Aren't raw foods better for you? This is the one question I am guaranteed to be asked when I bring up the topic of Chinese dietary therapy to a new patient. The issues surrounding this seemingly complex topic are actually very simple and clear.

To lay the foundation for this discussion, it is important to understand that it is a statement of fact in Chinese medicine that too much cold injures the Spleen. Through warm metabolic transformation, the Spleen cooks ingested food and drink and extracts from it the "clear essence" which is converted into Qi and Blood. Biologically, chyme (liquefied, partially digested food mass) does not exit the stomach until it is heated above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We are warm blooded, and any ingested substance must be heated before it can be digested and absorbed.

If I have heard it once, I have heard it a thousand times. "It's genetic" has become the number one excuse, bar none, for everything we have wrong with us. Cholesterol, heart disease, depression, obesity, you name it. Of course we have genes - we are physical. We have bodies. There is a physical mechanism for everything, without exception. We may not have found them all, but we will someday. With that in mind, how do you think of yourself? Are you a sack of chemicals which just happens to produce feelings and thoughts? Just because we can see how something functions, does not mean we understand why. The genetic / biochemical model is just a model, one of many countless models man has invented to try and explain himself. It is no more or less valid than any other model, but it is just a model. Like any model, it reflects only the beliefs and perceptions of the time and culture we live in.

I hope that some of the people reading this article find it disturbing that plastic cutting boards are now color coded. Animal foods are now so contaminated, that beef, fish, and chicken all require their own surfaces for preparation. It is my very strong feeling that if something is not safe to touch, we should not be eating it. The very recent changes in handling and cooking recommendations for animal products are not due to advanced scientific discoveries about the nature of viral and bacterial contamination. They are due to an unimaginably high level of contamination due to equally unimaginable methods of "animal production". Do you think chicken is better? Maybe fish? Keep thinking it as you have to sterilize everything that these foods come into contact with.

Low calorie diets are not in right now, but they will be again. It is my contention that one should not toss around terms like "carbs" and "protein" and "calories" without really knowing what they are. That they are something in food which makes you gain weight is the generic understanding people have. Diet soda is good because it does not have any. Things that taste good probably have a lot of them.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the importance of symptoms in Chinese medicine. It is meant to clarify the purpose of symptom evaluation, and to distinguish this from "symptomatic treatment". The reason I am writing this is because it is sometimes paraphrased back to me by patients, that I do not care what is causing their problem because I only treat the symptoms. This is incorrect.

Chinese medicine considers the individual presentation of symptoms to be a direct expression of the disease mechanisms at work. The only way to make a correct diagnosis and to administer an effective treatment is to properly evaluate symptoms. In fact, in Chinese medicine, proper assessment of symptoms leads directly to the appropriate treatment. This stands in contrast to Western medicine, where it is possible to consider only the general symptoms which define a disease, and then possibly administer a treatment that has nothing to do with the diagnosis.

Sprouts represent a unique category of food. They are the young seed and shoots of grains, vegetables, herbs, or legumes. Typically eaten raw, they are generally very beneficial to the digestion. The biomedical explanation for this is the high enzymatic activity of these young plants. Chinese medicine considers sprouted foods to be useful for treating stagnant food (technically, they disperse food and abduct stagnation). The two primary sprouted foods used in Chinese medicine are barley sprouts (mai ya) and rice sprouts (gu ya), which disperse food and transform accumulation resulting from undigested grain. Hawthorne berries, while not a sprouted food, are also a common food item used to treat food stagnation arising from undigested meats.

The Spleen manufactures Qi from the transformed essence of food and drink. In the Heart, this mixes with the extracted Qi of air and is transformed into Blood through a process known as red transformation. One of the five functions of Qi is holding (Qi transforms, transports, warms, protects, and holds). This capacity of holding gives it a tension. That is, there is potential energy in Qi. The potential energy of Qi is Blood, which is the realized potential of Qi. Blood possesses the lack of tension which results from Qi transformation (just as a spring relaxes once it is released), and imparts this quality into us. Blood gives the sensation of comfort and relaxation, and of smooth unimpeded movement. It is the physical substrate which imparts the Liver's function of free flow (see Benevolence - The Virtue of the Liver). Blood is the foundation for a fluid sense of self arising from rootedness and self-esteem, both in turn imparted by Blood. Qi is dynamic and creates movement, Blood is receptive and moves of its own accord. Modern cardiology understands that the heart does not pump the Blood, but instead acts as an accelerator for a circulatory system whose movement is self-generating. Qi creates hunger, Blood creates fullness. The relationship between Spleen Qi and Heart Blood is reflected in the Chinese herbal formula Gui Pi Tang, or Restore Spleen Soup.

I am often asked if it matters how long acupuncture needles are left in the body during a treatment. The overriding answer to this and to all questions pertaining to Chinese medicine is that everything matters. My belief is that the purposefulness of treatment creates order in the body. This occurs through the principle of resonance, which is governed by the Heart. Briefly, the creation of an orderly, resonating state will affect nearby systems. A familiar example of this is a tuning fork, which when struck will cause another fork of the same note to vibrate. This reflects the principles of resonance, coherence, entrainment, alignment, accordance, and correspondence. For more on this topic, see Propriety - The Virtue of the Heart.

It is a natural human belief that we are individually unique, and in so many ways we are. But there is little that any one person has or experiences that others do not as well. I am told by my patients, out of their frustration, that their friends, family, and co-workers seem better able to function than they are. They eat what they want, act how they want, and do not suffer the way they do. In short, that no one else has what they have. digestion, and emotion.

The awakened view of moderation is finding balance in one's own life and choices. The unconscious view of moderation is that whatever we do is moderate, and whatever everyone else does is extreme.

The majority of people who seek treatment with Chinese medicine (or any other form of alternative medicine for that matter) are generally concerned either with an acute pain or with some chronic condition which has not responded favorably to conventional treatments. Most people do not know, at least at first, that Chinese medicine can treat acute conditions such as injuries, colds, fevers, etc. The value of treating acute conditions with Chinese medicine is not just one of convenience or of being able to avoid the short term consequences of pharmaceutical intervention. The proper understanding and treatment of acute conditions is a critical component of long term healing. While in conventional Western medicine acute conditions are generally considered as isolated events, in Chinese medicine they are seen in a much larger context. There is an interpretive level of diagnosis which includes but is not limited to the importance of symptoms in relation to:

When people make dietary changes and see results, they are apt to continue with them. But when progress is not immediately apparent, the question arises "why bother". The question is a fair one. There are 3 primary reasons why people make dietary changes. The first is for health reasons - we want to get rid of disease, feel better, and live longer. The second is for some tangible goal - weight loss, sports performance, etc. The third is for some idealogical consideration or practice - philosophical, ethical, religious, spiritual, political, etc. All of these are valid reasons for making dietary changes, and each carries with it a form of expectation.