Jennifer Moffitt, L.Ac., Dip. OM
Last time we introduced the idea of qi, or vital energy, and began to discuss its cultivation. Today we
are going to examine diet and cellular nutrition with the underlying premise that food is medicine.
Proper nutrition is more than minimizing carbs, or the proper combination of vitamins and minerals. It
is even more than the flavors or herbal qualities that we consider in Chinese medicine. A healthy diet
must be expanded to include the concept of vital energy, or qi, in our notions of what to eat. At its
most basic, in order for food to have qi in it, it must look at least a little like how it looked in nature.
Protein bars and soylent green do not count. By the time folks are desperate enough to try
acupuncture, many of them are literally starving to death. They have gone months or years without
eating a single living thing.
How many servings per day?
Before we get too mystical, however, it is helpful to look at what the USDA recommends - a daily
serving of 4-6 different vegetables and 2-4 fruits to meet our basic nutritional requirements. That’s
like 10! Let’s be honest, most of us are lucky to get one or two. I stress different vegetables
because in southern California, some consider iceberg lettuce salad a vegetable. Not a lot of
nutrients there. And, in order for the body to heal, there must be a surplus of qi and nutritional
building blocks. That means extra…
No, you are not that toxic...
In addition, many people mistakenly believe they are full of toxins and should be cleansing, moving
that colon, and take herbs that are ultimately detrimental to their overall condition. While TCM
includes treatment for parasites and toxins when the condition warrants, I find the oriental approach to
diet is gentler, with an emphasis on strengthening the body’s ability to use the food we take in. We
are not so full of toxins as many would have you think, and toxins alone are not the cause of your
disease or fatigue, although that notion has become widely popular. The body has an innate
intelligence. When you give it food that has life force in it and basic nutrition, many times parasites
and toxic situations resolve themselves, without the harshness involved in some of the
cleansing rituals.
Fresh Seasonal Foods
Begin to support the healing process by enjoying a balance of fresh foods that are in season. Please
note that fresh does not necessarily mean raw. Many of us have digestion so poor that even if we ate
all those raw fruits and veggies, they would not be absorbed properly anyway. Fresh vegetables that
are lightly steamed (not boiled to death) have plenty of qi and vitality in them, and are more easily
assimilated by the body.
"You will be assimilated."
Let’s clarify for those of you who may understand “assimilation” as a term associated with the Borg on
Star Trek. It is the job of the body to absorb and process all the nutrients in the foods that we eat.
How well the body is able to do that depends upon 1) the quality of the food we are eating and 2) our
own ability to actually take in that nutrition. This is assimilation. Our ability to absorb nutrients from
food can decline with age, and is affected by our general health. Smoking dramatically decreases
absorption. Those undergoing chemotherapy or HAART find that their medication can damage the
lining of the stomach and intestine so that it is more difficult to digest food. Individuals with severe
illnesses or layering western medication may find their digestion impaired. Chinese medicine and
acupuncture can be very helpful in this area - by helping the body better assimilate its food we
increase the amount of qi available from the food, and we are then able to better digest our food. It is
a positive feedback loop. For patients with digestive concerns, eat simply – limit meals to a starch
with veggies, or a protein with veggies rather than both. Think unleaded - eliminate heavy sauces
and creams. Fruit can be eaten alone, and then followed with a simple protein for those with blood
sugar concerns.
A Word About Supplements
While the Chinese materia medica has used herbs for thousands of years, as do many native healing
traditions, the inclusion of supplements as part of TCM practice is a bit more recent, but not outside
the scope of our medicine. If we go back to the concept of qi cultivation, or life force energy, and
include all the dynamics that happen at the level of the cell, we can include all the advances made in
chemistry and cell biology, and use them to our advantage within the scope of oriental medicine.
Food is how we provide the body with the building blocks needed for cellular processes including
repair, and missing even a few micronutrients can make the
process much more difficult.
It is helpful to be realistic: it is difficult, if not impossible to get everything we need from diet without a
lot of work - the shopping, chopping, scrubbing, cooking, stewing and chewing…Oy. Save yourself
some anguish and find a good multi-vitamin, with additional herbs or supplements as needed.
The Wisdom of Professionals
I cannot stress enough the importance (and ultimate cost savings) of working with a licensed
practitioner to help guide you. All of us have yielded to, at one time or another, the temptation to try
that one new supplement that our friend raved about, thinking it might help (and did it?). Confession
time, how may of us have an entire shelf or section of the counter devoted to various bottles, lotions,
and potions? It adds up. The clinical training required by a licensed practitioner is much deeper
than the theoretical knowledge obtained by reading about herbology from a text book. In the brief
encounters when you seek a recommendation from someone over the counter at Henry’s or Whole
Foods, there is simply not enough patient information obtained to make a safe and informed
recommendation. For folks who require several western medications, who are immuno-compromised
or undergoing chemotherapy, drug and herb interactions are no joke. It is extremely important to for
these individuals to work with someone who is competent in both eastern
and western biomedicine.
A few things you may not be aware of:
1) The over-the-counter herb and nutrient industry is fairly unregulated. Not all supplement
companies are honest – you cannot guarantee purity, manufacturing grade, etc. It is worth the few
extra dollars to buy professional grade herbs and supplements from a licensed practitioner. Many
OTC supplements and herbs often pass through the stool without being digested at all. Professional
herbs and supplements are many times formulated to improve absorption. Your practitioner will know
how to take them in a way to maximize their potential. In addition, patients who self-medicate with
herbs and supplements run the risk of a) not taking enough of what they need, b) missing something
or c) taking far too much. There is a reason that some of these are called micronutrients, micro as in
small, tiny. More isn’t necessarily better; sometimes it’s just more.
2) Ask your practitioner to discuss in detail how and why they think a particular herb or
supplement can help you, and give an estimate of how long they anticipate that you might need it.
Supplements and herbs are expensive, and I think it behooves us all to keep costs down. That being
said, there are herbs and supplements that have been miraculous for my patients. We could never
have achieved that kind of success with acupuncture alone, and for some, they may needed long
term. But we work hard to find the lowest dose possible that will achieve the desired effect. Every
few months or so, check in with your practitioner and ask them to help identify specific changes that
can be attributed to the herbs or supplements. There may internal changes to your condition that
are not obvious to you, but are vital for a full recovery. If cost is an issue, work with your practitioner
to help prioritize what is most important medically.
Let me end our discussion of supplements by saying that there is no treatment, not once or even
twice weekly acupuncture visits, and all the herbs that money can buy, that will replace what you put
into your body every single day. It is unfortunate that our medical advances have minimized the
consequences of repeatedly denying good nutrition to the body long term.
But the taste...
Sigh. This may be the single most common complaint for every American herbalist. No way to make it
pretty, some of the things I recommend taste pretty foul. We work with capsules when we can, and
when we can’t, I bring out the General: Hold your nose and get it down. We are not children; we are
adults with a condition that requires serious herbal medicine. Our ability to rise above the need to
have everything taste yummy is what separates us from the animals. Nike said it best: “Just do it.”
For meals, though, we need to be compassionate and realistic about dietary changes. It is an integral
part of daily life, after all. We cannot reasonably expect someone who has lived for years on fast food
and take out to be happy with the prospect of shopping for and preparing their own meals. I fall short
here quite a lot. Gradual, workable goals allow everyone to become comfortable with lifestyle
changes, without alienating their inner 4-year-old (you know, the part of us that just wants to watch
cartoons, eat pizza every night, and party like it's1999). Make friends with your inner hedonist: it is
vital for learning to eat kale, or take those nasty herbs.
One example of this can be seen with a patient I had last year. To keep it simple, I asked him to eat
just one green thing a day, just one. This was something he could wrap his mind around – felt
manageable. At first, it was the lettuce inside the burger. But he began to bring awareness to what
he was eating – he noticed it for the first time in his life. As he shared this with his friends, they were
included in the process, giving him a hard time if he had not eaten something green at a meal.
Gradually one green-thing-a-day morphed into an entire serving of veggies, then shopping for them
and planning for them. I knew we had struck pay dirt when his mother proudly informed me that he
ate broccoli for breakfast earlier that week.
While even I am not that devoted, it illustrates the point.
There’s nothing exciting about gradually rebuilding health and life through a return to “basics.” No
time-streams to cross, no imperial fighters to dodge. There’s nothing magical about twice-weekly
visits for bodywork that can be expensive, herbs that taste like dirt, being forced to eat gross
vegetables that nobody likes unless covered with a thick cheese sauce. We haven’t even gotten
around to the importance of fiber!
But by taking the small step of acknowledging that food is medicine, and that we increase
the body’s healing potential by choosing food with qi in it, we can make a giant leap on the
road to recovery.
meant to substitute for the advise and treatment of a physician.
Copyright 2004 WCCIM and acunut.com
