Research on Alimentotherapy Definitions and Applied Theories

식치(食治)의 개념 정립 및 적용 이론의 이해

Alimentotherapy refers to the treatment or prevention by means of food. As food is consumed in everyday life and its constituents varies enormously. the practice of alimentotherapy was often misunderstood. By the research on ancient classics we could find 3 prospective about this practice. Firstly, alimentotherapy was used during the recovery and also for prevention. This is a type of Life-nurturing method, which we suggest to be called life-nurturing alimentotherapy. Secondly, it was also used as a dietary prescription made by physicians. Sometimes they made prescriptions combining materials derived from food with herbal medication. This practice was exclusively made by physicians as they had to consider the characteristic of each food as well as the condition of the patient. Thirdly, sometime alimentotherapy was used in cuisine form. They used food components in major part and herbal medicine used as additional ingredients. It was primarily focused on the taste and in some part its functional aspects. The underlying theories in alimentotherapy is exactly the same as used for understanding herbal medicine in TKM. Therefore, except in the case of life-nurturing method, it should be used by expert physicians. Finally, we suggest to differentiate the terms of alimentotherapy in the aspect of life-nurturing, dietary prescriptions and cuisine to prevent confusions.