5 Keys: Reveal the Chinese Longevity Mystery

“有采女问道于彭祖，少得道，知养性，年一百七十岁，视如十五”
Translation: "A young girl inquired Peng Zu on Dao. Peng Zu found Dao when he was very young and understood how to adjust his body to stay young. He looked like 15 years old when he was in fact 170."

Peng Zu (彭祖) lived in Wuyi Mountain. He is a legendary long-living figure in China. He has supposedly lived since Yin Dynasty( 1400 B.C.). He lived more than 170 years old.

It’s a very rare case in the past since people didn’t have the modern medicine and comfortable living condition to protect their body to live long. One thing that Peng Zu mentioned about a lot in his writing is The Five Organ Talk. Liver (肝), Heart (心), Spleen (脾), Lung (肺), and Kidney (肾) are the five major organs that Chinese people really care about. Peng Zu believed that each organ can help others and each organ can reduce strength of others. Only when you adjust them well, then your body will become healthy.

In Peng Zu’s writing, he mentioned
1. Liver helps the heart but hurts the Spleen.
2. Spleen helps the Lung but hurts the Kidney.
3. Kidney helps the Liver but hurts the Heart.
4. Heart helps the Spleen but hurts the Lung,
5. Lung helps the Kidney but hurts the Liver.

He has also mentioned about the keys to adjust them. These keys are the five tastes, sweet, salty, sour, and bitter and piquant.
These five tastes could affect the five organs dramatically; they can either help or hurt the five organs.

1. Sweet goes to Spleen.
If you eat too many sweets, it will benefit your spleen, but a very strong spleen will hurt your kidney. Weak kidney will cause sore waist, and knees, so older people are not recommend to eat too much sweets.

2. Sour goes to Liver.
Sour hurts the spleen. Too much sour in food can cause digesting problem which cause diarrhea.

3. Piquant goes to Lung.
Too much piquant hurts the liver which can cause dizziness.

4. Salty goes to Kidney.
If you have short breath or chest pain which caused by a weak heart, don’t eat salty food, because salty goes to kidney and hurts the heart.

5. Bitter goes to Heart.
If you have taken too much bitter food, it will hurt your lung, which means it will cause coughing. If you are coughing, don’t eat bitter food.

On the other hand, the five tastes can help you. For example: when a woman is pregnant, she doesn’t have enough blood in her liver. She need eat a lot of sour food to help her liver. Balance your intake of five different tastes, and then you can have a much healthier life.

P.S. I am not a Chinese doctor, but I did some research to put together this post for people who are interested. It’s for your reference only and something to put in mind to balance your daily life when eating.

Copyrighted Huan's Tai Chi 2010