"Healthy Lung Diet for Healing and Strengthening"

So we'll look a strengthening the Lungs by making sure the Spleen isn't inundated. The season for Spleen is late summer in China. It’s a time for transition into cooler weather. The season for Lung is autumn, which follows late summer, of course. So even from this standpoint, there is a relationship between the two Organs.

Here's what to eat for the Spleen. Choose foods that harmonize at this time of the year. These include millet, corn, carrots, cabbage, soybeans, string beans, peas, squashes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, and tofu. Among grains, try rice and amaranth. You can also start increasing the amount of nuts and seeds now.

You’re cooking more often. Taper off on the raw foods. The weather is getting cooler, remember, so you want to start warming up gradually. Eating too much raw foods actually hurts the Spleen, creating mucous!

The only time I’d recommend continuing with a raw food diet is if you have a lot of internal heat in your body. By the way, that's why a raw diet is often good for Cancer patients. Cancer is damp heat or phlegm heat in Chinese medicine.

And remember the cell walls in raw foods don’t break down very easily in your digestive system. I guess that’s mostly in vegetables and fruit. A healthy Spleen also likes dry foods.

On the other hand, the healthy Lung likes more moist conditions. So eat soybean products like tofu and tempeh, spinach, barley, millet, pears, apples, persimmons, seaweeds, almond, pine nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, some dairy products (don't over do it because too much creates mucous in the body!), eggs, clam, crab, oyster, mussel, and herring. Using a small amount of sea salt in cooking moistens.

In the fall or autumn, you’re heading into cooler weather. Other things change, too. The days are shorter now. This is the time of year when the harvest begins and heads to completion at the end of it.

Fall is the time for heartier fare and robust flavours. So, for healthy Lungs, there’s more cooking involved. Cook with more water, at a lower heat, and for longer periods of time. So baking, braising, and sautéing are excellent during this season.

Add more sour foods into the diet, but not too sour. Add more root vegetables. Bitter foods such as the bitter deep greens, such as kale and collard greens, are still very good. Add more salty foods into the diet at this time.

The tastes, bitter and salty, move your energy inward. This warms up the internal organs. They prepare your body for the cold weather coming. Gradually add them into your diet as you head into winter.

Carefully consider the diet recommendations that I give you. It's always about balance.

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