HOW TO EAT
● Eat meals at regular times. Avoid both excessively large meals (eat until your stomach is ⅔ full) and constant snacking. The digestive system needs downtime when it’s not called upon to digest and absorb food.
● Chew your food thoroughly before swallowing. This both physically breaks down the food and stimulates the digestive enzymes in your saliva. It also forces you to eat more slowly. While it’s not always possible, eating in a calm environment (not watching TV, working, on the go, etc) can also help.
● Pay attention to your posture during and after eating. Sitting in a twisted or scrunched up position impairs the function of the digestive organs.
● Light exercise on a daily basis (especially stretching) helps the digestive system. Try taking a light walk after meals.
WHAT TO EAT
● Try to replace wheat products (bread, pasta) with other types of grains, such as quinoa.
● Make sure you're eating enough protein to help regulate your blood sugar. You can make your own trail mix with walnuts, almonds, and raisins, or whichever types of nuts you prefer, if you need something between meals.
● Make sure you get the dark leafy greens (spinach, kale, collard/mustard greens, broccoli etc), but light stir-fry is better than raw. Steamed, and slow-cookers are great too. And if you cook in a cast iron skillet you'll also get a bit of iron.
● If you do eat something raw like a salad, try balancing it out with some ginger tea to stimulate digestion. BUT try not to drink a lot of fluids with your meal, wait at least 30 min before and after.
● Curry spices are great at stimulating the digestive system (turmeric, cumin, coriander, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, etc), and are anti-inflammatory.
● Regarding fruits, try to focus on the red/purple juicy ones like blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, grapes, raisins, dates. (Everything in moderation though- it's still sugar). Try to limit citrus and bananas.
● You might also consider taking a good quality probiotic for a few weeks. Most of the ones you can find at Walgreens for instance have a low potency that's OK for maintenance, but not strong enough if you're trying to give your body a good boost. You'll want one that's 100-300 billion CFU (colony-forming units, the amount of little critters in it). You can take it for two weeks and then taper off. You can find good ones at Whole Foods.
WHAT NOT TO EAT
● Sugar (including high fructose corn syrup, honey, agave nectar, and all other sweeteners), grains (including wheat, rice, and oatmeal), and starches (potatoes) impose a heavy burden on the digestive system. Eliminating sugars, grains, and starches from the diet is the most important place to focus your attention.
● Uncooked and cold foods. Think of cooking as a “pre-digestion” of your food. By cooking the majority of your food, you are significantly lightening the load on your digestive system – it does not have to work as hard to extract nutrition from your food. Please understand that this does not mean that you have to cook your food until it is gray – for instance, vegetables should be steamed or stir-fried just long enough to brighten their natural color. Although cooking may destroy some nutrients, it makes the remaining nutrients much easier to assimilate, so the net result is better nutrition. Slow-cooked foods like soups and stews are especially good in colder months.
● Iced drinks are especially harmful to the digestive system. Although it is a difficult habit to establish, learning to enjoy your beverages at room temperature is a healthful step to take. It is especially important to follow this guideline if you experience symptoms like fatigue, loose stools, cold hands and feet, dizziness when standing up, and aversion to cold.
● Sweet foods. According to East Asian Medicine, each flavor “enters” a particular organ. Sour enters the Liver, salty enters the Kidney, pungent enters the Lung, bitter enters the heart, and sweet enters the digestive system. Small amounts of a flavor serve to boost the function of the organ that it enters, but large amounts or foods that are very intensely flavorful weaken their respective organs. All grains are classified as sweet foods in Chinese medicine, as are fruits, pastries, candies, etc. As you might expect, most American diets are very heavily weighted toward the sweet flavor and are not balanced with very much of the pungent, sour, or bitter flavors. (An example of a pungent food would be horseradish, an example of a sour food would be pickles, an example of a bitter food would be kale.) This imbalance serves to weaken the digestive system. In addition, the sweet flavor is inherently dampening, meaning that it leads to the generation of excessive fluids and phlegm.
● Unhealthy fats, such as hydrogenated fats, fried foods, and most vegetable oils. These foods make the digestive system sluggish and reduce its efficiency. Dairy products can also fall in this category. Healthier fats to use for cooking or baking include grass fed butter, coconut oil, and olive oil. These are just some general tips to get you started.
If you have any questions, we can chat at your next acupuncture session!