"Making Healthy Food Choices Heals and Harmonizes Your Life"

Healthy food choices are, again, quite a bit different in Chinese medicine. Foods have both therapeutic properties and nutritional importance. Not all foods are suitable for everyone, given a certain condition. So the solutions I present here are not one size fits all, which is what you usually get from modern western dietitians and nutritionists.

But it all comes down to your ATTITUDE. That is, are you finally willing to take control of your health? Controlling what you eat is pretty basic. But eating well seems to be the last priority. Is that true with you? Do you CARE enough about yourself to eat properly?

So instead of saying something automatically, like, "I won't like that!" Say this instead "This is good for me!" and really make an effort to change for the better. I mean, what have you got to lose? What have you got to GAIN? If you happen to be allergic to any of the foods I recommend, of course don't eat them!

When you make healthy food choices according to my rules, you can overcome personal imbalances and revitalize your body, mind, and spirit. You eat several times a day, every single day. Breath and proper nutrition are what keep you healthy and energetic, IF you recall. These two are the basis of your qi energy.

I'm presenting some very basic information here. There's volumes about this topic in ancient texts. A visit to a Dr of Chinese medicine who also has thorough knowledge of dietary therapy is recommended for a full diagnosis and prescription. I've simplified as much as possible.

1. The ancient Chinese never had to contend with chemical laden processed foods. So, it's best that you eat as much whole, organic, unrefined foods as your healthy food choices as often as possible. These will contain more nutrients by weight. Eat the entire food. It provides what you need.

2. Indulge in a mostly plant based diet. Plants are where you get most of your vitamins, minerals, trace nutrients, and enzymes and protein - the stuff that keeps you moving and energized. If you're a meat eater, you need them to digest highly concentrated proteins.

Your gall bladder really loves bitter green vegetables, for example. They provide the digestive enzymes to digest meat. A lot of needless gall bladder surgeries could be prevented and health care budgets reduced just by eating you greens! Anyway, 75% of your diet should be plant based, with a larger emphasis on vegetables and assorted greens.

There is YIN and Yang in everyone, but it depends on proportion. Females are more YIN and males are more Yang. Here's a short explanation for Yin and Yang.

3. Internal Heat in the body. Too much YIN in your body creates an internal heat condition because there's relatively too much YANG. It's often manifested as hot flashes and night sweats, feeling more heat in the afternoons and evenings.

Internal heat can be due to eating too many warming foods or eating insufficient amounts of cooling foods, too much hard work or play without adequate rest, or obstruction of the internal organs.

When there's enough YIN in the body, it cools. When there's not enough, you feel heat. Now there's other reasons for feeling heat, such as when you often feel angry or you've repressed anger. Even when you try to hide the way you feel, it always shows up one way or another in your body. The healthy Kidney diet will talk about heat due to Kidney Yin Deficiency. In here, I'll tell you what to eat to cool down.

Your healthy food choices should include #2 above. Here's where I begin to teach you about the energetic property of hot, warm, cool, and cold that exists in foods. Vegetables that grow quickly above ground are cold in nature. So they're COOLING. Most fruits are this way as well. All vegetables are either cool or cold. Root vegetables are cool instead of cold. They're warmer because they grow slower underground.

Cooking will always add some heat to them. So if you have severe heat in your body, eating a lot of raw veggies is the way to go. People with a lot of heat in their bodies are usually constipated, so again, eating a lot of veggies is the healthy food choices way to go.

Here are healthy food choices that reduce internal heat:

Vegetables: Lettuces, collard greens, radish, cucumber, celery, button mushroom, asparagus, swiss chard, eggplant, spinach, zucchini, cabbages, bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet corn.

Fruits: Apple, banana, pear, cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoe, citrus fruits.

Legumes and grains: Soya milk, soya sprouts, tofu, tempeh, mung beans and sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, millet, barley, wheat products, amaranth.

Other plant foods: Kelp and other seaweeds, spiralina.

Animal products: Yogurt, crab and other shell fish.

Herbs and spices: Peppermint, dandelion greens and root, honeysuckle flowers, nettles, red clover blossoms, lemon balm, white peppercorn, cilantro, marjoram.

Now when you get to the point of feeling comfortable in your body, you can go back to balancing hot,warm, cool, and cold foods in your diet. Overdoing anything can push you past the balanced point and move you into the the other extreme - feeling cold. Remember what I said about visiting a qualified TCMD earlier? Supervision is often required.

4. Internal Cold in the body. Too little YANG creates internal cold feeling. Sometimes you feel you always have to pile on the clothes during the day and the blankets at night. You may also have loose stools and feel listless. In severe cases, you might look bright pale white and even in summer, you feel cold! I've meet people like this.

The cause of coldness in the body is due to lack of physical activity, eating too much cold foods, staying up late and not getting enough sleep, as well as working or playing too hard without adequate rest.

In your case, eat lots of cooked foods. Avoid raw foods until you regain balance. Warming foods include the hot spices and some animal protein if you feel cold most of the time. But keep it to one serving a day, 2 - 6 oz, depending on whether you're female (lower amounts) or male (higher amounts). Eat your veggies - just eat them cooked all the time. Hearty soups and stews are great for you.

Eat sparingly of the cooling foods in #3 or avoid for a while until you feel warmer.

Here are healthy food choices that treat internal cold:

Vegetables: Parsnip, parsley, mustard greens, winter squash, sweet potatoe, kale, onion, leek, chive, garlic, scallion, cherry, citrus peel (not the fruit), date.

Legumes and grains: Oats, spelt, quinoa, rice, corn, buckwheat, rye, sunflower seed, sesame seed, walnut, pinenut, chestnut, sweet brown rice.

Animal products: Use moderately the following in cases of severe cold, including small amount of butter, milk, and cheese, also anchovy, mussel, trout, chicken, beef, lamb.

Herbs and spices: Ginger, fennel, dill, anise, caraway, carob, cumin, cinnamon bark, cloves, basil, rosemary, angelica root, and hot peppers. Note hot peppers are intensely warming, so use a pinch here and there.

Other foods: Use dried ginger root (more potent, just let it air dry) with black beans, lentils, and other foods.

5. If you don't have either much heat signs or cold signs, then eat with the seasons using the healthy food choices listed above. So in the spring and summer, choose more cooling healthy food choices. In the winter, eat more warming foods. You're all set.

These are the healthy food choices that you can easily add and adapt into your diet. Have fun making the necessary changes. You really will feel the difference. I cured my own cold situation after years of eating too many raw foods just by diet alone. It wasn't until I became a student of Chinese medicine that I learned what I was doing incorrectly. However, diet alone takes longer to create healing, but it's still worth doing.

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