Food Cures
Understand how to incorporate food as medicine
Food Energetics, Shi Liao, is a way of understanding food that uniquely applies to each individual and their environment. With a basic diagnostic, together, we can assess your unique constitution in order to pair it with the foods that it is so naturally drawn to. Allow yourself to glow from within by offering your body the food it is asking for, for optimal energy and vital force.
For good health, there is nothing more important than eating well.
Steamed Pears and Honey
This is one of my favourite foods cures to recommend because of how simple and how effective it is. Where I live, we often find ourselves parched in the winter months. The cool air lacks moisture and the heat sources in our homes strip our living space of all humidity. While in some cases this is good, our throats and our lungs appreciate a little moisture, a little yin. Smoking, to much spicy foods, over working and sleep derivation can also all contribute to a yin deficiency showing up in the respiratory tract.
Slice a pear or two and toss them in a small sauce pan, cover with water and set to boil for 10 minutes or place pears in which ever contraption you might use for steaming veg. and steam until soft.
let cool for a few minutes and then drizzle with honey.
This is a great snack before bed if you are struggling with dry throat and dry cough at night.
Nourish and Enjoy
Food is Medicine
And your body knows exactly what it needs
The season, the way it is prepared, our geographical location and our constitutional essence are elements we can consider before we eat. In order to thrive in the environment we live in we must understand its energetic flow. How we flow within that environment changes depending on what we eat. Understanding these elemental constructs and the energy in our food is foundational in feeling good through the seasons. We can feel warmer, stronger and calmer through the dark, colder months. We can feel lighter during the grey and cloudy days. And we can feel cool and energized during the heat of summer. We can use recipes to help us adapt to the changes of the season, preventing colds and flus and we can use recipes to help us adapt to the changes of life, restoring our energy and grounding our emotions.
Food is a vital source of energy, lets embrace its nourishment!
Salads in the Summer but Not on a Rainy Day.
It would be incredibly rare for you to hear a TCM practitioner recommend a salad. Not impossible but rare. Here's the thing about salads (and smoothies) and our digestion. Imagine a hot pot of boiling water, steam is rising. This system offers the body a great deal of Qi. But if you throw a bag of ice on it, it will take a lot of energy to warm it back up. Your digestive tract is the pot of boiling water and the ice.. that's your salad or smoothie.
Do I condemn salads, Heck no! But I encourage balance and seasonal awareness.
Try not to have salads in the dead of a cold winter or on cold rainy day. They offer dampness and coldness to the body and it will make it worse during these seasonal patterns. If your digestion feels weak and your energy is quite low, moreover you wake feeling unrested, consider cooking your foods for easier digesting and absorbing.
Enjoy your salad when you are warm and the weather is hot. This may even assist you in feeling cooler.
You can also warm it up and dry it off a bit by adding pungents. like a ginger or mustard vinaigrette with parsley and radishes. You might also try pairing it with a small cup of tea or a bowl of soup to support the stomach who enjoys warmth and moisture.
be kind and gentle to all parts of you.