Every modality that falls under the umbrella of “natural medicine,” as Chinese medicine does, promotes nutrition and other lifestyle factors as a cornerstone of health. Although practitioners place differential emphasis on modalities within their profession, any Chinese medicine doc worth her salt is going to be able to provide you with dietary and exercise recommendations for your condition. The breadth and depth of the recommendations you get are, of course, going to be based on the doctor’s interest in that type of therapy as well as the strength of their training. At NCNM, we take a three term long course concerning nutrition and dietetics. Additionally, our Chinese herbs professors frequently refer to diet, since foods are the original (and often best) herbs. Our medicinary is making efforts to stock more commonly recommended dietary therapies, such as congee – a kind of rice porridge excellent for regenerating the Spleen/Stomach function. Other schools have varying emphases on nutrition and dietetics, as well as other aspects of lifestyle counseling.
Chinese Dietary Therapy
Chinese Dietary therapy is based on the same principles as the rest of the medicine. Foods and herbs are discussed with very similar language. Most frequently discussed are the properties of flavor and nature. I briefly discussed these elements in my article, What is Chinese medicine: Herbal medicine. The basics are relatively easy to understand. Flavor is an aspect of the herb that does include the experience we have when we put the herb in our mouth (common understanding of the word “flavor”) but also includes some aspects of the action of the herb. For instance, pungent flavored herbs/foods will likely have a “spicy” quality but they will also act like other pungent herbs in their dispersing nature. Aside from pungent, flavor can be sweet, sour, bland, salty and bitter. Nature refers to the temperature-like quality of the herb/food. This ranges from hot to cold, with several gradations in between. Nature is a very simple way to understand the yin yang aspect of food. Nature is a more ethereal quality, but has clear consequences. Very hot herbs are intensely moving and support the Yang of the body. Very cold herbs are intensely congealing and support the Yin of the body.
In general, your instincts about foods are going to correspond to the Chinese properties of foods/herbs. What would you think watermelon would be classified as – cold or hot? If you said cold, you’re right. That’s why it’s such a great food for beating the negative effects of summer’s intense heat! What flavor would you expect watermelon to have – see the quick list above to remind yourself. If you said sweet, you’re right! It’s really quite simple in most cases. Some are a little counter intuitive, but the experience of thousands of years of Chinese medicine practitioners have led them to classify the foods in this way. When we take this information seriously, we have great results.
When you visit your practitioner, if you ask him for dietary recommendations he will treat it much like he treats herbs. He will consider your condition (whether it is deficiency or excess, whether it is hot or cold, internal or external, yin or yang, what organ systems are involved, what the movement of seasonal energies in the environment require, etc…) and recommend foods or recipes intended to support your body’s balance. Sometimes foods will be prescribed instead of herbs in cases where the patient is very sensitive, is on many pharmaceuticals that react badly with herbs or very adverse to the taste of Chinese herbs. The doctor may also prescribe foods and recipes as an adjunct to treatment, either helping to improve the digestive function to properly assimilate the herbs or to accentuate the effect of the formula.
A good doctor, regardless of their country of origin, will quickly come to understand the dietary preferences of the patient population they are serving. This is important because some of the doctor’s instinctive recommendations may be far out of the dietary experience of the patient. For example, while sea cucumbers are an excellent Jing and Blood tonic, American patients of European heritage are unlikely to be open to preparing and eating them. Fortunately, there is much culinary integration going on in most of the United States – so foods like tofu, edamame and various Asian vegetables are more frequently encountered by average patients so are more likely to be accepted. There are resources available for Europeans and Americans to understand the flavor and nature of their preferred foods. The best example is Paul Pitchford’s Healing with Whole Foods
Lifestyle counseling in Chinese Medicine
This is one area in which I see some real room for improvement, at least in the clinics I frequent as well as at my school. The way a patient acts when they are not at the clinic is one of the most important factors in the pace and success of their healing process. Regardless of how great my diagnosis and acupuncture skills are, regardless of how perfect the formula is for your condition if you go home and eat steak, potatoes with butter and sour cream, half a bottle of wine and a gallon of ice cream – we’re in trouble. Because of this, helping the patient to discard old habits and find new ones is an essential skill for every Chinese medicine student and practitioner to master.
This is no small task! Many people are strongly opposed to changing their fundamental habits – so many are adopted for comfort’s sake, and no one wants to give up comfort. Add to this the cultural barriers that arise when a practitioner is not part of the dominant culture in their country of practice and you have a sub-optimal situation. I believe that every Chinese medicine school should include a rigorous sequence about lifestyle counseling that includes education around issues of diversity (racial, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, gender, etc) as well as information and strategies concerning navigating people’s resistance to change.
Lifestyle counseling includes recommendations about daily habits, exercise, spiritual practice, relationships, job related difficulties and any contemplated life changes such as taking a new job. Because all of these parts of a person’s life have a direct impact on their health – they must be addressed by a competent physician who has come into a trusting relationship with the patient. As a patient, it is important to begin the work of understanding the intimate connection between daily activity and the development of disease.
One unique contribution that Chinese medicine makes to the realm of lifestyle counseling is the emphasis of modifying behavior on the basis of seasonal energy. Because the seasons bring very different environmental conditions for most places, they require very different activity on the part of the creatures living there. We need only watch the behaviors of wild animals to get a general feeling for the right kind of behavior. In the spring, things are waking up! There is a lot of new activity and desire to “get moving!” Animals eat the new green shoots of plants and often eat much less than they do in other seasons. We can mimic this behavior during spring, with special additions for our special faculties as human beings – such as setting plans for new activities for the year and making new relationships with those around us. Chinese lifestyle counseling is at its best when it takes seasonal variation seriously.
These are the absolute basics of Chinese medicine as it relates to nutritional therapy and lifestyle counseling – please share with me your understanding and experience of these vital aspects of the medicine in the comments!
Eric
Tags: Acupuncture, food, dietary-therapy, Chinese herbs, seasonal-living, nutrition, flavors, habits
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thanks good article
Thanks for the information, great article. So much can be learned from this perspective of medicine.
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