Normally people should take a variety of food in proper proportions in order to ensure a balanced nutrition. Protracted food partiality leads to insufficient intake of certain substances and excessive intake of other substances which will cause imbalance of visceral qi, blood, yin and yang.

There are two different cases in food partiality, partiality to cold or hot food and partiality to the five flavors.

Food is either cold and cool or warm and hot in property. It can be cooked or uncooked. Partiality to cold and cool food or excessive intake of uncooked and cold food will impair yang-qi in the spleen and the stomach, leading to endogenous cold-dampness and causing abdominal pain and diarrhea. Partiality to warm and dry food or excessive intake of hot food accumulates heat in the stomach and the intestines, leading to thirst, abdominal fullness, distension and pain, constipation or hemorrhoids, etc.

The five flavors are attributed to the five zang-organs respectively：the sour flavor enters the liver, the bitter flavor enters the heart, the sweet flavor enters the spleen, the acrid flavor enters the lung and the salty flavor enters the kidney. If the five flavors are not evenly contained in the food, the relationships among the five zang-organs will be broken. For example, partiality to the sour flavor strengthens liver-qi and weakens spleen-qi because predominant liver-qi will over restrict spleen-qi. Partiality to salty flavor consolidates kidney-qi and inhibits heart-qi because water restricts fire, leading to stagnation of the vessels. 

Partiality to the sweet flavor invigorates spleen-qi and restricts kidney-qi, making it difficult for the essence to produce marrow and transform blood, resuiting in osteodynia, loss of hair and early senility. Partiality to bitter flavor makes heart-qi hyperactive and lung-qi hypoactive, leading to retention of food nutrients in the middle energizer and malnutrition of the skin and hair. Partiality to the acrid flavor makes lung-qi hyperactive and liver-qi hypoactive, leading to spasm or flaccidity of the tendons and vessels due to failure of the blood to nourish the tendons.