Autumn / Lung Tip #2: Eat Warm, Cooked Foods
Autumn / Lung Tip #2: Eat Warm, Cooked Foods
If you’ve worked with a Chinese medicine physician AT ALL, you’ve likely encountered our emphatic recommendation that you eat mostly warm, cooked foods. Why is this so important?
1) Warm, cooked foods support the digestive process whereas the overconsumption of cold, raw food over time is a stress on digestion and depletes its function — particularly in colder climates. It’s a fact of physiology. I’ve literally (Lit.er.ally.) helped patients reverse chronic, recalcitrant, debilitating digestive complaints with three simple recommendations:
•cook your food
•sit down when you eat, and allow eating to be the only thing you’re doing
•chew like your stomach doesn’t have teeth
2) We are a culture obsessed with salads and smoothies. We’ve taken the valuable recommendation to “eat more vegetables” and twisted it into the false notion that a frozen smoothie for breakfast and a cold raw salad for lunch constitutes “healthy eating.” It doesn’t! It may be healthy for some people in some circumstance in some geographic locations at certain times of the year, but it’s not a blanket recipe for good health.
As we move into autumn and winter and the external environment cools, our recommendation that you eat mostly warm, cooked food becomes even more important.
Here’s how I frame it up in clinic:
It’s a chilly autumn or winter morning, and you’re gearing up for a full day outside. You don’t know if you’ll be back inside at any point during the day. What do you eat for breakfast, and what do you pack for lunch? Imagine first the frozen smoothie and salad. Close your eyes for a moment and feel into it. How do those meals feel inside your body, as a means to prep you for your day? Then imagine instead a plate of eggs, a warm soup, or a bowl of hot porridge. How does that feel differently?
When I explain it this way, my patients understand the recommendation on a visceral level, almost immediately.
So take this beyond a thought experiment and try eating a warm breakfast every morning for the next week, particularly if you live in a colder climate and you’ve been on the smoothie bus. How does it feel?
Need help navigating autumn? We’re here for you!
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