In daily diet, we should not only pay attention to the complete variety and proper proportion of food, but also pay attention to the balance between the "four flavors" of cold and hot food and the "five flavors" of sour, bitter, sweet and salty food. Traditional Chinese medicine divides the taste of food into three categories (namely, cold, warm and harmonious). Among the more than 300 kinds of food eaten daily, the most is sexual equality, followed by warm and cold. Traditional Chinese medicine calls warm yang and cold yin. Only by making good use of the cold, cool, flat and warm properties of food in diet can we balance yin and yang and have fewer diseases.

Besides, food has a taste. Chinese medicine divides the taste of food into five flavors: sour, bitter, sweet, pungent and salty. Sweet is often light, salty is often astringent, so it is also called sour, bitter, sweet, light, pungent, salty and astringent. Among more than 300 common foods in daily life, sweetness is the most, followed by salty and sour taste, spicy taste is the second, and bitterness is the least.

The sexual taste of food is different from that of drugs, so strong and single, so the sexual taste of food will be moderate, and a food may have many flavors. Bitter medicine often has no nourishing effect. For example, Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi and Coptis chinensis only have the functions of clearing away heat and purging fire, while bitter food, such as bitter gourd, has the functions of invigorating spleen and stomach besides clearing away heat and purging fire. Salty drugs, such as mirabilite and pumice, only have the function of purging, softening and resolving phlegm, but salty foods, such as various marine fish, shrimps and crabs, also have the function of tonifying kidney and nourishing blood.

Although there are deviations between food and medicine, which have an impact on physical fitness and disease, everyone should eat food every day. Therefore, although the taste of food is soft, it may be more closely related to people. If we don't pay attention to the combination of sex and taste of food, that is, "qi" and "taste", and the diet is partial to food, it will destroy the balance of yin and yang in the human body over time, lead to the dysfunction of the five internal organs, affect the health and cause many diseases.