Yaksik Dongwon: Food and Medicine From One Source

Few sayings about food are repeated in Korea as often as yaksik dongwon (약식동원, 藥食同源): medicine and food come from the same source. It is offered as a reason to eat a bowl of soup on a hot day, to add ginger to a tea or to keep a varied table. It is best understood as a cultural outlook, a way of thinking about everyday eating, rather than as a statement of medical fact.

Where the phrase comes from

The wording sounds ancient, and many dictionaries describe it as an old Chinese saying. The history is more recent. Makoto Mayanagi, a historian of East Asian medicine at Ibaraki University, looked for the closely related Japanese term ishoku dōgen (医食同源) in classical Chinese and Japanese texts and could not find it. He traced it instead to Hirohisa Arai, a Japanese physician who recalled coining it for the September 1972 issue of NHK's cooking magazine Kyō no Ryōri, in a feature on eating from age forty.

According to Mayanagi, Arai was introducing the expression yakushoku dōgen (薬食同源), written with the same characters as the Korean yaksik dongwon, which he had encountered through Hong Kong. Arai swapped the character for medicine (薬) for one meaning healing (医), so readers would not think of pharmaceutical drugs. Mayanagi places the phrase's popularity against the pollution and drug-safety worries of Japan's high-growth years. When and how the wording entered everyday Korean usage is less well documented.

Older roots of the idea

The words may be modern, but the idea is not. Mayanagi points to the Rites of Zhou, a Han-era account of idealized Zhou dynasty institutions, which lists a "food physician" first among four kinds of court doctor. This official oversaw the king's meals using seasonal rules about flavor: more sour in spring, bitter in summer, pungent in autumn and salty in winter. The seventh-century physician Sun Simiao also devoted a section of his great medical compendium to treatment with food. Mayanagi cautions that the Zhou text may describe an ideal rather than real practice.

Korea had its own tradition of food-based remedies. Jeon Sun-ui, a royal physician who served under three early Joseon kings, compiled the Sikryo Chanyo (식료찬요, 食療纂要), a collection of dietary remedies arranged in 45 categories and drawn largely from Chinese texts on food therapy. He is also credited with the cookbook Sanga Yorok (산가요록). The Dongui Bogam, completed by Heo Jun in 1613 and listed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register in 2009, is recognized for championing preventive medicine. See Joseon cookbooks.

How the idea shows up on the table

Researchers describing the traditional Korean diet list generous use of what they call medicinal herbs, such as garlic, green onion, chili and ginger, among its defining traits. The outlook behind yaksik dongwon runs through many familiar habits:

• Eating with the season: Hot, restorative soups in the dog days of summer and dried greens at the first full moon carry folk beliefs about health. See Boknal and summer foods and seasonal foods.
• Drinks as care: Ginger, jujube and omija teas are traditionally associated with warmth or comfort. See traditional Korean teas.
• Variety as a goal: A table of many small dishes, each prepared differently, fits the idea that a balanced diet is the first line of looking after yourself. See the balanced Korean meal.
• Respect for ferments: Jang and kimchi are treated as everyday foods worth making well. See fermented soybeans.

Belief, not prescription

The saying captures something modern nutrition broadly agrees with: what you eat day after day matters to how you feel. It does not mean that a particular food works like a drug, or that a dish can treat a specific condition. Mayanagi makes a related observation about the old Chinese food rules: ordinary foods are unlikely to produce quick, dramatic benefits, while spoiled food clearly can cause harm, and he suggests many traditional food prohibitions grew out of experience with food poisoning.

It helps to keep two things apart. Traditional beliefs about a food are part of its cultural story and deserve to be told accurately. Claims that a food prevents or cures disease need evidence from studies in people, and for most foods that evidence is limited or still developing.

Things to keep in mind

• Herbs are not always mild: The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health notes that Asian ginseng may affect blood sugar and blood clotting and might interact with medications, and experts advise against it for infants, children and people who are pregnant or breastfeeding. A slice in a soup is not the same as a concentrated tonic or extract; ask a clinician or pharmacist before using such products.
• Health marketing: Labels that lean on tradition are not evidence. Look at the ingredient list and nutrition panel.
• Salt in restorative dishes: Broths and jang-seasoned dishes can be salty. See sodium in Korean food.