food as medicine

Summertime Dietary Considerations

✍️Wendy Brown, Lic. Ac.

According to traditional Chinese dietary practice, foods should aid in balancing and contributing to the health of the person, and what that requires varies throughout the seasonal shifts of the year. The daily diet in summertime should rely more on vegetables and fruits than in other seasons to stimulate the appetite, which can become sluggish due to seasonal heat and humidity. Due to environmental heat and subsequent loss of fluids through sweating, Yin fluids of the body can become depleted, leading to dehydration and taxation. Seasonal fruits and vegetables help to replenish Yin fluids, which in turn, keep the body temperature cooler. In the summertime, Qi and Blood move more vigorously than at other times of the year. Such physiological changes contribute to overfunctioning of the Heart, with the potential for Yang Qi to flow excessively to the exterior of the body.

According to the five-element theory, an over-functioning of Fire [Heart] restricts the functioning of Metal [Lung], and so it is advisable to eat a complement of moderately pungent flavor of corriander, chive, parsley, and the like; while reducing foods and drinks of a bitter taste including hops beverages, vinegar (both sour and bitter), coffee, and the like, because bitter is the flavor of the Fire element, and exherts control over the Metal element. The Lung maintains normal sweating, essential during the heat of summertime, to regulate inner heat and fluid moisture. Sweat is the humor of the Heart, and excessive sweating ‘scatters’ the Qi of the Heart, weakening the mind and causing symptoms such as restlessness, vexation, lackluster, and difficulty sleeping. So, the Heart should be in balance to maintain homeostasis, especially during the summer months.

Yin: During summertime, the most Yang time of the year, Chinese medicine emphasizes mostly Yin foods in the daily diet, which are foods that naturally ripen to fruition in the brightness of the Yang growing months, and counteract the excesses of the summer season. Generally, vegetables have the overall tendency of Yin, and contain inherent moistening, Yin energy.

Preparation: Cooking methods affect the energy that is contained within food. In summertime, steaming is favored as it enhances Yin. A person who is Yin deficient benefits from eating foods that are steam-cooked throughout the seasons.

Summer foods that cool and accentuate Yin: Fresh bamboo shoots, lotus root, water chestnuts, tofu, soy beans and mung beans, cucumber, celery, string beans, bitter melon, watermelon, strawberries, plums, peaches, jicama, bok choy, enoki mushrooms, spinach, lettuce, radish, cantaloupe, peppermint, aloe vera, wild rice, aromatic herbs, green and herbal teas with mint added, and chrysanthemum tea. To name a variety.

Avoid iced drinks and desserts, and an abundance of chilled foods, in general.

The tendencies and symptoms that an individual develops are consistent with their constitution and way of life, and therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all diet. The basic outline drawn here lends a sense of how foods are utilized for their flavors and properties that have respective effects on the organs and humors, differentiated from season to season, and highlighting summer. Chinese medicine has long taught that acupuncture points, herbal medicines, and foods are to be utilized seasonally, integral in keeping the individual in balance and harmony with nature and universal flow. This overview is not intended to advise or manage any illness.

Well-Wishes to You · Please Enjoy & Share

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Wei Qi: How the Body Prevents Colds and Flu According to TCM

✍️Wendy Brown, Lic. Ac.

As a microcosm of the rhythms and fluctuations of the seasons and their elemental factors to which we are inextricably linked, Chinese medicine would consider the result of our health in one season as being a marker of our lifestyle preparations in the previous seasons as well as in the present. With regard to colds and flus, the ability of the immune system to resist external pathogens, be they bacterial, viral, or allergen toxins that result in immune suppression that leaves us ailing and struggling to recover, exists in the strength of ‘Wei Qi.’

A patient texted me asking how my flu kung fu is: i.e. my thoughts on flu shots. I put together the following from the TCM perspective to share in response. Collage by W.Brown, Lic. Ac.

In Chinese medical theory, Wei Qi is fierce, useful, combative energy from nutrition, says the Lingshu, a medical text compiled in the 1st century BCE, one of two parts of a larger work known as the Huangdi Neijing, the Yellow Emporer’s Divine Classic. Wei Qi is lively and agitated and circulates in superficial tissues, skin, connective tissue, muscles and peritoneum. It radiates to the chest and abdomen. According to the classics, it does not circulate through the meridians but rather flows through the face, trunk, and limbs during the day, and at night through the viscera. Wei Qi protects the body from external perverse energies by opening and closing pores and warming connective tissues. It concentrates at the sites of acupuncture points, the “Holes of Qi,” per se. Wei Qi represents the whole immune system, from leukocytes to anti-bodies, histamine, bradykinin and serotonin.

In Chinese medicine it is an intrinsic reference to discuss “wind gates” and “wind invasion or wind penetration.” The neck, sides of the head, forehead, and upper back according to TCM are conduits whereby externally contracted pathogenic wind can gain entry to the body. Fierce Wei Qi is the primary way the body resists an invasion. Nutritional status, inadequate rest, excessive consumption of alcohol, among other lifestyle factors may lead to the impairment of Wei Qi. It is always advisable to adequately keep wind gates covered, interestingly, in every season to varying degrees. The migration of wind inside the superficial levels of the body can lead to cold and flu symptoms exhibited as chills, body aches, headache, runny nose, congestion, cough and fever. Vulnerability in externally contracting wind is increased by damp hair. We are far more empowered than we may realize in the ways to govern our health and be master of our own unfolding. The timeless ways of Traditional Chinese medicine can be an invaluable guide to reeducating our modern misconceptions and to show us the way.

Further reading on Wind

With all best wishes for a healthy cold weather season!

Posted by Wendy in analytical