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Food talk today can be complex and confusing: eat more of this, less of that; this is a superfood, that other is a mustavoid…or is it the other way around? Fads come and go, and studies can be found to justify almost anything. What is often overlooked is the importance of the way foods are

In the dietary branch of Chinese Medicine, cooking bones is a method to extract the essence of the animal in a way that can most easily be digested and assimilated. There is something shamanistic about it; we are trying to absorb the deepest digestible energy of the animal. Yes, high cuisine relies upon stocks for

With so much food variety today—and so many people’s health sabotaged by their food choices—one thing we can count on is a steady stream of food fads. To be more respectful, let’s call them trends. To someone following a new trend, of course, it seems totally sensible, the only questions left are, “What took me

Dampness is one of the six climatic factors taught in Chinese medicine, along with cold, heat (fire), wind, summer-heat, and dryness. For many today, modern heating and air-conditioning have eased the climatic influences—unrelenting cold or oppressively humid summer heat can be escaped by going indoors. And while climatic dampness can be an important issue for

Spices are a very special part of the diet, and understanding their energetics is important for enjoyable and healthful eating. Because they are used in such small amounts, spices and kitchen herbs are very useful in studying the energetics of food. It is not their nutritional content or their use as traditional preservatives as much

There are many Chinese medicinal herbs that double as foods, and some famous herbs are used in the specialty tradition of herbal broth cooking. But to be fully integrated with a living Chinese medicine, there is nothing more powerful than organizing your daily foods as the herbs of your life. Rather than adding medicinals to