Abstract
In Japanese nutritional science, “food groups”, which consist of congenetic foods such as “culinary plants” or “meat”, are utilized for food education or diet therapy. On the other hand, in the field of traditional Chinese nutrition, foods are classified into certain categories called “food properties” depending on their nature of cooling or warming the human body. For a long time, the concepts of food groups and food properties have each developed into respective academic fields. However, no study has yet examined the relationship between food groups and food properties, i.e., to examine whether food properties can be explained in terms of food groups. The present study was conducted to clarify this relationship. In the Chinese food property table edited by the Japan Society of Food Science in Chinese Medicine, 291 foodstuffs were classified on the basis of the food groups appearing in the Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan. The relationship between food properties and food groups was examined using Fisher’s exact test, and several significant relationships were found. For example, “seasoning and spice” of food groups had a significant relationship with the category “warming the body” in food properties, and “grains” and “algae” of food groups had a significant relationship with “cooling the body” in food properties. Such information may be applicable to health promotion in the future.
