) Chinese living in the United States. The Chinese Americans are the largest ethnic group among all Asian groups. The median age of Chinese Americans living in the United States is 35.5 years old. Sixty-two-point-two percent of Chinese


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