Category Health Care
Heal Yourself With Food: Food Therapy For Yin Deficiency
What is yin? Yin is a very large concept in Chinese medicine. You may have seen the classic yin-yang or tai ji symbol depicting the balance between yin and yang. Yin makes up the shadows, night, anything damp or wet, dense substances, and cold. Women are considered more yin. Yang makes up the opposite: sunlight, […]
Heal Yourself With Food: Three Steps to Treat Fatigue and Qi Deficiency
What is qi? Qi (pronounce chee) is essentially our energy. The Chinese character for qi represents steam rising off of rice, and many scholars translate it as the substance without form that we get from our food and nutritious beverages. Our qi circulates through our body giving life force or energy to our muscles, our organs, […]
Heal Yourself With Food: An Introduction To Chinese Medical Nutrition
The backbone of Chinese medicine is learning how to use your food as your first line of defense against illness and imbalance in your body. In this way, your food is your first go-to medicine. If food alone does not correct the issue, then you need to add in stronger interventions such as acupuncture, Chinese […]
Ratatouille- King of the Summer Vegetable Dishes
Ratatouille 1 large onion 3 zucchini or yellow summer squash or a blend 4 medium sized heirloom tomatoes, or 8 roma variety sauce tomatoes 1 yellow pepper 1 red peppers 1 green peppers 5-6 long, narrow eggplants, or 2 of the big, fat, round variety 6-8 cloves of garlic ¼ cup of fresh thyme […]
Farmer’s Market Recipes: Green bean salad with mustard dressing and a side of meatballs
Warm Green Bean Salad with Mustard Dressing Ingredients: Two solid handfuls of green beans or purple bush beans 1/2 cup cremini mushrooms 1 cup parsley 1 small onion Dressing: 2 T cold-pressed olive oil 2 T whole grain mustard 1-2 tsp white wine vinegar optional: 1 tsp honey Cooking instructions: Rinse and trim the tips […]
What I Wish I Had Known About Women’s Health and Acupuncture When I Was Younger
As a teenager and well into my early twenties, I frequently suffered from dysmenorrhea– or painful periods. Everyone told me it was normal. Many of my matriarchs confided in me that they had debilitating cramps when their cycles started and well through their school years– painful enough to send them home from work and school. […]
Farmer’s Market Recipes: Chilled Pea Soup
Peas are back in season in Walla Walla and you can find them at the Downtown Walla Walla Farmer’s Market this coming weekend. Normally, I focus on warm, cooked, or lightly steamed foods to help make items more readily digestible, but I experimented with this recipe during a particularly hot time last year and could […]
Springtime tips for a happy liver
Spring is upon us. As many of us plot our gardens, and springtime yard projects, it is fun to check in how the seasons connect to our internal biorhythm. In Chinese medicine the season of the spring relates to the liver and the gallbladder. These organs have a rich relationship to the epic growth that […]
Balsamic Beet Salad Recipe
Balsamic Beet Salad Recipe Ingredients: 9 small beets 6 green onions 1 bunch/head cilantro 2-3 T balsamic vinegar 2 T olive oil 1/4 tsp ground pepper pinch of salt (optional, I often omit the salt) Directions: Chop the greens and the root tails off of the beets, and peel them. If you don’t want your […]
Excerpt from Chapter Two: The Water Pair: The Persevering and the Fear Monger
I am excited to announce that I am working on a book describing the relationship of Chinese medicine to our emotional and cognitive functions. I plan to release it in ebook form mid to late summer 2014. This is an excerpt from my book, Conquering Your Inner Demons: A guide to Emotional Health And Balance With Chinese […]
Stick Out Your Tongue 