Chinese dietary therapy Archives - Acupuncture in the Park

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!

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.

A Reason to Cook Your Vegetables

Dear Acupuncture in the Park,

Whenever I read anything about Chinese medicine and dietary therapy, it says to quit eating raw vegetables and fruits. Is that true?

Bugs Bunny

Dear Bugs,

It’s true that avoiding a lot of raw foods is an important component of Chinese dietary therapy, but let us explain. Raw vegetables are really good for you, but they’re also harder to digest than when they’re cooked. That’s because it takes longer for you to break down a raw food and turn it into the energy and nutrients that fuel your body. However, it only becomes important if you have problems with your digestion or struggle with fatigue.

If your digestion is good, then go for the raw stuff. But if you experience symptoms like heartburn, bloating, nausea, the feeling of a lump in your throat, rumbling, constipation, loose stools, or a poor appetite, then you would benefit from cooking your food to help “predigest” it.

Your energy is tied to how well you digest your foods, too. If you’re fatigued during the day, feel tired after eating, or if your energy is up and down, chances are you’re not eating the right foods or getting the maximum energy from what you’re eating.

So, Bugs, here’s my advice: If you have good digestion and good energy, eat all the carrots and salads you want. But if you have funky digestion or low energy, try cooking your veggies. Here are a few suggestions:

-Try to get your vegetables in the form of soups, stews, and stir fried dishes. Or simply steam or saute them before eating.

-Want a salad? Cut a head of Romaine lettuce in half and throw it on the grill, cut side down until it’s slightly charred. Let it cool and top it with your favorite dressing.

-You can benefit from cooking your fruits, too. Try making a fruit compote, a fruit crisp, or sauteing your favorite fruits (tropical fruits excluded) in a little water with a dash of cinnamon for a minute or two.

-If your digestion is really off, make a congee, which is a rice porridge that can be flavored any way you want. Slowly simmer one part rice to seven parts water over a low flame until the rice is tender. Don’t drain any water off, it should be thick, but slightly watery. You can make it into a savory soup by adding soy sauce or broth, scallions, ginger, (or whatever seasonings you want) and a protein. Or you can make it suitable for breakfast by adding raisins or dried cranberries, nuts, a dash of cinnamon, and a bit of honey or maple syrup.

Keep eating your vegetables and fruits, Bugs. They’re really good for you, but eat them in a way that gives you the most benefit.

Acupuncture in the Park

Why Choose Chinese Food Therapy?

Dear Acupuncture in the Park-

I’ve been to an acupuncturist, and they are telling me that the source of my health problems are related to my diet. If that’s the case, why would I visit my acupuncturist for diet advice instead of a nutritionist?

Confused

Dear Confused-

The Chinese have a saying that first a patient should be treated with dietary therapy, and if that fails, only then should they turn to acupuncture and Chinese herbs. That’s because in Chinese medicine, foods are considered to have different properties than in Western medicine. Chinese dietary therapy goes far beyond counting calories, vitamins, or the carbohydrate/fat/protein make-up of a food. Instead, foods are evaluated for their inherent temperature, actions, cooking method, and the internal organs that are affected.

The temperature of a food is related to it’s warming or cooling effect on your body. For example, ginger and chiles are considered to be hot foods. In contrast, mint, yogurt, and cucumbers are cooling. Foods also act in a certain way on your body. For example, some foods are better than others for building up your energy, and there are foods that are used to alleviate phlegm or drain dampness if you’re retaining water. Finally, how your foods are cooked also affect how they affect your body. Raw foods, especially fruits and vegetables, tend to be harder to digest, and foods that are roasted are considered to be warming in nature.

In addition, your acupuncturist needs to assess the health of your digestion. Simply put, eating the best and healthiest foods in the world won’t do much for you if you’re unable to digest them well and convert them into nutrients. Digestibility can be tweaked either through the choice of foods or cooking method, and digestion itself can be enhanced through acupuncture treatments.

There are a number of variables to consider in Chinese food therapy, which makes it important to recommend the right foods for each patient. Your acupuncturist will be taking into account your diagnosis, overall health, energy levels, temperature, digestion, as well as the properties of individual foods when making recommendations. We think of food therapy is a way to enhance the healing process at home. The Chinese think of food as medicine you get to eat three times a day.

For more information on Chinese dietary therapy, here are some specific food recommendations and recipes.

Understanding Chinese Dietary Therapy

Many of the patients we treat at Acupuncture in the Park have conditions that are diet related. That doesn’t mean that a patient is eating bad food; it means that they’re eating the wrong kinds of foods for their particular needs. In most cases, a few dietary changes can help the healing process a great deal.

The ancient sages of Chinese medicine believed that doctors should first treat their patients with the proper foods, and if dietary changes do not work, only then should they turn to acupuncture and herbs for a cure. This method of treatment is an interesting way to think about Chinese medicine, but it also speaks to the power of food to heal your body.

We know that foods have certain properties. For example, we’ve heard that carrots are good for your eyes and spinach makes you strong (think Popeye). In Chinese medicine, foods also have inherent properties, and those properties are the foundation of dietary therapy. Foods can help the healing process in the following ways:

Foods have an inherent temperature. This means that they can cool or warm your body. For example, if you were suffering with hot flashes, night sweats or some other warm condition, a diet with lots of watermelon, cucumbers, or tomatoes would be helpful for their cooling properties. However, if you have a condition that is aggravated by the cold weather, you would do better with warming foods, such as lamb, cinnamon, scallions, and ginger.

Different foods affect specific organ systems. For example, if you have a dry cough a good food choice would be pears and apples because they moisten your lungs, while certain kinds of nuts and seeds moisten your intestines to alleviate constipation. In Chinese dietary therapy, foods are frequently chosen for the organ systems that they influence.

Foods also have a variety of actions. Simply put, different foods do different things. For example, sea vegetables strengthen your Chinese kidney system, green tea leaches out excess water by promoting urination, and pumpkins and other squash help with digestion.

Believe it or not, the color of the food you eat matters, too. Darkly colored foods strengthen your blood, black foods nourish your kidney system, green sprouts and young lettuce are good for your liver, and yellow root vegetables and squash boost your digestion.

There are a number of foods that are also considered to be Chinese herbs, including scallions, walnuts, sesame seeds, certain melons, and sea vegetables. While there are many similarities between the healing properties of foods and herbs, most foods tend to have weaker effects than those of herbs. This is because herbs tend to be more concentrated, while foods are eaten in larger quantities and more frequently.

Think of it this way: food is considered a kind of medicine that you get to eat three times a day. Illness can occur if you don’t eat the right foods (for you), if you eat too much or too little, or if your foods are not cooked in a way that they can be easily digested. Dietary therapy is considered the first line of defense in Chinese medicine. In reality however, by the time a patient seeks out acupuncture for a health condition, dietary therapy should be combined with acupuncture and herbal medicine for the best results.

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !