Tag Archives: Food

How Acupuncture is Like Gardening

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I was out watering the garden this morning noticing how slowly things actually move in nature. We direct seeded a bunch of root crops and greens a few weeks ago and at first I felt a bit silly watering raised beds with only dirt in them. After a week, then 10 days, I started to wonder if the seeds we used were bad, or if something was wrong with the soil. Then I looked closer, and the tiniest little sprouts were starting to come up.

Now, I water these baby sproutlings with joy, and I know in my mind that in about a month we’ll start eating our own abundant homegrown greens. But in the present a month feels like a long time (though in retrospect I’ll wonder how a whole month managed to pass by). Or, I could go to the grocery store and get a bunch of chard right now.

As I was thinking about how slowly things move in nature, it popped into my head that acupuncture is a natural process that utilizes the body’s own healing ability to get back to a place of health. Yes, often people get immediate relief from pain, and some people even see other immediate results – they might sleep better, or feel less bloated after a meal, or have more energy – but often the relief isn’t permanent, until they’ve had enough acupuncture sessions to really lock the shifts towards health into place.

I think one of the challenges we have being patient to see results, is that often, by the time we’ve seek out intervention, we’ve already been patiently waiting for an issue to resolve itself on its own. We’ve used up our reserves of patience and perseverance and are ready for a quick fix. Ironically, the longer we wait, the deeper most issues have managed to get and the longer they take to fix naturally. It’s like weeding a garden, you want to pull the weeds out as soon as they sprout, the longer you wait, the harder they are to get out and keep out.

Next time your feeling impatient with yourself or with your body – whether it’s how long it’s taking you to lose some weight, or how difficult it’s been to get rid of sinusitis, or how long it’s taking to recover from an injury – go for a walk in a garden, or in the woods, or on a farm. Say hello the fallen tree trunk that is slowly being recycled back into the soil. Say hello to the big tree that’s decades older than you are. Say hello to the flower that took weeks, if not months, to germinate, and sprout, and grow, and bud, and blossom. You can even say hello to the rocks, that over the course of millions of years will be etched down to sand. And smile, and be grateful for the beautiful world around us, for all the reminders we’re given about how to live well, and for the resilience there is in our bodies and spirits.

Meat is on My Mind

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A few weeks ago I participated in the slaughtering and butchering of quite a few organic pasture-raised chickens. The idea was to get closer to my food. I figure if I eat chicken, I ought to have the experience of preparing them from the beginning. This isn’t a new or novel idea, it seems to be one that’s stems from a large food movement of people trying to reclaim agency over their food and have a stronger connection to its source.

Slaughtering and butchering a bunch of chickens no doubt got me thinking about meat consumption and it’s implications on our environments, psyches, and health. I was a vegetarian for about 3 years in college. While working on a farm one summer after college, I grew to understand animal’s role in healthy sustainable farming (and that eating dairy and eggs involves me in the meat world indirectly) and perhaps because of all of the hard work, I found myself craving meat. I decided that my body needed it, and started eating meat again, but in a very reserved way, maybe once or twice a week at most, doing my best to make sure when I do eat meat it’s from a good source (it’s easier to afford more expensive meat because of the infrequency with which I eat it).

When I started acupuncture school, I was confronted by new attitudes about meat once again. In general, the Chinese diet would encourage a semi-vegetarian diet. Meat in traditional Chinese cooking was used more like a spice, in very small amounts, to add a bit of flavor and nutritional value, and even then somewhat infrequently.

Certain pattern imbalances, most noticeably “Blood Deficiency,” strongly encourage the consumption of meat (especially red meat) to help “build blood.” Blood in Chinese medicine, in some way correlates, but does not refer to the Western Biomedical substance of blood. Blood deficiency can be (but is not always) the root the cause of a number of symptoms, from insomnia and anxiety, to dry skin and hair, itchy dry eyes, poor night vision, dizziness, and constipation. Things like poor diet, overwork (physical or psychological) and poor digestion can lead to blood deficiency. I noticed that many people exhibited symptoms of blood deficiency (myself included, often attributed to a history of vegeterianism and/or overwork) and were encouraged to eat red meat to help build blood, but this challenged other values I have, and led me to explore other options (vegetables and herbs – basically red foods are good for blood: beets, tomatoes, goji berries, and dark leafy greens – chlorophyll is the blood of plants ), and try to understand this whole issue much more.

I also just started reading “The China Study” which is a book about diet and how eating a vegetable based diet greatly decreases our risks for many diseases, from cancer to heart disease. It’s very interesting and very well researched and I highly recommend it.

Then of course there’s the cultural issues surrounding the meat and when it’s eaten and how much (what’s Thanksgiving like without a turkey?).

In Chinese Medicine there’s a saying “Food is medicine and Medicine is food.” Many of our culture’s diseases come from improper diet, and strangely enough the “Standard American Diet” (SAD) is very similar to the Chinese medicine list of “What not to eat.” But it’s a complicated issue, and it’s challenging to figure out how to walk the line of sharing information about food and health, encouraging people to make changes, and making people feel bad for eating the way they do.

Unlike the chickens in my freezer, this is an issue I’m still dissecting, still working my way through.

A short video for a non-binary solution: “Weekday Vegetarian”

Squash!!!

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I LOVE Squash.  Fortunately for me, squash season is here!

The other night I made an acorn squash soup from a couple of squash we got from our CSA. Roast the squash with some butter, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and a bit of allspice and/or nutmeg for about an hour on 350⋄F. Caramelize some onions, with some garlic, throw in a bunch of fresh ginger, add in the roasted squash (scoop the meat out of the skin) add some soup-stock, and blend (feel free to add more spices now, to need – and you can also throw in carrots, sweet potatoes, etc).

Oh, and don’t forget to roast the seeds with some salt, pepper, and paprika (throw some curry on there for extra spice), full or protein and fiber (I found that 225⋄F. for about an hour and half was perfect).

To me squash (and pumpkins) are amazing because they’re like a full meal, they’re really easy to make, and they’re very nutritious. From a Chinese Medicinal point of view they help strengthen the digestion and improve qi circulation. Pumpkins can help treat eczema and edema, help keep blood sugar levels balanced (especially good for diabetics), and help clear our mucous from the lungs (Pitchford, Healing with Whole Foods). The spices generally used with squash and pumpkin (ginger, nutmeg, allspice) are generally very warming and can help with circulation too.

So, if you’re looking for a delicious, nutritious, and easy to make meal, look no further!

Nourishing Life: Food

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As a follow-up to my last post, I’m going to create a series in which I share some of my own personal ways of living healthfully in a world that doesn’t necessarily always support that. The concept in Chinese Medicine is called “Nourishing Life” and includes things like exercise, meditation, spending time in nature, and eating well.

So, below are some tricks I’ve found make eating healthfully a little easier and enhance the overall eating experience.

  1. Try to avoid processed foods – this one is become more popular and widely known. Processed foods are so much easier, because you don’t have to spend time or energy preparing them, but, often in the processing nutrients are lost, the qi (vital life energy) of the food disappears. I might argue that eating refined and processed foods is akin to wearing sunglasses with no UV protection…
  2. Buy a crockpot – and use it. Crockpots make preparing whole unprocessed unrefined foods easy. Throw a bunch of stuff in there at night, let cook overnight, and you’ve got breakfast, or lunch. Turn in on in the morning and you’ll have a nice hot dinner waiting for you when you get home…
  3. Eat with people you love – also, eat while you eat. Don’t watch TV, or read, or fiddle with the computer. Now, I’m the first to admit that I do these things occasionally while eating, it’s not an all or nothing game. But try, for one meal a week, or one meal per-day, to eat in company, in a calm environment at a leisurely place and enjoy your food.
  4. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables – everyone knows this one. We hear it over and over, yet I sometimes find myself not really eating too many vegetables or fruits. For me it’s usually, because the “easier” and “faster” foods aren’t fruits or vegetables, but that’s really another way of saying I’m more used to going for the bread.
  5. Make your lunch for work/school the night before – your sandwhitch might not be quite as fresh, but it’ll be a lot cheaper than buying one, and you’ll know exactly what’s in it (hopefully lots of veggies).
  6. Trade-off with friends – I’ll occasionally cook for my friends. I’ll bring them lunch one week, they’ll bring me lunch the next. It switches things up and lightens the burden of preparing food.

I’m sure I’ve got more and I’m sure I’ll be sharing them down the road. For now, that should do. Planning ahead is often helpful, and making things into  habits makes it all a lot easier.

As always, I’m curious about your thoughts and ideas…