Fall Season – How to Choose Foods

🍂 Editor’s Note (2025 Update)

This article was first published in 2019 and has been refreshed with new insights for today’s readers. The essence remains the same — aligning our diet with nature’s rhythm — but this version offers clearer guidance and more practical food ideas to support your lungs and overall wellness this fall.

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Fall is the season of harvest and inward movement — nature draws its energy downward. Leaves fall, roots store nutrients, and we, too, should begin to nourish and protect our inner body for the colder months ahead.

🌾 Fall Foods

This is the time to enjoy heartier, astringent, and slightly warming foods that help the body adjust to cooler, drier air.

• Cook with less water and lower heat.

• Use moderate sour flavors — too much can be overly contracting.

• Include bitter and salty tastes to guide energy inward and prepare for winter.

  
  

💧 Balance Dryness

Dryness in fall often affects the lungs, leading to dry skin, throat, lips, or a persistent cough.Moistening foods help nourish yin and restore fluids:🫛 tofu, tempeh, soy milk, spinach, millet, pear, apple, persimmon, loquat, seaweeds, almonds, sesame seeds, honey, light dairy.Avoid overly bitter, aromatic, or spicy foods that worsen dryness.

🌬️ Support for Common Lung Conditions

1. Heat Congesting the Lungs

Symptoms: fever with chills, dry cough, sore throat, yellow phlegm or nasal discharge.Eat: cooling, moist foods like pear, apple, persimmon, radish, daikon, bok choy, cabbage, watercress, mushroom, and soups made with millet or barley.Avoid: warming foods such as coffee, alcohol, lamb, chicken, salmon, garlic, cinnamon, or ginger.

2. Phlegm in the Lungs

Symptoms: cough, shortness of breath, wheezing, sticky phlegm.

• Phlegm Cold: white coating on tongue → use warming spices (ginger, fennel, cayenne, garlic).

• Phlegm Heat: yellow coating → use cooling foods (radish, watercress, seaweeds, nettle, mullein leaf).Avoid: dairy, red meat, peanuts, soy products, and sugary foods.

3. Dry or Unproductive Cough

Symptoms: little sputum, thirst, hot palms, night sweats.Eat: moistening foods — pear, apple, watermelon, tofu, soy milk, seaweed, string bean, banana, and small amounts of dairy or butter.Avoid: spicy and overly bitter foods that dry the lungs further.

📚 Source:

Inspired by the timeless wisdom in Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford, combined with my own clinical experience to make it more practical for today’s lifestyle.

🍂 Fall Season - How to choose foods to nourish and protect your lungs