I had a great time chatting with a healthy and beautiful lady and hers regarding holistic medicine and in particular, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), during a hike yesterday. One question I received is about turmeric, something I have heard a few times, for example: I love eating turmeric with tofu at night, would that be good for my health?
Oh yeah turmeric, now it is available more than ever in conventional Western supermarkets, from Trader Joe's to Safeway to Costco, just to name a few. However, there are some subtle things that are not discussed. The short answer is: Turmeric is a good thing, but when it comes to the benefits? It depends. As with any other "good natural thing" in the world, one person's meat can be another's poison. For your optimal well-being, I include a brief review of nature of food from TCM perspective as well as the turmeric specific information here. :)
Understanding Yin and Yang Foods
According to Eastern traditions the forces of yin and yang are energetic qualities that shape everything in the universe, including our health. The Chinese symbol for yin is the shady side of a hill, while the symbol for yang is the sunny side. Thus yin qualities include coolness, dampness, and darkness, relative to the yang qualities of warmth, dryness, and light. Winter is yin, while summer is yang, and night is yin while day is yang. Arthritis made worse by cold weather is a yin condition. A red, inflamed rash brought on by heat is a yang condition. A ruddy-faced, irritable man with high blood pressure is relatively yang. An anemic, melancholy woman is relatively yin.
Yin foods tend to be cooling and/or moistening for the body. Yang foods tend to be warming and drying. This has less to do with the actual temperature or moisture of the food and more to do with its “energetics.” Boiled spinach for example, is cooling and moistening, as is baked tofu. Chilled wine is warming, as is roast beef. Toast, while dry to touch, actually moistens the body. The effects of such food qualities on health have been observed for thousands of years.
By observing your body and understanding the energetics of food, you can make food and activity choices to speed your body’s healing progress. Imbalance can come from an excess, or deficiency, of yin or yang. Although more complex than this, the following is an overview of yin and yang patterns of imbalance and the food choices that can help restore balance. Your constitution is ever changing, so be sure you adjust with the seasons and your life situation.
Yin Patterns of Imbalance
Cold
- Tendency to feel chilled
- Urine tends to be clear
- Dresses warmly, likes heat
- Tendency toward loose
- Pale complexion stools
- Preference for warm food/drinks
- Slow metabolism drinks
- Soft, fleshy muscles
- Rarely thirsty
- Often tired, sleeps a lot
- Tendency to feel depressed
- Health worse in cold pressed weather
- Quiet, withdrawn
A cold pattern often occurs in vegetarians or those who eat primarily raw foods, especially when they live in the cold. Cold can also set in with age and may be combined with dampness. Regular, warming aerobic exercise is essential. Healing food choices include warm lamb or beef dishes, dark poultry, meat-based soups and stews, free-range eggs, eel, trout, and wild salmon. Beneficial vegetables include cooked root veggies, baked winter squash, onions, and mustard greens. Nuts and seeds are warming, as are butter, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, turmeric, and pepper. Helpful grains include oatmeal, quinoa, and buckwheat. Food and drinks are best eaten cooked and warm. Salads, raw fruits, frozen desserts, pasta, white flour, and iced beverages should be minimized.
Dampness
Dampness
- Strong dislike of humidity
- Stuffy nose, postnasal drip
- Health worsens in dampness
- Mentally “foggy”
- Abdominal bloating
- Retention of fluids
- Little thirst or hunger
- Overweight, soft fat
- Urine tends to be cloudy
- Puffy eyes or face
- Easily short of breath
- Feeling of heaviness especially in lower body
Dampness can be associated with cold or heat and is exacerbated by damp living conditions. Chronic dampness is brought on by eating on the run, excessive worry, or from a diet rich in fried foods, breads, pasta, commercial dairy, ice cream, and other sweets. Too many salads and raw fruits weaken digestion and lead to dampness. Aerobic exercise is essential for balance.
Helpful foods include lightly cooked greens including broccoli, turnip greens, asparagus, and kale. Fish and grilled or roasted meats and poultry are balancing. The best grains for a damp pattern are rye, jasmine, and basmati rice as well as sprouted grains. Radishes, turnips, pumpkin seeds, green tea, and bitter foods and herbs help to dry dampness.
Sweets, dairy, and starchy foods contribute to dampness. Ice cream, lasagna, white bread, and milk should be avoided.
Yang Patterns of Imbalance
Heat
Helpful foods include lightly cooked greens including broccoli, turnip greens, asparagus, and kale. Fish and grilled or roasted meats and poultry are balancing. The best grains for a damp pattern are rye, jasmine, and basmati rice as well as sprouted grains. Radishes, turnips, pumpkin seeds, green tea, and bitter foods and herbs help to dry dampness.
Sweets, dairy, and starchy foods contribute to dampness. Ice cream, lasagna, white bread, and milk should be avoided.
Yang Patterns of Imbalance
Heat
- Tendency to feel warm
- Tendency to be talkative
- Uncomfortable in hot weather
- Urine tends to be dark
- May suffer fever blisters, canker sores
- Dresses in short sleeves
- Tends toward ruddy complexion
- May suffer headaches, nose bleeds, bleeding
- High blood pressure gums
- Often thirsty, craves cold drinks
- Sleep often restless, disturbing dreams
- Tendency toward impatience, irritability or anger
- May be constipated
A heat pattern often shows up in hot weather or with stress. Overwork, alcohol, and sugar heat the body. Meditation, walks in nature, swimming, and/or yoga are ideal for balancing the agitated nature of a heat imbalance. Ideal foods are salads, cucumbers, and lightly cooked green leafy vegetables especially spinach and watercress. Vegetables of all kinds are helpful whereas meats should be limited.
Other cooling foods include melons, pears, bean dishes, mung beans, sprouts, sushi, non-spicy soups, and lots of water. Alcohol and sugar are best avoided. Mint is a beneficial cooling herb whereas pepper, garlic, ginger, and onions should be reduced.
Dryness
Other cooling foods include melons, pears, bean dishes, mung beans, sprouts, sushi, non-spicy soups, and lots of water. Alcohol and sugar are best avoided. Mint is a beneficial cooling herb whereas pepper, garlic, ginger, and onions should be reduced.
Dryness
- Dry skin, dandruff
- Cravings for sweets
- Dry stools, constipation
- Preference for warm liquids in small sips
- Dry throat or eyes
- Night sweats
- Menopause
- Can easily become both hot or cold
- Thin body type
- Easily stressed, irritated or frustrated
- Rosy cheeks, especially after exercise
A dry pattern is a deficiency of yin, or fluids. Hormones, skin oils, saliva, digestive juices and secretions provide us our yin element. Fluids are akin to a car’s antifreeze; when low you can easily overheat or freeze. We see dryness at menopause, or as we age and skin becomes dry. Although hot flashes feel like heat, they are a sign of diminishing yin, which allows the normal heat of the body to go unchecked. Stress also depletes yin.
Remedies include meditation, yoga, walks in nature and gardening. Beneficial fats are critical. Healthful choices include fatty fish, free-range eggs, grass-fed butter, goat and sheep cheeses, olive and coconut oil, dark poultry meat, pork, nuts, and avocado. Soups and stews rich with grass-fed animal fats are very helpful. Other moistening foods include black beans, green beans, Napa cabbage, winter squash, yams, sea vegetables, millet, whole wheat, fermented soy, and shellfish.
All types benefit by choosing foods according to the seasons.
Summer foods such as salads, cucumbers, and melons are ideal for hot weather. Conversely meats, root vegetables, hot soups, and stews are most nourishing in winter. Pay attention to your body and choose the foods that naturally seem balancing.
Remedies include meditation, yoga, walks in nature and gardening. Beneficial fats are critical. Healthful choices include fatty fish, free-range eggs, grass-fed butter, goat and sheep cheeses, olive and coconut oil, dark poultry meat, pork, nuts, and avocado. Soups and stews rich with grass-fed animal fats are very helpful. Other moistening foods include black beans, green beans, Napa cabbage, winter squash, yams, sea vegetables, millet, whole wheat, fermented soy, and shellfish.
All types benefit by choosing foods according to the seasons.
Summer foods such as salads, cucumbers, and melons are ideal for hot weather. Conversely meats, root vegetables, hot soups, and stews are most nourishing in winter. Pay attention to your body and choose the foods that naturally seem balancing.
source: http://johnsonsacupuncture.com/Food_Choices_to_Balance_Yin_and_Yang.html
Ginger and turmeric are two powerful spices that have been used widely throughout history for both culinary and medical purposes. Using these spices in recipes provides a way to season a variety of foods without adding sodium or fat. As supplements, ginger has been frequently used in traditional and herbal medicines and turmeric has long been used to treat various physical ailments.
A lot of people like ginger. It is considered an important spice and very healthy too. But do you know if it is eaten improperly, it could harm you instead of helping your body?
Ginger Root
When to Eat Ginger?
There is a famous Chinese saying: If ginger is taken is the morning, it’s like drinking ginseng soup; If ginger is taken in the evening, it’s like eating arsenic (早上吃姜，胜喝参汤；晚上吃姜，如食砒霜）. And the other saying: If ginger is taken is Spring and Summer, it’s like ginseng soup; If ginger is taken in Autumn and Winter, it’s like arsenic. Basically, what it really means is that ginger is good to be taken in the morning and it will boost your body health. But if you take it in the evening, it’s very harmful to your health. It is good to take in Spring and Summer which can boost your health, but if it’s taken in Autumn and Winter, it will be harmful. Why is that?
According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) theory, Ginger is yang type of herb and good to promote yang dispersing. So if you catch a cold, you can drink ginger juice to get some sweat and disperse the cold out of your body. Yin and Yang is a very important concept in TCM world. All health problems eventually can be traced to the imbalance of Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang is relative and can be classified in so many aspects. For example, sun is yang, and moon is yin. Sky is yang and earth is yin. Fire is yang and water is yin. Body organs, tissues or substances are yin and the strength in your body is yang. Spring and Summer are yang , but Autumn and Winter are yin. Morning is yang and evening is yin. Qi is yang and blood is yin. Basically anything in the universe can be classified as the two opposite yet interdependent relatives of yin and yang.
Why It’s Advisable to Eat Ginger In the Morning Or in Spring or Summer, but Not in the Evening or in Autumn or Winter?
Ginger Root
In the morning, Yang in the body is trying to disperse so you have energy to do things. Ginger, which belongs to Yang type according to its herbal characteristic, could help boost yang. So it’s nice to eat ginger in the morning. While in the evening, Yang is gradually weakening, and is supposed to be concealed in the Yin so you can sleep. With ginger or any other type of very spicy or hot nature food, Yang is boosted to disperse instead of conceal itself. So it’s harmful to your body.
Similar theory applied to the seasonal diet. In Spring and Summer, Yang is comparatively strong and outwards. So ginger could boost its function in that nature. In Autumn and Winter, Yang is supposed to conceal itself inside of Yin. So it’s not good to eat ginger in Autumn or Winter.
But even in Winter, there is still morning time. So moderate consumption of ginger in the morning is still healthy.
Of course, this is the general health and wellness guideline. As long as ginger or other type of yang food (acrid, dispersing) is not over consumed, it should be fine. For example, as minor seasoning ingredient. Unless you have specific health issue that needs yang dispersing function in the evening or Winter time, such as catching cold, it’s not advisable to take it in such time frame. If this is done long time, it could cause yin and yang imbalance which will lead to certain health issue such as insomnia.
TCM emphasize nourishing your body every day with proper diet habit and not treating your body with medicine every day. So get some herbal knowledge and pay attention to certain diet. This will benefit you for long time.
source: http://www.clicktcm.com/one-myth-you-have-to-know-about-ginger-tcm/
The Healing Power of Turmeric
MARCH 22, 2017
By Emma Suttie, D.Ac, AP
Turmeric in India and Ayurvedic Medicine
Turmeric has been used in India’s diverse cuisine and is one of the main ingredients in curry, giving it that lovely golden yellow colour. Turmeric is also an important herb in India’s native Ayurvedic medicine which has been in existence for thousands of years – as long as Chinese medicine. Its many health benefits are well known in India and have been slowly revealing themselves to the West. Over the past few decades, science has been discovering Turmeric’s many healing properties.
Turmeric in Chinese Medicine
Turmeric has also been used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years. The Chinese herb Yu Jin is the turmeric tuber and is an herb that benefits the spleen and stomach. The herb enters the heart, lung, liver and gallbladder meridians and is used to invigorate blood and remove stagnation from the body. It is spicy, bitter and cold. Yu Jin is used to move blood and qi stagnation and is especially good for pain. It is used for menstrual pain (often from qi and blood stagnation), traumatic injuries, enlarged liver and spleen as well as liver cirrhosis. It is used to clear heat and cool the blood and to treat conditions like bleeding disorders, both internal and external. Yu Jin is also able to treat mental disorders that are due, in Chinese medicine, to disturbances of the heart and Shen like mania, seizures, derangement and epilepsy. Also, because of its ability to treat damp heat, Yu Jin is able to treat jaundice as well as gallstones. It is a hard working and versatile herb!
How to Take Turmeric for Maximum Absorption
Curcuminoids are the compounds within turmeric that are beneficial for health – and curcumin has been studied the most extensively and is the one proven to have the most powerful healing effects thus far. The problem with eating turmeric (and many other medicinal foods) is that the liver inhibits much of its absorption, meaning that we only receive a small percentage of its beneficial effects. The liver is, of course, doing its job of filtering out compounds that may be harmful to us such as medications and toxins that are unhealthy, but some good stuff gets filtered out in the process as well. The good news is that there are a couple of ways in which we can increase the ability of the body to absorb curcumin so that we can receive the maximum benefit from its many healing effects.
Eat Turmeric with Beneficial Fats
Eat turmeric with beneficial fats like coconut oil, olive oil, and avocado to maximize its absorption. Because curcumin is fat soluble, it needs fats to be absorbed by the body properly. Without it, curcumin has a hard time being absorbed into the gut and bloodstream and all of that healing goodness is being flushed out of the body instead of being used to keep you healthy and to ward off disease.
Mix Turmeric with Pepper
The active ingredient in black pepper – piperine – is a compound that normally causes the body to get rid of what it considers to be too much curcumin. Apparently, the absorption of curcumin is increased by %2000 or more with just a small amount of piperine. So adding a bit of black pepper to your turmeric recipe will really boost its healing effects!
Some of Turmeric’s Health Benefits
Turmeric’s active ingredient curcumin is able to treat many diseases from diabetes to cancer. Scientific research is proving that turmeric has an impressive number of medicinal properties that treat a wide range of diseases. In many scientific studies, turmeric has been shown to be as beneficial and sometimes more beneficial in treating diseases than pharmaceutical medications. It also has no side effects, unlike many conventional treatments.Turmeric has also shown strong evidence of being a preventative herb, helping to ward off many diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Turmeric belongs to the ginger family and is the main ingredient in many curries, and the ingredient used in mustard that gives it its yellow colour. It has been used throughout the centuries as a medicinal herb, a textile dye and is one of the most prized spices in the world. India is the world’s largest producer followed by Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, China, Jamaica, and Haiti. Turmeric is high in manganese (it contains %26 of our recommended daily intake) and iron (%16 of recommended daily intake) and is an excellent source of fiber, vitamin B6, magnesium, vitamin C and potassium.
Below is a list of some of the ailments that turmeric is able to treat and how adding this wonderful spice to your diet can benefit your health and help to prevent disease.
Cancer Treatment and Prevention
Science has now discovered that turmeric’s active ingredient curcumin is effective for fighting just about every type of cancer as it targets cancer cells via many different pathways. It is also non-toxic as it does not target healthy cells and affects only cancer cells. Turmeric also has the most evidence-based literature supporting its cancer-fighting properties compared to other herbs.
Turmeric is also a good spice to include in your diet for cancer prevention because of its excellent anti-inflammatory properties.
Anti-Inflammatory
Perhaps turmeric’s best known and best-researched healing property is its powerful ability to fight inflammation which many believe to be the root of all disease. Chronic inflammation has been proven to lead to many dangerous diseases, so keeping the body’s inflammation response in check is one of the best ways that you can prevent illness and stay healthy for many years to come.
Arthritis
Because of curcumin’s powerful anti-inflammatory properties and pain killing ability, turmeric has long been used to treat the pain and swelling of arthritis. A study concluded that patients that received curcumin supplements fared much better than those who received conventional medications for arthritis and had no side effects. The side effects from the arthritis drug (diclofenac sodium) is that it increased the likelihood that patients would develop leaky gut and heart disease.
Diabetes
Because of curcumin’s anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, including turmeric in your diet can prevent type 2 (adult onset) diabetes. In fact, in a 2012 study, curcumin capsules were found to delay the onset of type 2 diabetes in pre-diabetic patients. Over a 9 month period, participants were given either curcumin supplements or a placebo. Just over 16% of the people taking the placebo developed diabetes, while not a single person taking the curcumin developed the disease. Amazing!
Pain Killer
Curcumin’s ability to treat pain has also been widely accepted by the scientific community. A study this past year showed that curcumin activated the opioid response in diabetic rats. This system is typically manipulated by pharmaceutical drugs, but curcumin has been proven to be able to activate this response that serves as the body’s pain-relieving system.
Boosts Memory
Because turmeric’s active ingredient, curcumin is known to increase blood flow and reduce inflammation, studies show that turmeric helps to boost memory and attention span in elderly patients. Curcumin also has been shown to act as a neuroprotective agent against diseases that affect the brain like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Liver Health
In Chinese medicine, liver health is so important, and unfortunately, imbalances in the liver are extremely common. Anger and frustration hurt the liver so adding foods to the diet that help to cleanse the liver are always a good idea. Turmeric has shown to rejuvenate and detoxify the liver, as well as treat liver diseases like cirrhosis. Turmeric has long been used to treat liver problems and is a great way to prevent any liver problems in the future.
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