It’s no secret that as people start to sense the arrival of spring, they go a little nuts. As an acupuncturist, I believe there’s a physical reason for that. People are directly connected to the natural world. As the world unfurls itself from winter to create new life, we get revved up. Springtime in the acupuncture clinic brings an array of maladies borne of that special recklessness.
The resultant pathology depends on the person’s own tendencies. I, for one, used to herald the coming of spring with an injury, literally launching myself into obstructions in my haste to get out in the not-warm-enough-yet weather. In addition to sprains and strains, the typical spring ailment hovers in the head cold/sore throat/allergies/headache range.
A simple – but remarkably effective – way to stay well in the spring is to downgrade to a light scarf and hat. People too quickly discard scarves and hats in favor of the weather to come, rather than the weather that is. This leaves vulnerable acupuncture points on the head and neck open to spring’s moody and invasive weather.
The system responsible for defending the body from all forms of injury has its root in the stomach qi. So one of the best things we can do to stay well is to eat well. When we eat in a non-nourishing way, our defensive qi suffers and we cannot function at our optimum levels. A variety of problems arise. We might have a hard time focusing and creating. Our bodies could fail to fight off illness, or won’t fully heal. Maybe we chew thoughts over in our minds without ever fully digesting and releasing them.
Chinese medicine has its own particular guidelines about what, how, and when to eat. The guidelines are not based on nutrient content, but rather on the idea that everything in the world has a nature: I do, you do, iron does, and so does a chicken. When things interact – which they do whether or not we recognize it – stuff happens, usually in the form of a change. What happens when I eat a spoonful of almond butter depends on the interaction of my overall nature, the almond butter, and the conditions we’re in. It is not necessarily the same thing that happens when someone else eats almond butter – even in the same conditions.
What this boils down to is that there’s more to eating well than assimilating healthy ingredients. If you gathered everything listed in a pancake recipe and ate each ingredient one-by-one, you could not be said to be eating pancakes. Something happens when we combine the right ingredients in the right conditions. Suddenly there are pancakes where before there were none.
Eating well means eating regularly – but not constantly. It means eating cleanly – but not neurotically. It means feeding your whole body through your stomach – not just pleasing your taste buds. It means feeling incredible.
This article was originally published as Healthy spring: an acupuncturist’s view in the Spring 2013 edition of The Co-Optimist, a publication of Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op. It appears here with permission.
Pursuant to last week’s post about general good eating tips comes this week’s admonition: friends, eat a hot breakfast. Because hot breakfast makes a body feel incredible. Behold:
Hot breakfast is unequivocally awesome.
The hot breakfast I’m talking about here isn’t biscuits and gravy or oatmeal or a microwaved pastry or a cup of coffee. No, I’m talking about porridge.
It isn’t just for the English, folks. Nor are its benefits out-dated; it just has a terribly unappetizing, impoverished-sounding name. Porridge. And that’s too bad. But let us not forget that a rose by the name of porridge would smell just as sweet.
Serious sniffers know this thing would still smell incredible even if we called it “porridge.”
People of yesteryear didn’t just eat porridge because that’s all they had. They ate it because they believed it was good for them. If hot breakfast cereal has become unfashionable since the advent of chocolate rice puffs and dehydrated marshmallows shaped like horseshoes, that’s a reflection of the power of marketing and not of the power of porridge.
I’d wager that of all the self-care tips we give people throughout their course of treatment, implementing a hot breakfast strategy at home is the most permeating. Its influence is vast because the belly has long arms. In addition to soothing belly woes, hot breakfast helps other physiological processes that are dependent upon the stomach such as immunity, energy levels, and concentration.
Last week we used the analogy of a pot and a fire to talk about the human body’s digestive process. Routinely giving the body warm, easy-to-digest food in the morning is like providing ample wood to feed an even fire under that sweet pot. This in turn creates the foundation for appropriate physiological functioning throughout the rest of the day and the foreseeable future. This is why hot breakfast is so far-reaching.
When we first started making and eating hot breakfast porridge in acupuncture school, I lost about 5 pounds and Brian gained about 5. I had a surplus of fat; Brian had a deficit, and both surplus and deficit were corrected when our spleens/stomachs got the boost they needed to function more appropriately.
Since that time, we’ve become porridge dévotés. We slow-cook our grains for about 7 hours in the crock pot. It’s like making chili; you get the ingredients in the same pot, leave them alone, and together they make magic. Before cooking, we soak the grains overnight in water because grains are best digested when they’ve been soaked. Click here for a series of excellent posts on the subject, as well as discussion about phytic acid found in grains and legumes.
Soaking and slow-cooking are distinguishing factors between what we’re calling hot breakfast and something like instant oatmeal. Instant oatmeal may be hot and it may be breakfast, and it’s certainly better than a cold breakfast or no breakfast – but it’s still not “hot breakfast.” It’s as different from hot breakfast as a January Brazilian tomato is from an August tomato from your yard. They’re only the same in name; in experience they are different in kind.
After our porridge has cooked to the point that the grains have broken down beyond al dente, we blend it all with a wand blender and refrigerate the batch. Then we heat up each day’s portions in the morning while the baby chimes “Hot breakfast! Beets!” in the background. (I’m not making that up. But, then, she’s never had chocolate.)
We eat hot breakfast every morning, and when we travel we bring it with us in mason jars. We typically arrive with more breakfast than clothing options. I am fully aware that to some family and friends, this is bizarre. I am also quite sure that they are used to us by now, and accept it as one of our lovable oddities. Our steadfast porridge plan doesn’t mean that we never enjoy pancakes or croissants or omelettes. We do. We just have them as second breakfast. First breakfast is always porridge.
Porridge is limitless in its composition potential. You can do a vegetarian, fish, or meat version. It can be sweet or savory, thin or thick. We often change our recipes when we’re feeling creative, bored, or like our bellies need a different kind of support. Some batches are incredible, some batches are flops, but we’ve fiddled around with all manner of hot breakfast recipes: Mama-to-be Porridge (when gravid,) Mama porridge (when post-partum,) Daddy Porridge (for the hard-working man,) Summer Porridge (lighter than,) Winter Porridge (heavier, with more meat.)
Here’s a basic recipe for you to get started with:
Powerful Porridge
Base recipe:
1 c grain of choice
1 qt stock
4-8 c water (Varies widely based on personal preference and cooking temperature in slow-cookers.)
Combine grain and 4 c water in a slow cooker (e.g. crock-pot). Soak overnight (optional: add 2 Tbl whey, yogurt, buttermilk, or lemon juice.) In the morning, add stock and cook on high setting until the liquid comes to a boil. Then turn down to low setting for about 6-7 hours. Stir occasionally.
Add extra water if the cereal becomes too thick or starts sticking to the pot. Your cereal is done when its consistency is smooth like rice pudding. Add salt to taste. Portion it out in serving-sized containers for easy heating in the mornings. Dilute if desired when reheating.
You may want to substitute different grains to the base recipe and make additions like vegetables (especially root vegetables), beans, meat, or nuts. It is usually best to cook these additions separate and then add then in the last 30 minutes of cooking.
Portion size will vary depending on the belly, the state of its woes, and how good your porridge is. I usually eat about 2 cups each morning. Brian’s bowl is somewhat fuller than mine. Play around with it, but remember that this is your breakfast. It’s not like a side of grits.
You could also add some spices to your day’s batch – ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon are nice options. Some people like nuts, raisins, and honey. Others prefer a bit of spring onion and sunflower seeds.
Once you get into a groove with making and eating hot breakfast, prepare to be amazed at how much the foundation of your life strengthens as your stomach gets what it needs.
What we eat and how we eat it greatly influence how we feel. Understanding the process and preferences of your digestive system will help you to get the most nourishment from your food. In Chinese medicine, dietary therapy is often considered the first step of treating disease. It can help you to feel more energy, alertness, and overall health.
Digestion pertains to the earth element. It is the foundation on which overall health is built. The earth element signifies the possibility for a stable center, both in the body and in one’s life. This means having steady resources to support not only physiology but also how we think and feel. In one’s life, the health of the earth element is reflected in the state of one’s home and in how – or if – one cooks.
The organs and channels associated with the earth element are the spleen and stomach. Their job is to transform everything we eat and drink into nourishment. This process is not all that dissimilar to cooking a soup. If the stomach is likened to a pot, then the spleen (sometimes considered the pancreas) is the fire underneath, and the soup in the pot is the food to be digested. As the soup cooks, it changes, and the end product is very different from the various raw ingredients. So, too, the food in the stomach is transformed and made ready to be transported to nourish and energize the body where it is needed.
Digestion does not always go so smoothly. Sometimes the fire gets smothered, the soup gets burned, or the cook quits. Here are some ways to promote healthy digestion and overall health:
Enjoyment: Let eating be enjoyable and relaxing, not something to belabor with inflexible regimentation. The guidelines set out here are intended to help you get started in paying attention to your body’s needs because the best way to know your own optimum diet is to start noticing how you feel after you eat. Then you can fill your diet with the foods that make you feel best.
Chewing: The mouth is your one chance to break down food into the form that the spleen and stomach need. Inadequate chewing often results in poor digestion and upset to these organs. A good rule of thumb is to chew your food until you can no longer distinguish what you ate by its texture, i.e. when it no longer feels like what it was.
Environment: Pay attention to your eating environment and make any necessary adjustments so that it is relaxing, enjoyable, and suitable for assimilation. This means focusing your body’s energy on digestion by sitting and refraining from distractions like reading, watching television, or heated discussion.
Habits: Don’t stand and eat. Find a nice sitting spot and stay put until you’re finished. Be careful not to overeat. If your belly feels full after a meal, there may not be enough room in your stomach for the food to move around and be digested efficiently. Some say that this means stopping while the food tastes best. It also means eating regular meals and healthy snacks so that you are not excessively hungry at a meal. Your body does best if it has nourishment coming in regularly throughout the day. Also, eating a late dinner (after 7 p.m.) tends to strain the stomach qi.
Quality: Take a look at the ingredients listed on the foods you buy. Avoid trans fats (aka partially hydrogenated oils), artificial sweeteners, and high fructose corn syrup. The best way to ensure good quality is to cook your own meals.
When possible, it is best to use fresh, organic, local food. The benefits of this are too numerous to adequately list here. Here’s one of our favorite sources of information. And here’s another. And love this one.
Raw v. cooked: Because the stomach is the cooking vessel and the spleen the cooking fire, foods that are already cooked – or already soup-like – are more easily digested and assimilated. This isn’t to say you should only eat soups, but eating cooked meals is preferable over raw ones. Raw foods are excellent for clearing heat, which is why a salad is so appealing on a hot day. But asking the stomach to assimilate raw ingredients during cold weather – or in the absence of heat – is demanding. Eventually, the digestion will suffer.
I am prone to musings as a function of my character, but I also believe this is a function of autumn. It’s a natural time to reflect and to wax philosophical before retreating into winter and the year’s end. It’s our last stroll on the veranda before shutting ourselves indoors until spring.
In acupuncture theory, each season is connected to an element, an organ system, an emotion, a sound, a color, an odor, an animal, a direction, a flavor, and probably lots of other things, too, that I’m forgetting because I don’t understand them as well. This connection isn’t a random selection of items thrown together in a bargain bin marked “Fall”; it is a recognition of the interdependency and similarities of life as a whole. In this post I’ll examine the element, organs, and emotion associated with the fall and offer a few do-it-yourself tips to remaining healthy this season.
The organs associated with fall are the lung and the large intestine. These two organs are the yin (lung) and the yang (large intestine) of the metal element. Hang with me if that sounds crazy, because it’s really pretty interesting. The elements that we’re talking about here are not the same as the periodic table of elements, for example. They are not fundamental bits of matter, rather they are explorations of the nature of the world. The five elements are water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. Each of these elements has its own expressions in the mind and body.
Metal is about letting go. Successful letting go is conscious, repeated letting go.
That’s why the lung and large intestine belong to metal and not to another element. The lungs receive air, but they have to let it go, or the body dies. You can’t just inhale and exhale once and think “Yep, did that. What now?” And it’s even more unpleasant to imagine death by a large intestine that can’t let go. You don’t just check defecation off your list of worldly accomplishments. It has to keep happening, or you can’t go on.
Consciousness is important to the metal element. The lung, as the most exterior of the organs, is the one most easily controlled by the conscious mind. Without much effort you can choose to manipulate your breath in a way that you probably can’t manipulate your heart or your spleen. You can also hold your large intestine back from its functioning, should you choose to do so. But can you do the same with your small intestine? Also, when consciousness leaves the body in death, the lung and large intestine both release their contents.
Another important aspect of having a happy, functioning metal element is routine. Breathing regularly and pooping regularly makes things go much better for a person than not doing these things, and sometimes one helps the other. The lung, which governs the immune system (the defensive qi,) needs routine attention and care to be able to efficiently ward off illness. It also needs the large intestine to eliminate that which is no longer useful.
The metal element is also associated with inspiration (a word whose root is connected to the breath) and grief. If we are blocked up with our own poisonous thoughts and emotions, how can we hope to be inspired? Grief is a natural part of letting go, and appropriate grief helps us to clean out the lung qi and allow for the arrival of new experiences and insights. A visit to certain points on the lung and large intestine channels can help people weather their grief. It’s pretty normal for people to be reminded of old sadness and loss this time of year.
I remember a patient once told me that every fall she found herself revisiting an old trauma from her childhood and she had a congested chest. Because of her unresolved grief about the situation, her lung was vulnerable when the world around her was letting go.
What do I mean that the world around her was letting go every fall?
I mean it quite literally. In autumn, the growing things of summer drift into a trance of dryness until they eventually wither onto the ground. They hang out there a while and seem to gradually melt into the earth. That’s called composting. Similarly, the residue of our experience can enrich our lives… if we properly manage the rotting process. If not, we end up with a slimy, pestilent, fly-attracting mess. Or maybe just a persistent cough.
Either way, you can love your metal element by implementing a few quick and easy habits:
wear a scarf, even indoors. Consider it part of your outfit. It is perhaps even more important at this time than your undergarments. A scarf protects acupuncture points that are vulnerable to “invasion” by illness. This helps out your defensive qi.
go to sleep at the same time every night. Even if you go to bed later than you should, your lung will thank you if your bedtime is regular. The defensive qi comes into the chest at night, and it could use the rest.
eat juicy local fruits like apples and pears. The lung is easily offended, and it’s pretty rude to pretend that it’s still summer by eating tomatoes and peaches from afar when you could eat seasonally appropriate fruit your neighbors grew. Eating in season shows a respect for routine and the rhythm of the natural world. This is pleasing to the lung.
eat some moderately spicy food. Don’t go popping jalapenos; I know how you spice lovers are. But consider putting curry or ginger in your squash soup. Too much pungency can exhaust the lung, but a bit enlivens it. If you sweat, you’ve likely over-spiced.
spit out your phlegm. Many, many, many people we see cough up phlegm and then swallow it. It is not rude to discreetly spit your phlegm into a tissue or a handkerchief. It’s okay to say, “Excuse me” and go deal with that. If the person you were talking to would prefer that you swallow your own phlegm, then I’d suggest not returning to the conversation after you spit.
defecate when you need to, even if the bathroom is a public one. Please. The world would be such a happier place if we all observed this rule.
come see us. We think your lung and large intestine are fabulous.
