Tibetan Dietary Therapy

As in Chinese medicine, the most fundamental type of treatment in Tibetan medicine is the modification of behaviour and diet.
Tibetan medicine is a “nomadic” type of medicine, that is, since the doctor travelled around the country on a yak to treat patients, he was only able to come around once every six months to a year. So not only was dietary regulation a less intrusive form of treatment, but the patient could also adhere to these instructions without constant supervision from the doctor.
According to Tibetan medicine, inadequate, excessive, or inappropriate diet will result in disease. Inadequate would be considered not enough quantity of food and liquids to sustain one, i.e. under eating or inappropriate fasting or not having enough of the proper foods. Excessive means eating too much at one time or over the course of the day. Intake of food while there is still an undigested meal present will lead to problems. Buddha stated that stagnant food (in the stomach) is the, original cause of most disease.
To avoid stagnant food, it is recommended that the stomach only be filled to % full. One half should be food and one-quarter liquid. Inappropriate diet is one in which unwholesome foods, foods that one is not accustomed to or are not appropriate to one’s ailments are eaten. It also includes the practice of untimely dining. Unwholesome foods are those that are not fresh, or whole foods. This includes any ‘junk foods” and highly processed foods. Untimely dining refers to eating the wrong foods during a particular season.