Recipes
Tryptophan Foods & its Benefits
The ancient Chinese stressed the importance of eating foods that are “rich in qi and blood,” which upon scientific reflection, was in many cases referring to foods that are dense in the amino acid, tryptophan. Why?
The amino acid, tryptophan, is the precursor to the neurotransmitter, serotonin, which in turn regulates sleep and emotions, also digestive function, blood clotting, bone, and cardiovascular health. Circling back to Chinese medical terms, when your acupuncturist says that your gut is reliant upon strong and healthy “qi” to produce strong and healthy blood, this is what they mean. We need amino acids to produce not only literal blood, but also the neurotransmitters whose functions are synonymous with that of “the blood,” from a Chinese medical perspective.
Most people think of tryptophan around Thanksgiving and its effects of making us tired after the enormous holiday meal, but that fatigue is actually more likely due to the profound overconsumption of carbs and calories.
Other sources of tryptophan besides turkey are as follows, complete with warnings of their potential side effects and how to mitigate them:
- Chicken
- Is mass produced, so be sure to always consume in good, organic quality. Also can overstimulate the liver vessel, so ideal to consume with sour foods, such as lemon or sauerkraut to offset this effect. Unfortunately, the worst way to consume chicken is with hot sauce or spicy foods, which potentiates this effect.
- Beef
- Can generate excessive heat in the intestines, so should be consumed alongside bitter greens. Again, sad news: the worst way to consume is alongside alcohol, which can potentiate the heat effect. Eat plenty of bitters to counteract!
- Fish
- Beware of high mercury fish, as my wife always reminds me! Other than that, as the many centenarians of Okinawa and the Mediterranean know, there are little side effects to wild fish
- Eggs
- They’re just too expensive these days, and the inorganic variety are a problem. Other than that, eggs are nearly as perfect as fish 🙂
- Dairy
- Dairy has health benefits, but it is very cold and damp in its physiological behavior in the body. If you tend to low appetite, brain fog, diarrhea, bloating, or skin conditions you should avoid as much as possible.
- Soy
- Soy is also cold and damp and should be cooked alongside plenty of spices, onions, garlic, ginger, and even hot peppers, to offset its effect.
Besides tryptophan, another Thanksgiving cliche that benefits qi and blood is gratitude 🙂
Transitioning from Summer to Fall
Although it remains deftly hot and humid, according to the traditional calendar and evidenced in the shorter days and longer nights, we now find ourselves in the transition between summer to autumn.
Summer corresponds with the heart and central nervous system, autumn with the lungs and immunity, but each quarterly transition of the seasons corresponds with the gut and microbiome, thereby further underscoring the importance of digestion in engendering all other organ systems. This one might be most directly significant, as in Chinese medicine’s cycle of the five elements earth is “mother to” metal, which is to say the stomach is primarily connected to pulmonary health. Anyone who’s ever suffered with an asthma attack due to dairy consumption or sleep apnea due to a weight problem can attest.
To compile the challenges posed by American diets and grocery options, we are simultaneously confronted with the humidity, which might further aggravate pre-existing dampness in one’s gut, depending on their constitution, diet, and body type. As always, I recommend going gluten, dairy, sugar, and alcohol free as much as possible.
To avoid gluten, there is always rice or great gluten free pasta brands now, such as Glutiniete. To avoid dairy, you can occasionally sprinkle nutritional yeast on foods and/or make vegan parmesan cheese with this simple recipe:
To avoid sugar I recommend increasing your tolerance for dark chocolates, and/or eating spoonfuls of nut butters with a touch of maple syrup or honey. If you must have alcohol, then vodka, tequila, mezcal, and organic wines are preferable. People often forget (especially when seeking a buzz) that grapes are always on the dirty dozen list, which means their inorganic versions are ridden with pesticides.
Those are a lot of DONT’s, I realize. As for DO’s:
- Eat a warm breakfast with protein: Eggs, oatmeals, congees, etc.
- Sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato! An excellent digestive aid and coming into season in fall. I like to roast them either with salt, pepper, and garlic, or cinnamon and maple syrup. For the latter I add sliced apples for my toddler in the last 15 minutes.
- Small amounts of fermented pickled foods, such as kimchi, sauerkraut, or pickles for their naturally occurring probiotics.
- Pu-Erh tea instead of green in the morning, also for its naturally occurring fermentation. Green tea, even when consumed hot, has a cold quality that can harm weak stomachs.
- Hot ginger, licorice, and/or barley tea in the evenings.
Finally, in our classical texts it is said that excessive standing harms the kidneys, excessive celebration harms the heart, and excessive sitting harms the stomach. What is meant by the latter is something the ancient Chinese understood and has only in recent generations become common knowledge in the west: sedentary lifestyles compromise metabolism. No matter how well we eat, it won’t much matter if we never get up and move.
Breakfast Congee Ideas
For anyone who is vegan, sensitive to eggs, or just dislikes them, here is a breakfast idea I’ve been experimenting with, both for the sake of variety and, well… experimentation.
In China, (white) rice congee is a common breakfast, often with egg and pickled vegetables, although I realize in the States rice is rather vilified for being a simple carb and high on the glycemic index. While this might be the case, it is also a food that is very gentle on the stomach and internal organs, which from our perspective aids in absorption and digestion, and in the proper dosages can be beneficial. However, for those who can’t get past the glycemic index, I recommend using quinoa, millet, or amaranth.
1 cup of your grain of choice
5 cups of liquid (if you’re going to make the sweeter, I recommend some kind of dairy-free milk—if you’re going for the probably healthier, more Oriental style I recommend just water or either vegetable, beef, or chicken broth) Oils don’t mix as well with the sweet flavors so if you’re making the sweeter version be sure to stir often so as to avoid sticking to the pot.
Boil and simmer about 15-25 minutes, or until it is the consistency of porridge.
Treat the sweet version like you would oatmeal: Top with berries, granola, as little maple syrup as you can discipline yourself to, cinnamon, and/or nuts if you like.
For the Asian version I recommend leftover vegetables and/or pickled cabbage or kraut. Plus, an over-easy or boiled egg if you want the best of all worlds.
Enjoy warm if possible! For those of us with babies or toddlers, we long for the days when we will return to eating hot food.
Whatever you eat, EAT BREAKFAST. I cannot stress this enough. They said breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it is, not because grandma said it, but because science and biology do. Here is a link to an NIH study correlating the skipping of breakfast with increased insulin resistance and risk for diabetes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246451/
I like coffee as much as anyone, but coffee alone (or with a piece of toast) is not breakfast. Protein and/or fat should be consumed, preferably in great quantity.
Nor do I doubt the potential benefits of intermittent fasting, but it is more biologically aligned to skip dinner—not breakfast. If this is impossible, maybe a later breakfast, like 9am? Supposedly, any longer than 2-3 hours after waking constitutes “skipping breakfast,” which is to say the insulin resistant mechanism is set in motion by that time.
If you have no appetite for breakfast this probably indicates your dinner being not fully digested and some metabolic syndrome at work. Please reach out—or try licorice and/or ginger tea 🙂
Tips for Resting & Digesting (food)
It’s nice to eat nice foods—expensive and high quality foods—organic foods, locally grown, homemade, etc. But it isn’t just about what we eat, but how we eat, that will maximize the conversion of our food into nutrients, which will convert into globally good health.
Whether you use your hands or utensils is up to you and your social circle, but across the board everyone advises chewing our food until it is liquefied in our mouths. This is for the same rationale that Eastern medicines recommend warm and cooked foods—they are easier to digest. Whenever I bribe my toddler with dark chocolate, cheese, or bread, she’s suddenly lightning fast at shoveling two handfuls of vegetables into her mouth in anticipation of her treat; my wife and I have to remind her, almost like a cheerleading chant: “Chew, chew, chew!” “Mastica!”
Each organ channel has its many correspondences, to particular seasons, colors, of the five elements, as well as shapes. The spleen and stomach are ruled by circles (and the color yellow), which means the ideal way to eat and digest is at a roundtable (of loved ones), I suppose with a yellow tablecloth. Ironically, such interior design would likely make my wife vomit.
The point is, we supposedly metabolize our foods that much better when seated surrounded by the company of loved ones. This might explain why many cultures that are known more for their tight-knit communities than their health-conscious diets, live late into life before experiencing any ailments or disease.
Finally, and most importantly in my opinion, is the parasympathetic nervous system cliche of “rest and digest.” It’s not in our power to have a big family meal 21 times a week. Most of us are super busy, eating on the go, if not at least shoving the last bite of food into our mouths like my daughter, before standing up to pay the check, throwing our coats on, and rushing back to work. Unfortunately, in such cases, one will likely absorb only about half of the nutrients they otherwise would have had they just sat for 10-20 minutes after finishing. Needless to say, over time this can be dangerous.
My understanding is it should take at least 15 minutes to eat our food, plus 15 minutes afterwards to sit and digest. Depending on our energy levels, this can be followed by either a 15-minute walk or a 15-minute cat nap, as they do in Europe (though theirs’ is more like an hour). My wife told me about a study that contrasted the blood sugar levels in two groups against one another after eating identical meals, where the one that took 20 minutes to eat it showed a much lower glucose spike than the one that ate the same food rapidly.
On my busy days, which is every day, I try to make a habit of looking at the clock after my last bite and not allowing myself to get up until at least 15 minutes later. Although the general consensus is it is bad to look at screens while eating, my opinion is it is better to use the phone for a few minutes to bide the digestive time window than it is to get up and physically rush out.
Work-induced stress and anxiety compromises our health enough without allowing it to directly interfere with our organs and metabolism. I encourage everyone to take the 30 minutes three times every day to properly rest and digest!
Balancing the Bitter Cold with Chinese Medicine
Welcome to the “Bitter Cold.” Holidays are over, New Year’s has passed, viral plagues have not, and single digit temperatures have arrived. Although we do not hibernate, nor could we, even if the more introverted of us might prefer to, in theory we should do so at this time. Instead, how can we compensate for the nature of the present climate?
In Chinese Medicine herbal formulas that contain bitter and cold ingredients, such as coptis root, phellodendron, or gardenia fruit, generally harmonize their harsh properties with more acrid, warm ingredients, such as ginger, dry-fried ginger, tangerine peel, or pinelliae root. This enables the bitter, cold herbs to purge systemically damp/hot inflammation without compromising the integrity of the stomach qi, or microbiome. This is holistic medicine.
Self-care can be “holistic” as well. Ie. If we eat a cold salad or ice cream it should be had with or followed by hot ginger or cinnamon tea (No, it doesn’t help to have ginger or cinnamon flavored ice cream). Conversely, if we eat an especially rich or spicy meal, and/or have alcohol we might accompany it with a few cucumbers or radishes—or follow it with peppermint or barley tea the next day (still hot, as cold beverages can never benefit the gut from our perspective). If we exercise or work out hard on a particular day we should get to bed early that night, in order to properly recover the body fluids used in the workout. If we slept awful the night before we should take it easy. Nap if possible. If we slept and feel wonderful we should exercise and strive for progress. It is said that we should view each day as a lifetime in itself, and try our best to balance it accordingly.
From a climactic perspective, we might counterbalance the bitter cold weather with similar choices. As the low temperatures and more difficult commutes exhaust our cellular energy, which is what engenders our immunological energy, all forms of conservation are advisable: Less exercise, less sex, less work (if possible), and earlier bedtimes as often as possible. All of these, with the exception of less exercise for the “New Year, New Me” crowd, are relatively intuitive in January.
As goes the outdoor environment, it is most advisable to eat like Eastern Europeans for now. Think beef or lamb stews, chicken soups, even sausages and pork chops, all of which paired with roasted or steamed vegetables. Vegetables might be sauteed with ginger, garlic, onions, any warming spices to recover from the bitter cold that surrounds us. Duck is actually considered to have a “cooling” effect on the body, although I am inclined to think that a duck confit roasted with onions and garlic and served with red wine should amply warm the body. While 11pm is the advisable bedtime for summer, 10pm is ideal for winter. Beer and other cold beverages should be minimized, as should raw fruit and all forms of sugar. For my apple-loving daughter, I roast them at 350 or 375 for 10-20 minutes with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a drizzle of maple syrup. For myself I would also add clove powder, but it is too spicy for her.
For my purposes, many of you will notice me doing a lot more moxibustion on the body at this time of year. Whether on the belly, along the spine, or at point, “Stomach 36,” just below the knee, no hands-on modality is more effective at regenerating healthy fluids and moving the blood than “moxa.” My opinion is that acupuncturists who do not use moxa at all are likely doing their patients and the entire medicine a disservice, as at its inception Chinese Medicine was not called “Chinese Medicine,” but “Zhen Jiu,” or “Acupuncture and Moxibustion.” Our classical texts dictate: “Use acupuncture to treat ‘yang patterns,’ moxibustion to treat ‘yin patterns’.” My understanding of this is that acupuncture excels at clearing heat and releasing stagnation, but the mugwort is necessary to dissolve unhealthy fluids and regenerate healthy ones.
