Yoon Ja-young is in charge of articles translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times. She is interested in improving the newspaper through AI.
'Healing' food
“Easy Yakseon Recipes” by Wang Hye-moon introduces dishes to balance the yin and yang of our bodies.
By Yoon Ja-young
By Yoon Ja-young
Koreans have a long-held belief in “Yaksikdongwon,” which means “medicine and food have the same root.” Good food will heal you. “Yakseon” or medicinal dishes that are believed to heal or prevent disease are based on such a belief. Ingredients for Oriental medicine as well as ordinary healthy ingredients are used to balance the yin and yang of our bodies.
From next week, The Korea Times will feature three dishes from “Easy Yakseon Recipes” by Wang Hye-moon, a doctor of Korean Oriental medicine.
A member of a third-generation Chinese family that migrated to Korea from Shandong province, she said she was given medicinal herbs rather than medicine when she was ill during childhood. That was natural for her family as her father was also a doctor of Oriental medicine. Her mom applied the theory of Yakseon to the family’s daily dishes, and Wang believes those helped her grow up healthy.
Wang talked of Yakseon theories she learned as an Oriental medicine doctor. “While I was examining patients at a clinic, I found that many of them were ruining their health due to a bad diet ... I can see how ‘what you eat’ really matters — the food that you eat every day, without much thought, accumulates and harms your health,” she said. She said that, unlike medicine, food doesn’t have an immediate or obvious effect on the body. “However, as we take it continuously every day, a bad diet hampers our physiological activity, and can be even more harmful than bad medicine.”
Her experience prompted her to write a number of books on Yakseon, as well as appearing on TV cooking programs. “Easy Yakseon Recipes” introduces Yakseon dishes that have nutrition, tastes and benefits. She said she wants to change people’s perceptions that Yakseon is only for the sick or that it is complicated to make.
The book is divided into five sections — spring, summer, fall, winter and food for women. She introduces recipes for each season, with the final section focused on female health issues.
“Yakseon uses seasonal ingredients because they contain the nutrition our body requires each season,” she said. Wang said seasonal food enhances the body’s immunity and helps prevent or treat diseases. The Yakseon theory is that the liver has the most to do with spring. Just as spring invigorates nature, the liver produces and sends materials that each organ needs. The organ is especially busy in spring and we thus feel more tired in this season. If the liver falters, people become more vulnerable to infections of their eyes, mouth or skin. The energy of the liver in spring is also affected, causing drowsiness, headaches and dizziness. Among herbs of this season, she cites “dureub,” or shoots of fatsia, “naengi,” or shepherd’s purse, “dallae,” or wild chives, and “minari,” or water parsley, as those that are most effective in cooling the liver and relieving fatigue.
In summer, the energy of the soil is hot and the heart is the organ that is most affected. Excessive perspiration might damage “jinaek,” or the essential nutrients in liquid form in our bodies. Seasonal fruits such as watermelons and plums will cool off the heat and supplement the “jinaek,” according to Wang. Respiratory organs pertain to fall, and ginseng, honey and “youngji” mushrooms are recommended because they enhance immunity. The winter energy affects the kidneys and bodily waste may pile up to cause ill health in this season.
“As time goes by, people will be exposed to more diseases. It would be best to prevent them through living a healthy life style, including dieting. ‘Yakseon’ will flourish further,” she said.