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Coffee, Tea and Chocolate: subverting the Dietetic History of Medicine

Published: 2025-12-08 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2025/12/08, In ancient times, humoral theory (Humorism) was popular in Greece and even in many European countries. The so-called humoral theory is a kind of medical theory, which holds that the human body is composed of blood, mucus, black bile and yellow bile. According to this, in order to achieve health, it is necessary to achieve balance. Those who are out of balance are suffering from disease, and a correct diet is the key to maintaining balance, which is more important than medication and surgery. This says thousands.

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In ancient times, "humoral theory" (Humorism) was popular in Greece and even in many European countries. The so-called "humoral theory" is a medical theory, which holds that the human body is composed of "blood, mucus, black bile and yellow bile". According to this, in order to achieve health, it is necessary to achieve "balance". Those who lose "balance" are suffering from illness, and a correct diet is the key to maintaining "balance", which is even more important than medication and surgery. This claim has been widely believed for thousands of years, but by the middle of the 16th century, the emergence of coffee, tea and chocolate accidentally participated in the subversion of this set of ancient European medicine.

According to the understanding of the "father of medicine" ancient Greek physician Hippocrates and later Roman medical scientist Galen, everyone's body has a unique body fluid composition. Therefore, medicine and treatment are also individual-oriented and vary from person to person. The first step in the treatment of diseases in "humoral theory" is not medication, nor surgery or cauterizing, but "dietotherapy". Each kind of food has its own properties, either hot or cold, wet or dry, and various properties are compared with the four body fluids. Through dietotherapy, the body fluid can restore "balance" and regain health.

Historian Mark Grant pointed out that Galen not only classified food according to body fluid properties in his medical book On the Power of Foods, leaving a lot of "recipes". Therefore, in ancient Europe, "a good doctor should also be a good cook." As a result, doctors who believe in the "humoral theory" will observe the patient's physical condition when the human body is sick. For example, when the patient's body is overheated, that is, we call it "fever," the doctor will instruct the patient to eat cold vegetable salad; or when the patient has gastrointestinal discomfort or indigestion, the doctor will advise the patient to eat more dry and hot food, such as pepper.

The "humoral theory" and Galen's dietotherapy have been widely used, but when Europe expanded world trade and communicated more frequently with overseas countries, this set of traditional medicine became problematic. When new ingredients, spices and drinks were introduced into Europe following cultural exchanges, doctors got caught up in the problem of "how to classify these new foods according to humoral theory". If the new food is similar to the original food in Europe, it can be barely classified, but historian Ken Albala records in his book Eating Right in the Renaissance that three kinds of food and drink, such as coffee, tea and chocolate, which were introduced into Europe from North Africa, China and South America in the mid-16th century, had the greatest impact on traditional medicine.

Coffee, tea and chocolate: beverages that hit ancient Europe.

Coffee, tea and chocolate are all "chameleons" in the catering industry, which can be changed by the way they are cooked, so they are more difficult to classify. There is a lot of controversy among doctors about the properties of chocolate. Some people think that chocolate should be "hot and humid", while others say that unsweetened chocolate is bitter, so it should be classified as "dry", which is effective for diseases such as mucus disorders. Similar controversy also revolves around coffee, with one group of doctors saying that drinking coffee has a heating effect, while the other is arguing that coffee makes the body lose heat. Why can the same kind of food be dry and wet? In which form do they have medicinal value? Doctors have different opinions on this.

In 1687, Nicolas de Blegny, the court physician of King Louis XIV of France, wrote a book trying to set the "right answer" for the medical value of coffee, tea and chocolate. During the Enlightenment, there were so many new medical theories that doctors began to change their view of the human body in the 17th century, or regarded the body as a series of mechanical tissues, or understood the composition of the body from a chemical perspective, and the status of "humoral theory" and Galen classical medicine was shaken day by day. From the 17th century to the 19th century, the classical medical school tried to turn the tide, but the tide of science was unstoppable. When the medical knowledge of physiology, anatomy and pharmacology increased greatly, the "humoral theory" was finally defeated.

Even though the "humoral theory" is dead, today's science is prosperous, and the debate over the medical value of coffee, tea and chocolate has not stopped. Some say that coffee is beneficial and harmful, some say that tea promotes metabolism, and some say that chocolate is bitter and good food. Who is right and who is wrong? It has yet to be scientifically verified.