The diet therapy of TCM Chinese Medicine Diet

The diet therapy of TCM

Chinese Medicine • Diet • Exercise( breathing exercise—qi gong) • Rest • Acupuncture and moxibustion • Chinese herbal formulas

TCM Food Therapy • The Art of Cooking and Preparing Food to help maintain optimal health • Let Food be your Medicine -- Hippocrates

Diet therapy in 5 -element • • • Fire -- Bitter Earth -- Sweet Metal -- Pungent Water -- Salty Wood -- Sour Bitter Sour Sweet Salty Pungent

5 Element Meat Sources

Diet therapy in 4 seasons • The pulse tends to be taut in spring, full in summer, floating in autumn, and sunken in winter

Features of four season • 四季氣候的特點 春溫 Spring: Warm 夏熱 Summer: Hot 秋燥 Fall: Dry 冬寒 Winter: Cold

How to diet therapy in four seasons? nourishing yang in spring and summer time, nourishing yin in autumn and winter time.

Spring • Spring is the season of new birth and new growth. According to TCM, spring belongs to the wood element and dominates liver functioning. • The principle of diet therapy in spring: – to protect and nourish liver.

Diet selection Good: Hot and sweet food Avoid: Sour and astringent food • Spring foods: Chinese yam, bamboo shoot and mushrooms.

summer • heart over-function, and there is too much yang qi flows outward to the exterior part of the body. • There are two principles of diet therapy in summer: – First: Focus on protecting heart – Second: The weather of long summer is usually wet. And the wetness hurts stomach and spleen. So we need to pay attention on protecting spleen

Diet selection • Good: Bitter food, sour and salty flavors • Avoid: Hot and ice-cold food • Summer foods: – bitter gourd, watermelon, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumber, wax gourd, lotus root, lotus seed, bean sprouts, duck and fish. • It is a Chinese tradition in summer to make soups for clearing summer heat, eliminating dampness and promoting digestion.

Fall • lung system, dominates the skin, respiration, body fluids metabolism • The dry weather usually causes an itchy throat, a dry nose, chapped lips, rough skin, hair loss and dry stools. • Principle of diet therapy in fall: – Focus on protecting Lung and ying energy

Diet selection • Good: sour and moisture food • Avoid: Hot and spicy food – Fall foods : lily bulb, white fungus, nuts or seeds, pear, lotus root, pumpkin, honey, soy milk

Winter • Winter is also a good time to boost the natural constitution of the body and improve symptoms associated with chronic conditions. • Energizing herbs such as ginseng, wolfberry, angelica, rhemannia root, can be used for this purpose. • Principle of diet therapy in winter: – Focus on protecting kidney

Diet selection • Good: Hot and spicy food • Avoid: salty and hot food – Winter foods: Mutton, beef, goose, duck, eggs, rabbit meat, Chinese yam, sesame, glutinous rice, dates, longan, black fungus,

Suggests • Eating native foods • eating locally-grown foods and those in season. • Natural, home-grown and chemical-free products are the most nutritious foods.

5、 external application about the women’s diseases

• The head is regarded as "the house of essential substance" in TCM, essence from the organs are gathered there, and blood and qi always flow through it. • Medicinal pillows can make the properties of herbs enter through the head.

• Treat: dizziness, poor memory, ear ringing, blurred version, anxiety, facial paralysis due to strokes, shoulder pain and jaw pain. • It also has been reported that these pillows are also effective for headache, insomnia, hypertension and neck problems.

• In TCM, the feet are the start of the three yin meridians and the end of the three yang meridians with more than sixty acupoints below the ankles. • Bathing the feet regularly can stimulate the acupoints, activate the flows in the meridians, and thus enhance body functioning.

Tuina--massage