Cool Down Summer Tip #1: Eat Red Foods

When Summer's in full swing it’s easy to see why Fire's the element associated with the season according to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). With temperatures coming to a peak, we have to look for ways to cool our skin and bodies down. Aside from the obvious ice, A/C and fans, there are other ways to topically and internally cool down. One way is by eating “cool down Summer” produce.

Cool down Summer foods have natural cooling properties for skin and body. 

“The warming and cooling properties of a food have less to do with actual temperature, cooking temperature, spiciness or even individual ingredients—and more to do with the food’s balance and contrast among ingredients and the effect of these on the body when the food is ingested. TCM categorizes foods as cold, cooling, neutral, warming and hot.”—Yin-Yang Foods That Make You Feel Better, from bottomlineinc.com

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In Summer, we naturally gravitate to cooling (yin) foods. Nature ensures in such a timely way that we have all the most perfect seasonal and local cooling fruits and vegetables we need and in abundance.

Note: The higher quality of cool down Summer foods we consume, the greater our health, wellness and happiness.

“The quality of the raw materials is very important when you cook for health and happiness. High quality natural and organic foods are the ideal ingredients for daily use. They are the building blocks for a healthy and happy life.” —Aveline Kushi, author of Changing Seasons Macrobiotic Cookbook: Cooking in Harmony with Nature

When we eat in harmony with the season, we're going to feel better physically, mentally and emotionally. You want to be able to always “keep your cool” and cool down Summer foods can help you even mentally and emotionally.

“… just as nature and our levels of activity change constantly, so should our food and methods of preparing it change in accordance with our needs… By being conscious of the changes in nature and in your body, you can adapt to them and realize the highest possible physical health and spirit.” —Michio Kushi, contributor to Changing Seasons Macrobiotic Cookbook: Cooking in Harmony with Nature

Cool down Summer food prep should be different than for the other seasons.

During Summer, we intuitively know that stews and soups aren’t right for the season. We organically gravitate to crisp, fresh, live foods like salads. If we cook a meal, it should be a light sauté unless we grill outdoors.

Grilling outdoors on an open fire aligns very much with Summer’s element of Fire.

Cool down Summer foods are foods high in water content to give us a natural cooling effect.

In Summer, we get to enjoy high water content, sweeter and juicier produce that helps to cool our bodies down.

You ‘extinguish the Fire’ by eating high water content produce.

Though drinking lots of water during Summer to stay hydrated is important, eating juicy high water content produce helps you stay hydrated too. Nothing’s more enjoyable than biting into a juicy peach or red grape during Summer.

With mass transportation methods of today, fruits like citrus and apples show up in your produce department during Summer. But they’re not the fruit of the season and therefore not ideal to eat during Summer. Though they’ll offer you water and some cooling, they’re more closely aligned with Summer’s opposite season: Winter.

In TCM Five Element Theory, each season and element has a color. As a general rule of thumb, choose the food of the season’s color. It’s an easy way to identify best foods to eat in harmony with the season.

• Summer/Fire: RED. Eat lots of red foods during Summer. May 6 to July 19

• Between Seasons/Earth: YELLOW. Eat plenty of yellow foods during the four interseason periods of the year. January 18 to February 4; April 18 to May 5; July 20 to August 6; October 21 to November 7

• Fall/Metal: BLUE/WHITE. Eat a good amount of white foods during Fall. August 7 to October 20

• Winter/Water: PURPLE/BLACK. Eat an abundance of black or blue-black foods during Winter. November 8 to January 17

• Spring/Wood: GREEN. Eat bunches of green foods during Spring. February 5 to April 17
  

Here’s a list of cool down Summer foods courtesy of ChineseMedicineLiving dot com.

(See chart above for a visual list.) TCM considers non-red foods in this list to also be cooling foods for Summer:

• Apricot

• Cantaloupe (member of the cucurbit family)

• Watermelon (member of the cucurbit family and quintessential cool down Summer food)

• Strawberries

• Tomatoes

• Lemon

• Peach

• Cucumber (member of the cucurbit family)

• Orange

• Asparagus

• Sprouts

• Bamboo

• Bok choy

• Broccoli

• Chinese cabbage

• Corn

• White mushroom

• Snow peas

• Spinach

• Summer squash (member of the cucurbit family)

• Watercress

• Seaweed

• Mung means

• Cilantro

• Mint

• Dill

• Bitter gourd

• Mung beans

• Wax gourd (member of the cucurbit family)

• Lotus root

• Lotus seed

• Job’s tears

• Bean sprouts

• Duck

• Fish

…

Cool down Summer food recipe: Watermelon Cooler

• 2 cups watermelon flesh

• 1 cup young Thai coconut water

• 1/4 cup lime juice

• raw blue agave to sweeten and to taste

Run a few seconds in a high speed blender with some ice and enjoy.

Healthiest Fall Foods Are White Foods

In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), color doesn’t only reflect the energy of each of the five energetic seasons. Color indicates ways and gives us clues about how we can live in harmony with the season. TCM’s colors of energetic Fall are blue (yang energy) and silvery white (yin energy aspect).

The colors for all five seasons of TCM are:

• Spring: warm green and teal

• Summer: red and purple

• Between seasons(1): yellow and ochre

• Fall: blue and silver white

• Winter: deep violet and black.

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White foods are Fall Foods.

White foods will help fortify your health during energetic Fall.

The white foods we mention here we suggest as complements to your diet or as seasonal replacements for certain fruits and vegetables.

TCM is all about balance so keep this concept in mind when you’re in the throes of Fall food prep. And just because white foods are optimal during Fall, don’t eat white foods to the exclusion of most others.

The organs of Fall in TCM are lung (yin) and large intestine (yang).

Our skin is so closely associated with the element of the season, Metal, and particularly associated with the lungs that TCM refers to the skin as our third lung. Lung needs to be strong enough to keep the dryness-causing wind out during Fall.

White foods nourish the lungs. TCM considers white foods clear foods which are very beneficial for skin and for nourishing the lungs at a time when our bodies need good lung energy the most. 

Pear is just about as efficient as apple in Autumn. Its nature is cold and nourishing, balancing the yang in our bodies and helping to prevent dryness and coughing. Its properties are particularly activated when adding white flesh pear to warm soups.

White or snow fungus is one of the most popular fungi in the cuisine and medicine of China and is very nourishing to the skin. It can also help reduce lung damage caused by smoking. It has a refreshing taste and is best used in sweet soups along with pear mentioned above.

Some flower bulbs can be eaten and are enormously nutritious. The lily bulb is one of them. These bulbs can be gathered in Autumn, cleaned and sun-dried. The lily bulb’s nature is moist and it helps to pacify emotional anxiety and uneasiness as we transition from one season to the next. Consume sun-dried lily bulb with white fungus and honey or sautéed with garlic and celery.

Lotus seed has strong properties for healing colds and reducing fevers. Use less than a handful of lotus seeds (purchased in Chinese grocery stores and pharmacies) and make a warm, sweet soup with the above-mentioned ingredients (pear, white fungus and lily bulbs). Cook all together with some crystallized cane sugar (not common refined sugar) on low heat.

The water chestnut is very good for clearing the lungs and again, very beneficial for people who smoke. 

White beans are very detoxifying and rich in minerals. They also contain a little known trace mineral, molybdenum responsible for manufacturing a number of detoxifying enzymes. They fight against the storage of energy as body fat and their high antioxidant content provides anti-aging properties.

Abounding in vitamin C, lotus root helps to maintain the integrity of blood vessels, organs and skin. (Vitamin C is both antioxidant and an important component of collagen.) Lotus root can be steamed, stewed or fried.

To treat dryness that comes with Autumn, here is a more exhaustive list of white foods that can be very effective. They can help clear heat, promote fluid production and moisten the lung.

• almonds

• apple

• bamboo shoots

• cauliflower

• hempseed kernels

• jicama

• sun-dried lily bulb

• lotus root

• lotus seed

• pear

• pine nuts

• rice

• tofu

• water chestnut

• white bean

• white fish

• white fungus

• white mushrooms

• white radish

• winter melon

…

Endnote:

(1) Between seasons relates to the four 18-day transitional periods of the year sandwiched between each of the four major seasons. Earth is the element of these between seasons periods of the year.

Source:

Liu, Zhan-Wen, et al. Health Cultivation in Chinese Medicine. Peoples Medical Publishing House (PMPH), 2012.

30 Fun Ways to Get More Green Into Your Diet

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) tells us the Spring energetic season (February 5 to April 17) is all about the sprouting of new life. TCM assigns two shades of green to Spring’s element of Wood: warm green (yang) and bluish green (yin). And during energetic Spring it’s important to nourish our bodies with life-giving, detoxifying green.

Not everyone enjoys green leaves and vegetables but what follows are a number of novel and fun ways to make sure you amp up your diet with green and enjoy the deliciousness of it too!

While most of these ideas provide ways to creatively add greens and green foods to your entrees and side dishes, don’t be afraid to make green the main event!

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1. Scramble your eggs with cooking greens or add them to your frittata.

2. Add fresh fruit like strawberries to make your highly nutritious spinach salad more interesting.

3. Make a batch of green pesto to have on hand for adding to dishes like pasta or for garnishing dishes like scrambled eggs, soup or roasted veggies.

4. Learn to sprout! It’s so easy to do right in your kitchen with some mason jars, cheesecloth and sprouting seeds. In just a couple days you’ve got green sprouts absolutely brimming with nutrition that you can add to salads, add as soup garnishes or throw in your smoothies.

5. Learn to identify wild edible greens and pick them. Some might be in your backyard or favorite local forest preserve.

6. Everybody loves nuts and seeds so add them to your salads. Not only will they provide texture but lots of nutrition too.

7. Add a handful of spinach or other green to your favorite smoothie to make it green. We suggest spinach ‘cause it won’t alter the flavor intent of your smoothie.

8. Garnish your soups with parsley or cilantro.

9. Never miss adding a beautiful green leaf to your sandwiches. Experiment. Go beyond iceberg or romaine lettuce.

10. Garnish your sandwich plate or even top your salad with dehydrated kale chips. Depending on the sauce massaged into the kale before dehydrating, kids will love eating them instead of potato chips.

11. Add a handful of fresh basil, leaves and stems, to your blenderized soups for a subtle flavor enhancement and nutrition boost.

12. Add green legumes like pea pods and green beans to your side dishes for color, texture and vitality.

13. Learn to make a mean tabbouli. With the main ingredient being parsley, this minted salad is incredibly fresh tasting and you’ll feel so much better about yourself after eating it! You can sub quinoa for the bulgur wheat, if you prefer, and it will taste just as great.

14. Fold finely chopped parsley or spinach into your mashed potatoes or alfredo sauce.

15. Mush some not overcooked broccoli into side dishes for texture, flavor and nutrition.

16. Make some avocado topped toast or spread your toast with a mélange of peas tossed with a small amount of olive oil, quartered grape tomatoes, and edamame. Avocado toast is a current wellness trend!

17. Add shaved or grated courgette (zucchini) into your salad.

18. Have a nice spinach salad or other green leaf salad for breakfast. It’s a fantastic way to start the day.

19. Explore fresh green herbs (oregano, rosemary, basil, dill, cilantro, chervil, chives, tarragon) and learn how to add them to your dishes for an added dimension of healing and flavor.

20. Make green bean “fries” for an awesome snack. Toss washed whole green beans with a bit of olive oil, and then garlic granules, salt and pepper to taste, and munch!

21. Make your wrap sandwiches raw wraps using collard greens, bibb lettuce or swiss chard leaves; you can do the same when making tacos, too.

22. When puréeing your homemade hummus, throw in a half cup of spinach; it will lend a green hue to the hummus and give you added nutrition, but it won’t alter the flavor of the hummus.

23. Top your burger with lightly sautéed greens.

24. Make green dips; spinach-artichoke is always nice.

25. Make simple homemade green salad dressings in your blender; throw six to eight dandelion greens in the blender along with a cup of soaked raw cashews, a half cup of soaked raw sunflower seeds, a cup of water, a squirt of lemon juice, a half teaspoon of turmeric and Himalayan salt to taste and blend until smooth. Delish.

26. Double the amount of green vegetables and half the amount of animal protein in your dishes.

27. Be a sneaky chef; purée some greens and add them to marinara sauce or grate or finely mince the greens and add them to your burger and meatloaf mix.

28. Wilt your greens like spinach, arugula, mustard and dandelion greens; you can add them to your favorite dish or eat them straight with a little salt and pepper and a dash of olive oil.

29. Slightly blacken bundles of bok choy, broccoli or asparagus spears for a unique taste and nutrition treat.

30. Consume blue-green algae like spirulina or aphanizomenon flos aquae before or after meals or even before bed.

Best Foods to Eat During Energetic Spring

Even after energetic Spring begins February 5 (according to traditional Chinese medicine [TCM]), we still experience the remnants of the Water energy of Winter. Though TCM says Spring has arrived which is the new energy of the Wood element, it's challenging to think Spring.

TCM tells us we can enjoy our best health and vitality when we live in balance with the change of the five energetic seasons and their corresponding elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water).

As humans, we exist an inherent part of nature. It makes sense to live in balance with nature to enjoy our best life.

Embrace the following attributes, characteristics and specific organ activity for the Wood element and Spring season.

If you’re affected by liver problems (the organs associated with Spring are liver and gall bladder), it’s a sign your body may be suffering from insufficient or lack of Wood chi.

You can strengthen your Wood chi by consuming more Wood element foods which tend to be sour in taste (sour is the taste for the Wood element). Sour foods facilitate clearing an overburdened liver.

Wood element foods act as astringents and help the blood to circulate, your energy to flow, and emotions to move more elegantly through you.

Eating fresh greens during this season naturally cleanses the body of physical and emotional impediments. 

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Wood element foods are cooling and contracting and prevent leakage of body fluids. If you’ve been indulging in a rich, greasy diet, you’ll want to switch to the Wood element foods at this time. 

Refer to the exhaustive list of Wood foods below.

Additionally, there are some herbs and spices we can use in springtime food prep that have a sour taste: dill, sour jujube fruit, and hawthorn berry.

Certain pungent and sweet foods such as scallion, garlic, cinnamon, fennel and ginger tend to have an expansive, rising quality. They are very nice to add to springtime meals and will help you resist colds and allergies.

As always, avoid or reduce consumption of foods and drinks that have little redeeming value for the body such as deep fried foods, oil, fat (aside from the more beneficial oils and fat content derived from olive, avocado and coconut), salty foods, spicy foods, alcohol, and sweets.

While we slow cooked our food in Winter by preparing stews and hearty soups, best cooking methods for the Spring energetic season are sauté, stir fry, light simmer, blanch, quick boil, pickle, and marinate.

At this time of year, our diet should be the lightest to enable our systems to cleanse and strengthen the body, mind and spirit.

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Best Foods for Wood Element (in alphabetical order)

• adzuki beans

• almonds

• baby spinach

• barley

• black cherry

• black currant

• blackberry

• celery

• cheese

• chicken

• chives

• cod

• collard greens

• grapefruit

• green beans

• green cabbage

• green tea

• halibut

• hazelnuts

• herring

• leafy greens

• lemon

• lettuce

• lime

• liver

• long string beans

• napa cabbage

• nuts

• oats

• olives

• peas

• pickles

• pineapple

• plums

• raspberry

• rose hips

• rye

• sauerkraut

• scallions

• sour grapes

• sour green apples

• sour green star fruit

• sourdough

• spinach

• sprouts

• tomatoes

• vinegar

• walnuts

• wheat

• yogurt

“Adapting itself to obstacles and bending around them, Wood in the earth grows upward without haste and without rest. Thus too the superior man is devoted in the character and never pauses in his progress.”  – Nei Jing (475-221 B.C.)

 …

Sources:

Nguyen, Phil N. Feng Shui for the Curious and Serious. New Jersey: Xlibris Corporation, 2008. Print.

Thunderhawk, Denise, L. Ac. The 5-Element Guide to Healing with Whole Foods. N.p.: Lulu, 2016. Print.

Eat Consciously. Get These Tips.

Most people are now aware that fast foods are generally bad for their health and that consumption of fried foods should be kept to a minimum.

There are many slimming diets on the market, but too often they are not balanced meals for proper ongoing nutrition.

We are all very different physically and so are our nutritional needs. It makes sense to try to find an approach that is adapted to you, rather than following government sponsored guidelines that are flawed. These guidelines treat everyone as if they were made by the same widget factory.

The concept that Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo outlines in his book, Eat Right for Your Type, makes sense because it recognizes our individual differences based on our blood type (one of four) corresponding to different metabolic capabilities and, consequently, different nutritional needs.

Ayurveda also teaches nutrition according to the three doshas or energetic types known as pitta, vata, and kapha. Ayurveda also illustrates the need to adapt to our specific composition or dominating energies.

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D. challenges, in an informed and documented way, what they call the “Diet Dictocrats” who are all the governmental and quasi-governmental agencies more bent on defending the interests of powerful corporate lobbies than promoting the well-being of the people.

Energetic Food: Traditional Chinese Medicine offers an approach to nutrition based on the five elements. That is the basis for the FoodScan program created by the German company, Medprevent whose approach is very complementary to the PHYTO5 method. And the work of Dr. Haas, author of Staying Healthy with the Seasons, is in total harmony with the PHYTO5 approach.

From an energetic point of view, it is good to remember that food releases energy during the metabolism process. Both the quantity and the quality of energy matter.

Food contributes to the vital energy that we need, but that energy comes with a certain bulk that needs both energy and oxygen to process.

It is advisable to eat what is energetically rich (natural nutrients) with limited bulk and to avoid what is abundant in bulk but limited in energy. In this respect, the model of good food is a genuine farm egg that is free of added antibiotics and hormones. It represents great concentration of nutrients for a small volume.

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The worst is any bulky food heated in a microwave oven that kills all the nutrients and remains void of vital energy. Many people have a bulk-rich diet void of nutrients and vital energy. As a result, they remain hungry and eat more bulk that eventually accumulates in their body. It becomes a vicious cycle. It is one of the real issues in the standard American diet, yet few people speak about it in those terms because the politically powerful food industry is more about bulk than nutrition.

The energetic quality of our food is either yin or yang.

Meat is more yang than vegetables. Red meat is the most yang; veal or pork are less yang; and poultry the least yang of meat.

Although, some fish, such as tuna, is quite yang, fish is more yin than meat.                                                   

Vegetables that grow in the ground such as potatoes and beets are more yang than leafy vegetables.

It is recommended to eat cooling or yin food during the strong yang season such as Summer and to eat yang food during the strong yin season of Winter.

It makes more sense to have a steak and mashed potatoes in the Winter than on a hot summer day when salads and fruit are more appropriate.

It is always recommended to eat the food of the season because they are in balance with the energy of that season. The color of fruit and vegetables is often used as a telltale sign of when it is best to eat them.

For example, yellow fruit and vegetables are recommended during the transitional Earth season happening now (the period of 18 days between seasons), while a (red) tomato is preferred during the Summer, the season of the Fire element according to traditional Chinese medicine).

More Than A Dozen Oh So Nutritious Black Foods for Winter

Traditional Chinese medicine’s (TCM’s) health encyclopedia, The Medical Classic of the Yellow Emperor (Neijing Suwen), gives clear guidance about how to live in harmony with each energetic season and its corresponding element (Spring-Wood, Summer-Fire, between seasons-Earth, Fall-Metal and Winter-Water).

The Medical Classic teaches us about the relationships of all the fives: seasons, elements, organs, flavors, moods, colors and more. It wisely instructs us in the ways of maintaining equilibrium of body, mind and spirit during the natural cycles of each energetic season.

The color is black for the energetic season of Winter which runs from November 8 to January 17.

So how do we harmonize with Winter with the color black?

One way is through the food we consume during this time.

Believe it not, the Neijing Suwen prescribes the consumption of black foods. In Chinese medicine, black foods are the best for Winter, green foods for Spring, red foods for Summer, yellow foods for late Summer and white foods for Autumn.

Black foods tend to be rich in inorganic salt and melanin. Inorganic salt can help promote fluid metabolism and it is a detoxifer. Melanin can help restrict nitrosamine (a carcinogenic compound) and thus prevent cancer.

FYI: foods containing nitrosamines include cured meats, primarily cooked bacon, beer, some cheeses, nonfat dry milk and occasionally fish.

We’ve included an interesting list of black foods in the next column along with just a smattering of their bountiful health benefits. One thing you’ll notice is a common thread running through these foods: antioxidants! Black, deep purple, nearly black foods contain lots of them!

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Black foods tend to be overlooked in our diets and are just as nutritious as eating green foods which are already commonly accepted as ultra healthy. 

Black foods abound in natural plant pigments called anthocyanins (derived from Greek meaning “flower” and “blue”). This is what makes cherries red, blueberries blue, and blackberries black. Actually, most black foods are blue-black or almost black. The darker the pigment of the food, the more anthocyanins are present. Anthocyanins belong to the flavonoid class of molecules and are essentially, antioxidants. The seed coat of black soybeans contains the highest recorded amount of anthocyanins.

During energetic Winter, balance your black food intake with yellow-orange vegetables, tubers and gourds. Put the emphasis on eating warming foods. Warming foods tend to be yang, promoting circulation and metabolism and placing an upward, outward influence on the body.

Now’s the perfect time for stews and soups. Many of the following ingredients can be incorporated into your one-pot meals, especially black garlic, black lentils or beans, eggplant and black polished rice. Have fun! Yum!

Some health benefits of anthocyanin in black or nearly black foods: 

• Combatting and prevention of cancer

• Anti-aging effect

• Reduced risk of hardening of the arteries

• A more efficient fat burning metabolism

• Decreased cholesterol and improved blood circulation

14 Nutritious Black Foods That Satisfy and Contribute to Preventive Health:

1. Black sea salt (also known as Kala Namak): high sulphur content is very good for your skin

2. Black pepper: stimulates food digesting enzymes

3. Black currant: immunomodulatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory

4. Black tea: loaded with antioxidants

5. Black polished rice or Forbidden rice: loads of vitamin E for immune system

6. Black soybeans (also known as kuromame): enormous anthocyanin content; see health benefits of anthocyanins below

7. Black lentils: loaded with iron

8. Blackberries: may help reduce cognitive decline in older age and fiber rich

9. Black beans: full of bioflavonoids that protect against cancer

10. Black sesame: enhances bone health and helps you sleep better

11. Black fungus (also known as wood ear),: rich in iron and vitamin K, regular consumption can help prevent atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease.

12. Black garlic: contains twice the antioxidant levels as fresh garlic; it is made by heating whole bulbs of garlic over the course of several weeks, a process that results in black cloves, a process which appears to double its antioxidant content

13. Eggplant: packed with antioxidants, vitamins and minerals

14. Kelp: a major source of iodine, kelp helps regulate the thyroid gland

15. Black mission figs: anti-cancer, fiber-rich, antibacterial

…

Sources:

http://www.rd.com/food/fun/skip-the-greens-6-healthy-and-trendy-black-foods/

http://www.naturalnews.com/040968_black_tea_chronic_inflammation_foods.html

https://dailyhealthpost.com/top-7-black-foods-with-powerful-health-benefits/

Hou, Joseph P. Ph. D. Healthy Longevity Techniques: East-west Anti-aging Strategies. Authorhouse, 2010. Print

Best Eating Practices for Energetic Fall

Any time we come to the conclusion of an energetic season in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), it’s smart to check in with your diet. Make sure you're aligning your eating practices with the season. When you live in harmony with the spirit of the season and nature, you’ll live a more vibrant life.

In the case of energetic Fall, observe the season. Notice that our natural environment is beginning to slow down and contract. It’s preparing to rest for the Winter. 

If we choose to align ourselves with nature’s current seasonal behaviors, we’ll slow down, too. We’ll sleep a little longer, become a little more contemplative and inwardly focused and we’ll eat warming, nourishing foods, especially foods that nourish the lungs, the organ associated with Fall. 

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Best eating practices for energetic Fall include eating lung clearing and moistening foods (lung is the organ associated with the season) like apples, pears and persimmons. Sounds like it’s time for some fresh baked pie!

Foods with gently pungent flavors strengthen the lungs and should be balanced with sour foods which work to protect the skin against attack from the winds of Autumn. 

Gently pungent flavors come from herbs and spices like basil, coriander, bay leaves, capers, cardamom, chives, cinnamon, cloves, dill, fennel, ginger, oregano, nutmeg, rosemary, safflower, thyme, and turmeric. More powerful pungent flavors such as white pepper, garlic, chilies, onions and horseradish are best to use sparingly at this time. Gently pungent vegetables include cabbage, leeks and turnips.

Sour foods to balance the pungent might include sauerkraut, sour plums and apples, olives, pickles, lemons, limes, grapefruit and yogurt.

The Fall energetic season is the time when we may tend to eat less salads and raw foods while cooking our food at low temperatures for longer periods of time. For example, steam your food rather than do a quick stir fry. Or make some hearty, slowly cooked and simmered stews and soups that include navy and lima beans which are very good for the lungs. Begin phasing in to your soups and stews root vegetables which we will soon even more heartily use in the Winter.

Using small amounts of Himalayan sea salt in your cooking will help alleviate dryness caused by windy Autumn.

Autumn is a time of establishing a rhythmic order. There is a downward energy, grounding our bodies, minds and even our food into the earth. It is the ideal time to focus on the colon as life energy contracts and will prepare for a dormant state in the winter. Autumn is associated with white, and also the time of year our “white” foods are at their peak. They are the digestives and immune boosting foods such as: apples, pears, cabbage, cauliflower, garlic, and leeks.  – Kate Kennington, Holistic Health Coach

Here’s a list of supportive nourishing foods to incorporate into your best eating practices for Fall as we build our immune systems in preparation for Winter:

1. almonds

2. apples

3. apricots

4. asparagus

5. bananas

6. basil

7. bay leaves

8. black pepper

9. broccoli

10. cabbage

11. capers

12. cardamom

13. cauliflower

14. celery

15. cheese

16. chilies (sparingly)

17. chives

18. cinnamon

19. cloves

20. coriander

21. cucumber

22. dill

23. fennel

24. garlic (sparingly)

25. ginger

26. grapefruit

27. grapes

28. Himalayan salt

29. horseradish (sparingly)

30. leeks

31. lemons

32. limes

33. miso

34. mustard greens

35. navy beans

36. nutmeg

37. olives

38. onion (sparingly)

39. oregano

40. pears

41. persimmons

42. pickles

43. radish 

44. rice

45. rosemary

46. safflower

47. sauerkraut

48. sour plums

49. sourdough bread

50. soy beans

51. sweet potato

52. thyme

53. turmeric

54. turnips

55. vinegar

56. walnuts

57. white pepper (sparingly)

58. yogurt

All About FOOD for the Energetic Earth Season

The fifth or transition season between seasons according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In TCM, we call it the Earth element season. It runs until August 6 when energetic Fall begins.

In Chinese medicine, our bodies are microcosmic mirrors of the world. They are hemselves small worlds containing all the energies and elements of the Earth. Our bodies are fully connected to our environment whether we live as if we realize this or not.

Our organ systems, our emotional beings, our energies, even our personalities will reflect the color, the energetic characteristics, the flavors, the sounds, the tastes, the direction and the striving for certain perfections of the season.

Because we’re so intrinsically connected to our environmental world, our bodies must change as our environment changes.

When we move into the Earth transition season of late Summer (according to TCM), the 18-day bridge period between energetic Summer and Fall, our diets should change.

We should adjust our way of eating in a way that builds and tones the body. Mild tasting simple foods are best. As we get ready to move into energetic Fall, we need more fat and proteins than with our previous Summer diet.

We might start craving more sweets at this time. Be sure to choose smart sugars like those below as much as you can.

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Here are some of the best naturally sweet foods to eat during energetic Earth season:

• millet

• rice

• corn

• amaranth

• carrots

• parsnips

• sprouts

• potatoes

• sweet potatoes

• lettuce

• apples

• cabbage

• peas

• cucumber

• dates

• figs

• grapes

• olives

• peaches

• pears

• squash

• tomatoes

• apricots

• cantaloupe

• kidney beans

• string beans

• walnuts

“The Earth Element has a strong influence over the fifteen days surrounding each of the two equinoxes and two solstices (7-1/2 days before and after). These are neutral buffers between the seasons, which change at the equinoxes and solstices. These interchange periods represent pivotal pauses in the light patterns we experience from the sun, the center of our solar system… To attune with the seasons, choose some foods for each meal that harmonizing and represent the center–mildly sweet foods, yellow or golden foods, round foods, and/or foods known to harmonize the center… – Healing with Whole Foods, Paul Pitchford, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 1993.

Season your food minimally with onion, leek, ginger, cinnamon, and fennel. It is now time to begin purifying and cleansing after a season of summer fun and indulging.

Now that we know what to eat, it is also important to acknowledge how we eat them. With stomach and spleen being the organs of the system, we want to assist them to function most easily by practicing more deliberate eating, chewing and digesting. Eat more slowly and with consciousness. Pay attention to portion sizes also.

Take a short rest after eating and follow it with some sort of movement. A simple short walk will assist digestion.

Late Summer is associated with community and mealtime. Share meals with friends in the open air, if possible, and take a walk en masse.

Our digestion represents and is located in the core center of our bodies. When the stomach and spleen organs are balanced and healthy we obviously will be full of vitality and energy. As a result, we will be more productive in our work and able to fulfill our responsibilities.

If our digestion is out of balance with the Earth season, we will experience fatigue, lethargy, lack of motivation and stuck behavior that prevents us from being truly creative.

Poor digestion and imbalance with Earth will show up as nausea, abdominal bloating, loose stools, loss of appetite.