I have been cooking since I was eight years old and come from families with a rich cooking history. My kitchen is one of the places I am happiest. While my training comes directly from my mother and grandmothers, I have also trained more formally in the culinary arts. I have worked in professional kitchens and owned my own catering business for two years. I believe deeply in the power of food for healing.
Like most other acupuncturists, I learned about food energetics in acupuncture school, which offers a single course on nutrition. And while the class is very useful, it leaves practitioners mostly with the ability to provide a list of seasonal foods and others that might benefit one’s constitution or diagnosis. These features don’t always sync—the list of “spring” foods (e.g. green vegetables) may benefit some but not others. It truly depends on an individual’s constitution, how the food is prepared and eaten. The salient feature of Chinese medicine food energetics is one size does not fit all—regardless of season.
I had always thought that dietary therapy would be part of my practice but the pace of community acupuncture left little time for me to incorporate it fully. Most often, I’d print out a list of foods for people that might help—with little to no instruction to go along with it. Unless someone was a motivated cook, it was likely not too useful.
During the initial lockdown of the pandemic while the clinic was closed, I began to immerse myself in Chinese medicine food energetics. Information rolled out daily as we began to discover who was most vulnerable to COVID-19. An article from the New York Times was particularly striking, “How Poor Diet Contributes to Coronavirus Risk.” Not only does this article explain that “African-Americans, Hispanics, and people in poor communities” were more adversely affected but it relays the striking statistic that “Only 12 percent of Americans are without high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or pre-diabetes.” Another is, “Despite our nation’s ability to produce so much healthful food, fewer than one American adult in five is metabolically healthy.” And our metabolic health is one marker that indicates the strength of our immune system. When people suffer from “metabolic syndrome — excess fat around the middle, hypertension, high blood sugar, high triglycerides and a poor cholesterol profile” their immune system is “suppress[ed]” and they are at higher “risk of infections, pneumonia and cancers.”
Food is medicine. These days dietary advice is rampant and confusing. The food energetics outlined in Chinese medicine are not a fad; they are time-tested over 5000 years. Learning to eat well and prepare foods for yourself and people you love is one of the most important skills you can have to maintain your health. It is one of the most valuable things that I can provide for you. I don’t expect people to become chefs, but I am happy to help people make these daily acts (cooking and eating) easier and more nourishing for you.
If you are interested in learning about this new service follow this link.