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Eat your way to health.

Food is a powerful medicine. Everything you put into your body has a cumulative positive or negative effect. Simple changes in your diet can have profound benefits. Drastic alterations are unnecessary and even counterproductive. You can begin to make small, common sense choices to reduce unhealthy foods and eating habits.

Prioritizing shelf-life extension and price undercutting has resulted in excessive processing of food products. Many items you find in conventional supermarkets contain artificial fats (trans-fatty acids or partially hydrogenated oils in most cookie and cracker products) and sweeteners (sucralose or SPLENDA® – a chlorinated compound – now in Diet Coke, high fructose corn syrup in most juices), pesticides (organophosphates on fruits and vegetables), and hormones (rbGH in milk, estradiol and zeronal in beef). Others undergo irradiation (gamma ray, electron beam, and x-ray sterilization of food) or genetic engineering (molecular alteration of food).

Your body attempts to handle these modified foods. However, given its remarkable adaptive abilities, problems are not immediately apparent. You can sidestep this preventable risk by getting informed. Besides knowing to avoid foods with certain types of ingredients, you can learn to consume foods that contribute to your health.

Chinese medical nutrition offers a way to use specific food properties to maintain health and prevent disease. In this system, the therapeutic function of food is related to its flavor (sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, and salty), its nature (cool, warm, cold, and hot), and its meridian propensity (such as towards the Lung or Spleen meridian). The goal is to choose foods that moderate imbalances in your body's unique condition.

For instance, sour foods such as plums and olives treat the Liver; they contract and constrain and can decrease fluid discharge and stop coughing. Bitter foods such as radishes treat the Heart; they dry and cool and can lessen inflammation. Sweet foods such as yams and carrots treat the Spleen; they boost and harmonize and can improve digestion and reduce fatigue. Pungent foods such and garlic and cinnamon treat the Lungs; they disperse and move and can eliminate pain and ease colds. Salty foods such as seaweed and fish treat the Kidneys; they drain and and soften and can clear water retention and dissolve lumps.

 Whenever appropriate, nutritional advice is offered during your visits. This additional aspect of a healthy lifestyle will supplement your acupuncture, tuina, and herbal treatments.