Food as Medicine Goes Back Thousands of Years

Eating nutritious foods to keep yourself healthy and feeling good is critical, but did you know you can use food as medicine? Using food as medicine is the beginning of Chinese herbal medicine. It started with people using foods available to them to assist with keeping their families healthy during different seasons of the year while learning what helped to heal different ailments.

Eventually this became Chinese herbal medicine, but in Chinese medicine we still use that ancient wisdom to make suggestions for foods to avoid or eat more of for specific health conditions. And they really can help! For instance, if you are experiencing loose bowels, brain fog, fatigue, bloating and gas, I might suggest some foods to eat more of, like black beans, chick peas, squash and yams. And general food recommendations for these conditions are to decrease or avoid cold raw foods (salads, raw fruit, sprouts, raw vegetables) and excess sweets. For almost every health issue, there are foods that can help your body recuperate or better manage the problem, and also foods that should be avoided to reduce your symptoms.

As you can see, this can be extremely helpful alongside generally recommended nutrition guidelines. And don’t forget, nature provides what we need during each season. For example, during the winter you want to consider cooking more with ginger root, cinnamon, and cloves, as they all promote warming in the body, along with cooking more with bone broth and eating more winter squash and meats. In the summer, when it’s hot and we easily can become dehydrated, we have melons, cucumbers and other fruits and vegetables that naturally hydrate and cool us down. This is a great way to help your body stay its healthiest during each season of the year!

So, don’t just eat healthy. Pay attention to what issues your body has, adjust the healthy foods you’re eating to maximize your body’s efficient function, pay attention to seasonal foods, and feel better!

As always, if you have questions about what foods might help you the most for your specific health concerns you can make an appointment for a consultation where we can discuss your current health status and come up with a plan to help you address them naturally.