Food Therapy Archives - Acupuncture in the Park

What to Eat to Stay Cool This Summer

At one time or another most of us struggle to figure out what to eat. You know what’s healthy, but you’re too busy to cook. That sugary treat you’re eyeing isn’t the best choice, but you crave sweets. Or with a lot of confusing news about diet and nutrition, the foods you thought were healthy are no longer considered to be, or vice versa.

The conflict that we face around food is because we all understand that eating well can enhance our health. In Chinese medicine, food is seen as medicine that you get to eat three times a day. In fact, ancient Chinese scholars suggested that a practitioner should first treat an illness with food therapy, and only if that doesn’t work should they turn to acupuncture and herbs for a cure.

Chinese Food Therapy

Food therapy is an important healing tool in Chinese medicine, for good reason—it’s effective, inexpensive, and can be practiced at home. The power of food to heal is very real, and while not as potent as Chinese herbs, foods exert very real effects on your body. In fact, there are a number of foods that are also considered to be herbs.

There are several principles associated with food therapy, including the idea that we each have our own unique needs when it comes to diet. Also, choosing foods that are easy to digest, appropriate to the season, and that address your specific health issues are important. This means that there’s no single diet that’s right for everyone; what’s good for your best friend isn’t necessarily what’s good for you.

Using the guidelines of food therapy, foods are chosen for their specific actions. They can boost your energy, support your digestion, dry phlegm, cool inflammation, or help you fight off a cold. In addition, foods are chosen for their inherent temperature. This is not about how it feels in your mouth or whether it gives you a frozen headache or burns your tongue. Instead, the energetic temperature of a food is about the overall effect it has on your body after you’ve eaten it. Foods are classified as hot, warm, neutral, cool, or cold. While the effect of a food can be subtle, some foods are obviously hot, such as ginger or chilies, which can make you feel hot and even sweat, and mint is a noticeably cooling, even when drunk as a tea.

What to Eat for the Heat

Which brings us to summer. Food therapy can be used to cool you off during the hottest days of the year, and can even help you avoid dehydration and heat stroke. The Chinese have a condition called Summerheat, which is a pathogen that occurs only in the hot, and usually humid weather of summer. It’s responsible for that queasy, tired feeling you get when you’ve overdone it in the heat.

So what should you eat to stay cool? The first place to start is with foods that are in season locally, as they tend to be cooling in nature. Some of the best choices are melons (especially watermelon), cucumbers, and tomatoes, which can help cool you off and are full of water to avoid dehydration. Other cooling foods include fruits, such as berries, apples, and pears, as well as spinach, summer squash, lettuce and most greens, cabbage, bok choy, celery, and mint. A couple of foods that are very cooling but may not be local include mung beans and sprouts, citrus fruits, and bananas.

How you cook a food also impacts its temperature. A good rule of thumb is that the longer you cook a food, the warmer it becomes. So during the winter, soups, stews, and foods that have been roasted are good for warming you up. For the summer however, raw or lightly cooked foods are the most cooling, which is good news, because many of the delicious local seasonal foods are best eaten raw!

Through the lens of Chinese food therapy, it’s no accident that watermelon is a welcome treat on the hottest days of the year. It’s cold in nature, packed with water, tastes delicious, and wards off Summerheat. It’s what to eat to stay cool.

Grow Your Own Food

Growing your own food is good for you in a number of ways. Last year, due to a bumper crop of heirloom tomatoes, I was able to go outside, pick a tomato, and cut it up while it was still warm from the sun. Not only was it delicious, but it was incredibly satisfying eating a food that I had grown from a seed or tiny plant. Whether it’s a garden plot, the raspberry patch along the back fence, or pots of herbs on your patio, growing your own food can improve your health. Here’s how:

-It’s local. You know food from your own garden wasn’t picked before it was ripe or spent three days in a truck. When you grow your own, you know exactly where it came from, what went into growing it, and that it was picked at the right time. Furthermore, eating locally grown food, whether from your garden or a local farm stand, saves energy. It wasn’t transported, refrigerated for days, or packaged.

-You’re eating according to the seasons, and this is important in Chinese medicine. Your body changes energetically with each season, and the local foods change, too. During the summer, the produce in season is cooling and full of moisture, such as cucumbers, watermelon, and lettuce; just what you need during the hot and humid weather. However, as the weather turns cold, what’s ripe changes too. Root vegetables, squash, beans, and apples are in season, which keep longer and are more calorie-dense to get you through the winter.

-When you grow your own food, you know exactly what you’re getting. In Chinese medicine, a source of illness is eating food that has been wrecked. Thousands of years ago that meant food that has spoiled due to lack of refrigeration. Today that means eating food that has been doused with pesticides, fungicides and chemical fertilizers. Don’t want chemicals on your peppers? Grow them yourself. It certainly beats trying to figure out which vegetable is “cleaner” at the grocery store.

-You’re eating healthier when much of your food comes from the garden. The Mediterranean Diet and eating to reduce inflammation are diets that scientists have found can lower your risk for a number of diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis, and may even help your aging memory. Both diets are heavy on plants, beans, nuts, and olive oil, but low on animal products, sugar, and refined grains. Growing your own produce is a good way to get more plants in your diet.

-Gardening counts as exercise and is good for your soul. Tending your garden can be strenuous, especially when the weeds have a mind of their own. In addition, just being outside, tending plants, and watching nature do its thing is actually relaxing. It helps reduce stress, can relieve depression and decrease your blood pressure.

-When you grow your own food, it can be as easy or as hard as you want. You can work a large garden with a variety of vegetables, or tend a few pots of tomatoes and basil on your deck. Either way, the satisfaction level is the same, and the food tastes great!

Honoring Spring with Chinese Medicine

Spring is here, and Chinese medicine has a lot to say about it! I know that it seems like this past winter would never end, with the bitter cold and the endless snow. But spring is inevitable, and there are ways to embrace this season beyond moving your winter clothes out of the closet. Embracing the personality of each season is a path to physical and mental health, as well as balance. Here are a few things to know about this amazing time of year:

-The nature of spring is that of expansiveness. The days become warmer, the sun is shining longer, and it compels to go outdoors. Gone are the dark winter days of hunkering down beside the fireplace; spring lures you outdoors. Like a seed that’s been planted in the dark earth that moves upward toward the sun, you are also coming alive from long months of cold and inactivity and being drawn out by the light. The theme for spring is growth; it’s a great time to start something new!

-Spring is also a time of going from inertia to movement. You’ve been pinned down indoors by the cold days of winter, but the weather is calling for you to come outdoors and play. Take a walk, get on your bike, or take a hike in a nearby park.

-It’s incredibly healthy for you to watch nature’s shift from frozen to green. Marking the return of the red-winged blackbirds, watching the trees bud, and finding tiny wildflowers poking up through the ground all put you in touch with nature, and that’s a good thing for your health. Spending time in nature or walking in the woods can lower your blood pressure, decrease your stress, and improve your immunity. There’s a great deal of research that has documented these effects. Being out in nature is calming and puts you in touch with something larger than yourself.

-Spring is associated with the element of wood—not only the hardwood of grown trees, but also the small shoots of plants sprouting up through the earth. Hardwood trees are strong but flexible. If one becomes dry, brittle, or rigid, it will bend and break. Also, while wood seems to be stationary, it is actually in a state of constant flow and growth. Sap is flowing, plants are growing, flowers are blooming, and trees are bearing fruit. Likewise, in Chinese medicine maintaining flow, flexibility, and the ability to take changes in stride all help you maintain your physical and emotional health.

-Not surprisingly, the color associated with wood and the season of spring is green. In Chinese food therapy, eating foods that are local and seasonal are also a pathway to good health, and this time of year, they’re green. This means that eating sprouts, shoots, baby greens, and lettuces that are the first vegetables ready to harvest are a good way to honor both your health and the season.

-Where growth and expansion and the color green come together is in your garden. Whether you grow vegetables in a garden plot or pots of vegetables and flowers out your back door, now is the time to think about getting some plants into the soil. From ideas and planning to harvesting vegetables or cutting flowers, gardening is another manifestation on the spring’s theme of expansiveness and growth.

-I think about spring as a time of new starts, activity, going outside, and getting in touch with nature. It’s a time to get your internal sap flowing, welcoming change, and broadening your ideas. Spring is a reminder that we’re all a part of nature, and embracing nature is good for your health.

Can Acupuncture Treat My Gout?

People who suffer from Gout will tell you that the pain is like nothing they have ever experienced. It often wakes you up in the middle of the night, slowly getting more and more painful, until even the weight of the bed covers feel like torture. While many people think of Gout as a sore big toe, it can be excruciating, limit your mobility, and affect the quality of your life.

Long ago, Gout was considered to be the disease of kings, because it is associated with a diet of rich and fatty foods. Far more men than women suffer from Gout, and one of the most common sites to be affected is the base of your big toe. That said, women also get Gout, and any joint in your body can be affected.

The cause of Gout is a buildup of uric acid crystals, which your body is struggling to eliminate. Uric acid is a metabolite of purine, a chemical found in high concentrations in rich foods like organ meats, oily fish, shellfish, yeast and beer. Interestingly, purines found in plant-based foods don’t tend to build up and cause Gout as commonly as animal based foods.

Some people are more prone to developing Gout than others. Risk factors for this painful condition include having a family history of Gout, being overweight, being over the age of 45, and having other health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or renal disease. In Western biomedicine, the first line of treatment for Gout is dealing with the pain through the use of NSAID’s such as ibuprofen. However, if you suffer from frequent attacks of Gout, there are other medications available to help stabilize the levels of uric acid in your body.

In Chinese medicine, Gout is diagnosed as a Bi Syndrome, which means that there is an obstruction of some kind causing your pain and swelling. In most cases, Gout is an obstruction caused by a combination of dampness, heat, and wind. While this may sound like bad weather, heat, dampness, and wind actually describe Gout well. Most cases of Gout present with a warm, swollen, and painful joint. The warmth accounts for the diagnosis of heat. When there is swelling, it’s caused by a build-up of fluid in the area—called dampness in Chinese medicine. Gout is also characterized flares and remissions, and may move from one joint to another, which is a characteristic of wind.

While most cases of Gout are warm and damp, in some instances patients experience a pattern of wind, cold, and damp. In these cases, their symptoms are aggravated by the cold and damp weather.

The source of Gout in Chinese medicine comes from your digestion, or what we would call an imbalance in your Stomach and Spleen. Poor digestion can be a cause of Gout, but in most cases the cause is overeating the wrong foods. Rich, fatty, sweets, fast foods, and alcohol are all offenders when it comes to Gout.

As a practitioner of Chinese medicine, my plan for treating gout, especially during a flare would be to use acupuncture to move the blockage, enhance circulation in the area, and relieve the pain. However, between episodes of Gout, my strategy is to work on resolving the underlying cause by combining acupuncture with Chinese herbs, and dietary changes to address the source of your Gout and prevent any further flare ups.

If you struggle with Gout, there are a few things that you can do for yourself to help prevent future episodes, including:

-Stay hydrated, as it helps flush the uric acid out of your system.

-Avoid alcohol. Not only does it make you dehydrated, but it also aggravates your Gout.

-Educate yourself on which foods contain high levels of purines, and do your best to avoid eating those foods in large quantities.

-Avoid rich and fatty foods.

-Stay clear of high fructose corn syrup.

-Some people report that drinking tart cherry juice daily helps to keep Gout symptoms under control. It’s worth a try to see if it works for you.

When Food is Medicine

I was an incredibly picky eater as a kid. Dinnertime was a stressful battle between me, my parents, and the green stuff on my plate—most of which came from a can or the freezer and was cooked to within an inch of its life. It wasn’t until I discovered spinach salad with creamy ranch dressing that my life turned around. It was a breakthrough that allowed me to add foods like red bell peppers and strawberries and arugula and kale to my diet—and like them.

I’m thankful that my pickiness is in the past, because as a practitioner of Chinese medicine, food plays a huge role in the healing process. The Chinese believe that food is medicine that you get to eat three times a day. In addition, if you are sick, it is believed that you should first try to heal yourself by eating the right foods, and only if that fails, should you turn to acupuncture and herbs.

Chinese food therapy is considered a healing modality unto itself. Used alongside acupuncture, herbal therapy, and Asian bodywork, food therapy is based on a number of principles that align with Chinese medicine. In fact, the properties of foods, while not as strong, are similar to the properties of herbs. Here are some things to know about healing with food in Chinese medicine.

-Foods have an inherent temperature. This is not about your food being served piping hot, but rather about whether it warms you up or cools you off after you have eaten it. Foods can be hot, warm, neutral, cool, or cold. For example, ginger, scallions, or cinnamon are considered to be warming foods. In contrast, mint, mung bean sprouts, and melons will cool you off.

-How you cook your food affects its thermal qualities. In general, the longer you cook a food, the more warming it is to your body. For example, potatoes that have been roasted in the oven for 45 minutes are energetically warmer than those that have been boiled for ten. Raw foods are considered to be the most cooling, which is why people tend to eat lots of fresh, raw vegetables in the summer and prefer warmer, roasted foods in the colder months.

-In general, how long a food has taken to grow affects its temperature. So a squash that has taken most of the summer and fall to ripen is more warming than tomatoes or cucumbers that are ready to eat during the height of the summer.

-Foods also have inherent actions on your body. Some foods are good for building up your energy or strengthening your blood, other foods are used if you’re retaining water, and others are used to enhance your digestion. For instance, if you are retaining water, adding celery would be a good choice. However if you have been sick and have a dry raspy cough, you would be better off eating apples and pears for their ability to moisten your lungs without building up phlegm.

-Digestion is a huge component of Chinese food therapy. Simply put, you need good digestion to get the most energy and nutrients from your food. If you are having any kind of symptoms, from heartburn to gas, bloating, stomachaches, or bowel problems, then your digestion needs a little help. In the world of food therapy, good digestion is the foundation for everything else that follows.

-When it comes to what’s best to eat, all people are not created equal. Each of us have different health needs and derive different benefits from foods. This has been backed up recently by Western researchers, who have found that eating the same food affected insulin levels differently in study subjects. In addition, the stated calories for a food is just a guess, based on your digestion and metabolism. Practitioners of Chinese medicine have long known that each of us have unique dietary needs, and thankfully Western medicine is finally catching up.

It’s been a long road from my formerly picky self to searching out the best leeks, sweet onions, or Swiss chard. It has involved acquiring a taste for new foods, being open to cooking differently, and understanding the impact what I eat has on my health.

Chinese Medicine and Sweets: Nine Things You Need to Know

It’s a struggle getting through the holidays and eating well. If you’re like me, you have been gifted with plates of frosted cookies, candy canes, and all manner of chocolate treats. This celebrating with sweet treats hasn’t changed much since I was a child, in which every holiday was be celebrated with a love-fest of jelly beans, chocolate kisses, candy canes, and baked goods.

As much candy as we ate as a kids, most of us eat far more sugar today than we did as children, both in the form of sweets and unknowingly in sugars hidden in foods that have no business sporting sugar at all. Knowing that sugar isn’t particularly good for our health or waistlines, most people make good intentioned attempts to limit the amount of sugar that they eat on a daily basis. However, according to Chinese food therapy, the nature of sweets is far more nuanced than simply being labeled as good or bad. Here are some things to know about the sweet stuff according to Chinese medicine:

1) Each organ system has a flavor associated with it, in which a little bit of that flavor strengthens the system, but too much overwhelms it. In Chinese medicine, the flavor of sweetness affects your Stomach and Spleen; your body’s system of digestion.

2) It’s natural to crave something a little sweet after a meal, because the sweet flavor acts as a digestive aid. So a piece of fruit or a small square of chocolate helps you relax and digest your food. A problem arises when you try to satisfy that mildly sweet craving with a piece of triple chocolate peanut butter cheesecake with a side of ice cream. It completely overwhelms your digestive process.

3) When your digestion is overwhelmed with sweets, the most common result is something called dampness, which is the digestive process getting bogged down and not metabolizing fluids very well. This is another case of a little is good, but too much…not so good. Your body needs to be moist, but when your digestive process gets boggy, it becomes too damp and the resulting moisture settles in puddles. Problems like yeast infections, athlete’s foot, bladder infections, water retention, oral thrush, and even excess body fat are considered your body’s damp puddles.

4) The sweeter a food is and the more you eat of it, the more dampening it is to your body.

5) There’s more bad news. If that dampness sticks around over time, it also becomes hot. In Western medicine, that translates into inflammation. Conditions such as gout, arthritis, infections, shingles, IBS, and sinus problems are in most cases considered to be damp plus heat in Chinese medicine.

6) When you have crazy, out-of-control cravings for sweets, it is a sign that your digestion is struggling. Unfortunately, giving in to those kinds of cravings only make the problem worse.

7) Now some good news. Foods that are slightly sweet are actually nourishing because eating those foods and digesting them well replenishes your body’s energy, blood, and nutrients. But you only need a little sweet, and the right kind.

8) The right kind of sweet flavored foods are those considered to be full sweet. They are warming and nourishing, and include complex carbohydrates, proteins, rice, sweet potatoes, and root vegetables. (Think of yams or carrots…sweet, but not overwhelming.) Empty sweets are the ones to avoid or eat only in small amounts. They tend to be cooling and dispersing (moving), and include simple sugars, refined carbohydrates, juices, honey, raw sugar, artificial sweeteners, and fruits. With the exception of fruits, they tend to offer up empty calories, are not very nourishing, and engender dampness.

9) Unfortunately, the kinds of things that you crave when your digestion is funky or your energy is low are the empty sweets–cake, cookies, candy, doughnuts, and the like. However, it’s the full-sweet foods that your body really needs to satisfy those cravings, and make them go away for good.

While I don’t eat the kinds of sweets that I did as a kid, every once in a while, I will have something that is very empty sweet. It reminds me of the doughnuts, chocolate chip cookies, and thickly frosted cakes that I ate growing up. The bloated, tired feeling I get afterward also reminds me why I don’t eat them more often.

Chinese Food Therapy at the Farmers Market

I love going to the farmers market! I’ve been to some fabulous farmers markets all over the world including Melbourne, Australia; Florence, Italy; and one in an ancient city center outside of Rouen, France. Here in the United States, I’ve managed to hit some outstanding markets, from Pike’s Place Market in Seattle, to Boulder’s upscale market, and Santa Fe’s market for lovers of all things chili.

While I enjoy checking out farmers markets when I travel, I have to admit that the Twin Cities has its share of great markets. Whether you hit the big one in Minneapolis, the Mill City farmers market, or a small market in your community, the bounty found at these gatherings offer some of the best produce grown in the area.

Why write about farmers markets in a blog about Chinese medicine? The answer is simple: Farmers markets promote good health in ways that align with Chinese medicine. Here are some examples:

-When you shop at a farmers market, you are eating produce that’s in season. That’s a good thing according to Chinese food therapy, because each season’s foods impact your health in different ways. For example, the early shoots and greens of spring are good for the health of your liver—almost like a spring tonic. During the summer, the produce in season is cooling and moistening to help you hydrate and deal with the heat. And in the fall, the heavier squashes, root vegetables, and legumes are important nutritionally as you prepare to hunker down for the winter months.

-Produce at the farmers market is local. That means it’s more flavorful because there is a shorter time between harvest and your table.

-Your produce is cleaner in general. In Chinese medicine, one cause of illness is eating food that is “wrecked”. In ancient times that meant food that has spoiled due to a lack of refrigeration. Today, wrecked food is that which has been contaminated through the many steps from harvesting, washing, shipping, and distributing. Wrecked food is also that which has been laced with chemicals. Shopping at the farmers market means that you can keep the chemicals off your plate; much of the produce is grown organically, and frequently you can ask the farmer in person how it was grown.

-In Chinese food therapy, one recommendation is to eat a wide variety of foods. While we live in a mono-crop culture in which huge swaths of land are committed to a single crop (usually corn); at the farmers market, you can find a huge variety of different kinds of produce.

-Finally, much of Chinese medicine is based on metaphors from nature. Our health is tied to the health of the planet and even that of our local farmers’ fields. When we get sick, our symptoms in Chinese medicine are described as bad weather—we can have heat, wind, cold, damp, dryness, and even summer heat. By shopping at the farmers market, you are placing yourself in touch with the goodness of nature, and by patronizing local farmers; you are helping to maintain farmland and green space in your community.

Ready to hit the farmers market, but not sure where to go? Start with here for a list farmers markets in the Twin Cities area and a rundown of what’s open today.

Bought a bunch of green things and don’t know exactly what to do with them? Try a cookbook geared toward fresh produce. I just bought the Gardeners Community Cookbook, but also like Moosewood New Classics. Either one will give you lots of ideas for delicious meals!

Twelve Things You Need to Know About Ginger

Ginger is the chameleon of the food and herb world. In Chinese medicine it’s considered both an herb and a food. It’s used in candy, baked goods, curries, and stir fries because it flat out tastes good. In Chinese medicine, ginger is a common ingredient in many healing herbal formulas. Here are some things that you should know about ginger and ways you can use it at home:

1) Ginger is the rhizome (underground stem) of the ginger plant, which grows in tropical climates.

2) It can be ingested fresh, dried, powdered, chopped, grated, or as an oil or juice.

3) Ginger can easily be made into a tea or added to broth. Just grate some fresh ginger into boiling water or broth, and voila!

4) Whether taken as an herb or eaten in food, ginger is very warming to your body. If you’re feeling cold to the core, grab some ginger tea or broth to warm up.

5) If you’re coming down with a cold or the flu, ginger can help. Combine grated ginger root with scallions in a broth. Boil the broth until it’s hot and drink it down, bundle up and go to bed. The combination of ginger and scallions is hot and should make you sweat a little, just enough to head off the cold before it settles in.

6) Ginger is also what you need if you’re feeling nauseous. It’s known to help with everything from morning sickness and sea sickness, to nausea from chemotherapy. Just grate some ginger into water, heat it and drink.

7) No time to grate and heat ginger? Powdered ginger can be found in capsules at a health food store or Chinese herbal pharmacy.

8) The warming nature of ginger makes it a good digestive aid. You can drink grated ginger in hot water, eat candied ginger, ginger cookies, or pickled ginger after your meal.

9) Ever wonder why you get pickled ginger with your sushi? It’s there because ginger can offset the toxicity of a bad piece of fish. Furthermore, ginger is often used in some Chinese herbal formulas to balance out the effects of other mildly toxic herbs.

10) Ginger can relieve the symptoms of dysentery. It’s true, ginger increases the secretion of gastric juices, so your food is digested more quickly. This creates an unfriendly environment for any bacteria that might otherwise hang around and make you sick.

11) The skin of this fabulous root is useful, too. In Chinese medicine ginger peel acts as a diuretic, and promotes urination as a way of reducing edema (water swelling).

12) Ginger is as close as your nearest grocery store. Raw ginger root is found in the produce section. For ginger powder, look in the spice section of the same store, and look for pickled ginger in jars in the Asian foods aisle.

Ginger is a must-have in my kitchen. Fresh ginger root will last a long time in your refrigerator, and it freezes well, too. I use it chopped in stir fries, and grated in marinades and salad dressings. I keep a chunk stored in my freezer in a zip lock bag, and when I need some in a recipe, I take it out, run one end under some water to soften it, and grate or chop away. Not only does it taste great, it’s good for you, too!

Eight Things to Know About Chinese Dietary Therapy

What should I eat? It’s amazing how such a simple question can throw many people into fits of anxiety. That’s because we live in a time of abundant food choices coupled with the desire to be as healthy as possible, which makes it difficult to know what to make for dinner. Adding to the confusion is the constant bombardment of messages about good foods and bad foods. Remember when all fats were considered bad for you? Now carbs are considered the bad guy to be avoided at all costs. More protein, less oil, eat this, not that. The chaos surrounding food messages is enough to make the mellowest among us a little crazy about what to eat.

So here’s a suggestion: Think about Chinese Dietary Therapy. There are some things you may not know about this fairly simple way to figure out what to eat, so here’s the rundown:

1) There is no one perfect diet–only what’s perfect for you. In Chinese medicine, each person has a unique set of needs, and therefore has a unique set of dietary needs. You can forget about cutting out gluten or grapefruits or whatever is the villain food today and eat what’s best for you.

2) Your Qi, or energy, is made from the foods you eat (and the air you breathe), so getting it right is important. If you’re not eating well, symptoms will eventually show up–from fatigue and poor digestion to frequent illnesses and just plain feeling blah.

3) How well you digest your food is as important–maybe more so–than the foods you choose to eat. If your digestion is funky, the most fabulous foods in the world won’t do you much good.

4) The foods you eat have inherent actions on your body. Foods act a little bit like Chinese herbs do, but the effects of foods aren’t quite as strong. For example, there are foods to eat if you’re retaining water, other foods to choose if you want to build up your Qi, and still others that are good for generating moisture. It’s all in choosing the right ones for what you need.

5) Foods also have an inherent temperature, called post-digestive temperature. It means that depending on what you choose to eat, it can leave your body feeling warmer or cooler, based on the temperature of the food. For example, mint, melons, and mung beans are considered cooling foods. Ginger, garlic, lamb, trout, and spicy foods are warm in nature. So if you’re cold all the time, choose warming foods to help you warm up.

6) How long you cook a food also affects post-digestive temperature. In general, the longer you cook something, the warmer it becomes. So potatoes that have been boiled for seven or eight minutes would be considered cooler than those that were roasted in the oven for the better part of an hour.

7) The process of converting your foods into energy and nutrients involves something called digestive fire, and implies that a certain amount of warmth is necessary for the digestive process. It takes energy to maintain your digestive fire, so essentially it takes energy to make energy.

8) Very cold foods and lots of raw fruits and vegetables slow down your digestive fire. It takes a lot of energy to warm those foods enough to break them down into more energy and nutrients (especially the cellulose in raw veggies). So if your digestion is less than stellar, a first step might be to gravitate more toward cooked foods, like soups, stews, and stir fried dishes. Think about it this way: cooking your foods is a little like predigesting them.

If you’re thinking that Chinese Dietary Therapy might help you, find a licensed acupuncturist and practitioner of Chinese medicine. They can assess your needs and prescribe food choices that make sense–the right ones for you.

Eight Things I Wish My Patients Knew About Food

As an acupuncturist, I am asked frequently by my patients about what to eat. Many just want to eat as healthfully as possible, some want to lose weight, and others just want to get a handle on their sugar cravings. I believe that how you think about food mirrors how you look at life, and eating is meant to nourish your body, mind, and soul. What you choose to eat is about more than calories or carbs or even nutritional content. So, while every person is different in their dietary needs, here are a few things that I want my patients to know about food:

1) Eat real foods. That’s the stuff that comes out of the ground, the ocean, or from the farm. Not what’s been chemically engineered to sit on the grocery store shelf for years, products that have unrecognizable ingredients, or foods that have health claims splattered all over the packaging.

2) There are no good or bad real foods, just foods that are better for you than others, and moderation is crucial. This is even true for sugar. A very small amount of something sweet after a meal acts as a digestive aid. (Think about a piece of fruit or a small piece of dark chocolate—not a boat-sized slice of triple espresso fudge cheesecake.)

3) What’s right for you is different than what’s right for someone else. This is what Chinese dietary therapy is all about. Each food has certain properties and inherent temperature, and every food affects your body in different ways. Determining what you need and what foods do that the best is at the heart of Chinese food therapy.

4) You need to support digestive fire. It takes a certain amount of heat, or digestive fire, to properly convert food into nutrients. The better you support that fire, the more efficiently you’ll digest your food, and the better you’ll feel. Cold and raw foods eaten regularly take more energy, or fire, to digest, so if you’re struggling with your digestion or fatigue it’s best to avoid them. Instead, try to get more soups, stews, and stir fried foods into your diet. Your digestion will thank you.

5) You need to…um, eat. I regularly see patients that get up in the morning and don’t eat. They may skip lunch, and finally grab something late in the day. Regularly skipping meals can really mess up your blood sugar levels, causing wide swings in insulin, and can contribute to weight gain. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but it’s true–when you finally do eat, you’re starving, tend to overeat, and your body wants to store those calories as fat for tomorrow’s famine.

6) When you are eating the right amounts of the right foods at the right times, you are in balance, you will feel good, and your weight will be stable. Too much of any one food puts you out of balance, because it’s impossible to get all the nutrients you need from a handful of the same foods day in and day out.

7) When you’re stuck trying to figure out what to eat, think about what you get at a Chinese restaurant–lots of cooked veggies, a little protein, and a little grain. (Okay, I admit, the white rice should be brown.) In a Chinese restaurant, most people share a couple of dishes, which gives you a variety of foods. And finally, the meal is served with a little warm tea which helps to warm up your digestive fire.

8) Finally, as I said above, what you eat is supposed to nourish not only your body, but your mind and soul. Quit agonizing about your diet and eat real food that tastes good, and enjoy it in a relaxing atmosphere with people you love.

Chinese Food Therapy

What to Eat for the Heat

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !