Eating REAL Food is Part of the Chinese Medicine Prescription of Good Health

Since nutrition is one of the five branches of Chinese Medicine, it is something we can’t ignore when you study Chinese Medicine.

I attended a workshop titled, “Eat Real Food; Nutrition in the 21st Century" by Nishanga Bliss, L.A.c. and she reminded us that in Chinese Medicine, good food means food that is not processed, not refined, is eaten in season of your local area, and is NOT filled with hormones and/or chemicals.

Most of us don’t eat this way.

Most of us these days eat prepared food, fast foods, packaged food or junk food, and as a result, our bodies tend to become reservoirs of chemicals, toxins, plastics, poisons, and crud. Over the years, we start to exhibit signs and symptoms of interesting health problems due to eating the way we do. Many of our health problems could be treated, mitigated, or even eliminated if we started to eat REAL food.

To start us on the road to eating REAL food (and hopefully changing some of our bad habits), our instructor, Ms. Bliss, recommended we start with some baby-stepping guidelines to move towards eating REAL FOOD:

• Don't eat packaged food that has over 5 ingredients listed on the label.
• Eat locally produced food. If it is not locally grown, then eat organic.
• If not organic, then eat food from a family farm.
• If not from a family farm, then from a local business.
• If not from a local business, then from the region.
• Go to the Farmers Market before trying the Supermarket. Plan your meals around local ingredients you find at the Farmers Market.

Our instructor then asked if we thought we needed to go to a deeper level of the REAL FOOD process; that of being CLEANSED? (My immediate thought was Oh, NO! Enemas!) But that is not what she had in mind at all.

Cleansing (the Chinese Medicine Way) is to take nutritious REAL food and only consume that food for a period of 3 weeks. The REAL and good food will then start to work its ways through your entire system and go to all your nooks and cranny's (including the mechanisms that take 28 days to get restarted) and pull out the toxins and stuff we don't need or want.

Three weeks of eating REAL and GOOD food will help your system remove the chemicals and junk stuck in your itty bitty tiny weeny cells and purge it out through your gut, your lungs, your sweat, and out through your urine. After a period of 3 weeks, you should look and feel "clean", "different", "better"...and maybe even "new".

Ms Bliss recommends you do this type of diet cleanse each spring or whenever you have two or more of these kind of symptoms over a period of two months.

• Allergies
• Skin rashes or breakouts
• Tight neck and shoulders
• Headaches
• Constipation, loose stools, or both
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep
• PMS
• Menstrual cramps
• Restlessness, irritability, or anger
• Mood swings
• Frequent infections or colds
• Poor memory
• Mental fogginess

Here are the rules for this simple, food-based cleanse of REAL food our instructor recommended:

CHOOSE

• Vegetables. Eat all types as much as you wish. Raw vegetables are more cleansing, cooked ones are more strengthening. People who are robust and those cleansing in warmer climates can choose more raw foods (50% of more). Those who are tired or deficient and those cleansing in cool weather should choose more cooked foods (75% or more).

• Cleansing Vegetables. Eat at least 2 of these per day; avocados, artichokes, asparagus, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, burdock, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chives, cucumbers, eggplant, garlic, jicama, kohlrabi, leeks, mushrooms, onions, peppers, rutabaga, radishes, especially daikon and Spanish black radish, sea vegetables, turnips.

• Leafy Greens. All leafy greens, such as arugula, beet, daikon, and turnip greens, dandelion greens, kale, and collard greens, mustard greens, swiss chard, spinach, lettuces of all types, edible flowers.

• Fruit. Choose any fresh or frozen fruit, with an emphasis on seasonal fruits from your area. Try to each twice as many veggies as fruit. No dried or canned fruit.

• Fats and Oils. Choose only expeller-pressed organic olive oil, unrefined coconut oil or ghee for cooking, and organic expeller-pressed flax oil and olive oil for dressings

• Beans. One to three servings of organic lentils, mung beans, chickpeas, or other beans daily. Soak all beans overnight before cooking. Avoid unfermented soy (tofu or soy milk)

• Grains. One to three servings of organic brown rice, wild rice, or quinoa daily, and prepare these by soaking overnight before cooking.

• Animal Foods. Choose from organic or pastured poultry, beef, lamb, or goat, and wild-caught, low mercury seafood only, up to four 2-3 ounce servings per day. One to three organic or pastured eggs daily. Prepare animal products by boiling, baking, roasting, or poaching, or raw(no raw egg whites). No cured, smoked, or preserved meats, but canned salmon and sardines are OK.

• Seasonings. Natural wheat free tamari or shoyu, chickpea miso, raw apple cider or other raw vinegars, fresh lemon juice, celtic sea salt, or other unprocessed salt, fresh or dried organic herbs and spices, raw honey, nutritional yeast.

• Fermented foods. Raw sauerkraut or lacto-fermented pickles, ideally with each meal.

• Beverages. Aim for ½ your body weight in ounces of water a day (avg 8-10 glasses). Choose filtered water, herbal teas, kombucha, beet kvass, freshly pressed vegetable juices or pressed fruit juices diluted with water.

The cleanse should be done over 3 weeks. Our instructor said everyone who does this cleanse ends up feeling better and healthier. Some even lose weight.

Since it will soon be spring, which marks the time for spring cleaning the house, consider cleansing your innards (your body).

Perhaps just eating locally is a good place to start to move you on a path of better health. Or maybe it is choosing to not eat anything packaged with more than 5 ingredients. This can help, too.

If you decide to try the 3 week cleanse, you may discover a new healthy body. Switching over to REAL food can make you feel that different.

Who knows? Maybe a new you is what you are going to find this year. After all, food is a part of our life. We can choose to partner with food that is good for us or partner and hang out with food from the wrong side of the tracks.

This may be the year we decide to start hanging out with food that is REAL and can help us feel better.

Eating REAL Food is Part of the Chinese Medicine Prescription of Good Health