Creating a food practice: Putting it all together

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing a lot about food and Chinese medicine.

Temperature

Flavor & Direction

Organs & Meridians

At first, this way of thinking about food may challenge the mind. It might seem like it’s going to be hard.

But it’s really not.

I encourage you to explore these ideas and try to run with them for a bit. Many of us are so used to thinking about calorie counts or grams of protein. But once you learn a little about the way Chinese medicine understands the characteristics of food, it becomes easier and easier to turn to food as an easygoing part of your daily health practice.

And if you ask me (someone who used to count calories, download food tracking apps, obsess over what I should or should not be eating), this is a way less stressful, more enjoyable, more intuitive way of working with food in life.

Let’s look at some meals together.

If you eat congee or porridge with boiled egg for breakfast, you can see that the white rice is gently clearing, while the eggs are building.

• The eggs specifically help to build the blood. You can add scallions and ginger, which are both acrid, to subtly warm digestion. Tamari is salty, with an affinity for the kidneys.

• The cooler, hydrating nature of the wet-cooked grain brings fluid to the stomach and helps it to descend, preparing it for digestion throughout the rest of the day.

If you want to have chicken for dinner, you can consider braising the chicken rather than roasting it. Chicken is already heating, and roasting adds more heat than braising.

• You can cook the chicken with ginger, scallion, and leek, rather than onion and garlic, as these two are very heating.

• You can garnish the chicken with a generous amount of fresh parsley or cilantro, which are both mildly cooling and clearing, to balance the warming energetics of the chicken.

When we eat this way, it’s easy to have balanced meals. We can cook and eat in a health-maintaining way through our day-to-day lives and make tailored, focused changes whenever an imbalance arises.

For example, if we are getting a lot of headaches, experiencing reflux or GERD, or noticing constipation, these can all be signs of heat. We can focus our food choices toward more cooling or neutral selections, incorporating foods that have a stronger clearing influence. Or if we have painful periods, with cold hands and feet, this may be a sign of cold, especially in the uterus. By adding warming foods like ginger tea, cinnamon, and beef stew, we can introduce some much-needed warmth to the body, which will support and guide the resolution of this imbalance.

This is a flexible, personal way of eating. Chinese medicine shows us how to consider our individual bodies, alongside the energy and feeling of the season, the environment we live in, and our lifestyle, to create a food practice that is enjoyable and supportive.

Give it a try, and let me know if you get stuck - I’d be happy to share more recipes and resources! 🍜 😊 🫛

Warmly,

Artemisia

Clinical Herbalist | Chinese Medicine

innervillagehealth.com