Eating For Your Chinese Medicine Diagnosis
Hello Everyone! This blog post is the “nutritional follow up” to the previous post about how to diagnosis yourself according to Chinese medicine. Here is the quiz again in case you missed it. After you have your Chinese medicine diagnoses (expect more than one), you can come back here of nutritional suggestions to help you be as healthy as you can be! Watch for future posts as we go in-depth into each of the diagnoses.
– Stephanie Gianarelli, LAc – Clinic Director
Building Kidney Yin
Yin tonics tend to be sweet and cool. To tonify Yin, we favor sweet, sour and salty over bitter and pungent flavors. The quintessential yin tonic is the pear, sweet and juicy. Some other examples are eggs, asparagus and duck.
Building Kidney Yang
Yang tonics tend to be sweet, pungent and warming. Spices such as cinnamon and ginger are typical yang tonics. They are foods that warm the body. Other examples of yang building foods include garlic, shrimp, lamb and walnuts.
Building Spleen Qi
Qi is the energy found in all living things. Foods which tonify Qi tend to be sweet and often warm in nature. Good Qi tonifying foods include rice, royal jelly, sweet potato, squash, dates and oats.
Building the “Blood”
In general naturally red foods help to build the Chinese medicine idea of blood (which includes what we normally think of for blood). In particular, dark green leafy vegetables and chlorophyll-rich foods are helpful. Some good Blood foods are beets, dark berries, red meat (especially organic organ meat), and the redder fish such as salmon and molasses.
Moving Blood Stasis
Blood stasis can be a serious diagnosis in both western and eastern medicine. If that is the case with you, please talk to your doctor about exercise and nutrition because you may need an individual determination on what’s best for you. In general, Blood stasis often benefits from movement. Eating a variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables should be the basis of everyone’s diet and this is also true for the person with Blood stasis. Pungent spices, such as turmeric, peppermint, coriander and pepper are also helpful to move the blood.
Moving Liver Qi Stagnation
Moving Qi is much easier than moving Blood but mostly the same food and lifestyle suggestions apply. Keeping your digestion moving with the digestive enzymes found in foods like papaya is another great way to keep the Qi moving. Sour is the flavor of the Liver so a little squeeze in your water can be helpful!
Foods to Help Build Heart Qi
In general, you can eat the qi building foods above but you can also add in foods and herbs specific for the heart such as schisandra and longan berries.
Foods to Help Remove Excess Heat
You can almost imagine what a cooling food would be. Here are some easy examples: watermelon, cucumbers, tofu and peppermint.
Foods to Resolve Dampness
Foods that drain fluids and resolve dampness include: aduki beans, job’s tears (Chinese barley), mushrooms and green tea. Greasy foods exacerbate dampness as does sugar, alcohol and dairy. Think of ice cream as frozen phlegm…
