Q. Why can blindly grilling chicken breast—a diet staple—eventually become harmful to my body?

Many people struggle with bloating and indigestion after consuming grilled chicken breast daily, often assuming it is healthy simply because it is protein. However, high-heat cooking creates Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs), or glycotoxins. The body must expend immense energy to neutralize these toxins, leading to cellular aging and chronic inflammation, which lowers the basal metabolic rate. While Western medicine labels this as chronic inflammation, Traditional Korean Medicine identifies it as Spleen Deficiency (Pi Xu). When the Spleen—the body's metabolic engine—is weakened, it cannot properly transform food into energy. The resulting 'unburnt' metabolic waste accumulates as Phlegm-fluid (Tan Yin), causing the body to feel heavy and swollen. Over time, this can lead to Blood Stasis (Yu Xue), where fat becomes hardened and increasingly difficult to lose. To prevent this, it is better to boil or steam meat to reduce glycotoxin intake. At Baengnokdam, we focus on using herbal medicine to restore these damaged metabolic functions, helping the body return to a state where it can efficiently burn energy rather than simply accumulating waste.