Nutrition is our first defense. It is important to look at what you eat during your journey of healing. 
What a person ingests can affect their healing: decreasing symptoms or it can make them worse.
In Chinese medicine, we consider things in addition to the vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates of food, we consider the direction of energetic movement (ascending or descending), temperature (cold, neutral, warm, hot) and what chinese organ network (the channels/meridians) it enters.

Cold, an obvious example is ice cream milk can cause phlegm normally, the cold shock to the stomach can disrupt the digestive capability of the stomach. Yes, cold water can do this as well. Cold usually is downbearing influencing the spleen and in excess can lead to loose stools. In treatment, cold foods, clear heat and supplement body fluids and blood.

The following are also examples of cold:
  • Cucumber
  • Eggplant
  • Spinach
  • Tomato
  • Seaweed
  • Salt
  • Soy
  • Duck


Warm and hot foods are a bit more obvious as many appreciate hot and spicy foods and the sweats, pore and sinus opening. In excess, though this can deplete the body fluids.

The following are examples of hot and warm foods
  • Ginger
  • Cinnamon
  • Chili
  • Beef
  • Fennel
  • Chicken​
To use food's healing properties effectively to gain the greatest benefit, it is best to have an appropriate Chinese medicine diagnosis. 
In general, it important to eat a balanced diet of mixed colors (natural phytochemicals produced in the plant) and temperature properties. Despite what mainstream media might lead you to believe, I and others in healthcare do believe that there is a major difference in the quality of food in relation to how it is grown. Portland is fortunate to have a plethora of farmer's markets that tend to have a great selection of fruits and vegetables, as well as meats that are pasture raised all the way through their life cycle. Which means that they are eating what they evolved to eat for centuries whether that is grass or bugs, but never grains and corn.
Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food -Hippocrates
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