Nutrition: Foundation for Overall Health

Eating a healthy, balanced diet is the foundation of your health. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are the five elements: fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. These philosophies emphasize balance, which is just as essential in Western medicine as Eastern.

Just as you are a specific mixture of all five elements, your diet needs to contain a mixture of foods to balance and nourish you. Different bodies and lifestyles will require different amounts of certain food groups, but the diet as a whole must contain a broad variety of healthy foods. Both Western and Asian nutritional philosophies recommend similar concepts, including:

• Avoiding wheat, gluten, and dairy products
  
• Avoiding excess fructose, as is found in honey and fruits
  
• Avoiding products high in refined sugar
  
• Avoiding soda (regular or diet)
  
• Restricting caffeine consumption, with a preference for herbal or green teas
  
• Eating only high quality proteins, oils, and fats

Instead of ascribing to the high dosage supplementation of vitamins and minerals that is recommended by orthomolecular philosophy, it may be better to focus your nutritional efforts on the consumption of nutrient-rich foods and herbs to balance and nourish you. Although herbs are not a key source for vitamins, the majority of herbs used in Chinese medicine include a wide range of nutritional substances.