In Traditional Chinese Medicine one of the most important treatment methods is using food as medicine. While Chinese Medicine looks at nutritional values of foods, such as calories or carbohydrate content, it focuses mainly on the other dimensions or energetics (warming vs cooling, yin & yang, etc.).  Each person has their own constitution and thus each person must eat according to what their body needs. The energetics of food is about creating and maintaining the balance of Qi—the vital essence found in all things—within your body using food and other modalities like acupuncture to achieve optimal wellness.

To help keep ourselves healthy, we have a special type of Qi called Wei Qi, or Defensive Qi, that acts as a physical shield around the body keeping pathogens out. When Wei Qi is strong, the shield is strong and the pathogens we encounter can’t penetrate into the body and cause harm. When Wei Qi is weak, the shield becomes weak and holes appear which allows pathogens to easily invade.