Jessica Martens is an Acupuncturist in Olympia, Washington. As part of her treatment strategy, she focuses on nutrition, believing that it is the foundation of health and wellness.
Part I
Diet. It’s a buzzword, a noun, a verb; a common
part of speech and an integral part of our lives. Some of us think about it often,
some of us think about it as a lead-in to swim suit season, and some of us only
think about it when the doctor brings it up.
All of us have one of course, which we’ll be exploring in this series of
posts about diet from an East Asian Medicine perspective and from a
western-minded perspective.
We’ll
start this exploration with the basics. So,
what is your diet? Basically put, it’s
what you eat. Take a moment here to
pause and really think about that. What
do you eat? What do you put into your
mouth every day? Breakfast, lunch,
dinner, snacks, drinks… food, right?
OK. And what is the purpose of
that food? You might say ‘to feed us, of
course!’ And you would be right. We eat because our bodies need
nourishment.
Let’s
think about diet a little more deeply now.
Our bodies are literally made out of the food that we eat. Our cells
–everything: muscles and bone, skin, hair and nails, eyes, brain cells, blood
vessels, blood cells, organs… all of it-- are created and repaired from the
nutrients in our foods. Our physiology
functions because of the energy we create from food. The saying “you are what you eat” can be
taken very literally. So, with that in
mind, let us re-examine that question – what do you eat? – from another
perspective. What are you? Are you really feeding yourself all that you
need to repair and function? Or are you
short-changing yourself, living off of Starbucks and Subway?
Humans
are omnivores, meaning that we can eat a wide variety of food. Our digestive systems are equipped to handle
variety, and indeed, to obtain all the nourishment we need we must eat a
variety of foods. Unlike cattle, we
cannot live off of a single variety of food and maintain our structure and
function. You’ve probably heard the term
‘essential’ in regard to things like ‘essential fatty acids.’ Those things
termed ‘essential’ are just that—they are essential to life (our life!). We cannot make them on our own, or in cases
where we can make them, we might not be able to make them in sufficient
quantities, so it is also ‘essential’ that we eat them. Some essential nutrients are amino acids,
which can be obtained from protein, vitamins and minerals, and the
aforementioned fatty acids. For more information about essential nutrients, you
can review the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_nutrient. Some essential vitamins can be synthesized
by our gut microbes and absorbed through our intestines, which we’ll explore
further in the next post on this subject.
So,
bringing this back around, what are you?
Are you nourishing your body so that it can repair itself? Or are you short-changing your body, setting
up a situation for chronic injuries, pain, weakness, and sub-par functions? What foods are you eating that support your
body? What parts of your body are
showing wear and tear? In East Asian
Medicine, we have one simple way to support those areas: eat that same
thing! Joints bugging you? Skin
problems? Make soup/stock/broth from a
whole chicken/turkey or leftover chicken/turkey frame. Cooking the bones in the broth for about 2-24+
hours (you can use a crock-pot) will pull those components out of the bones,
skin, and joint tissue, and all you have to do is drink the broth (or make soup
out of it, use it to cook rice, stir fry, etc!).
For more information on broth and why it is good for you (including
recipes to get you started!) check out this page: http://nourishedkitchen.com/bone-broth/.
 |
| beefy bone stock and oxtail stock in jar. note high content of gelatin. thicker when cool. this jar just came out of the fridge. just scoop some stock into cup and warm (or add small amount of hot water). Drink plain as a supplement or be creative (see "nourished kitchen" links). --photo caption credit--Megan Kingsley Gale |
 |
| Scooping cooled broth into cup. It is liquid at room temperature. I warm it up or add hot water before drinking it. --photo caption credit--Megan Kingsley Gale |
No comments:
Post a Comment