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Chinese Medicine Relies on Nutritional Regimen to Reestablish Qi Free Flow

The art and science of Chinese medicine is well known for seeking to treat the human body in its entirety rather than dicing it up into individual chunks and seeking to treat them - a practice that has come into disfavor in the Western world over the course of the last few decades. The goal of much of the treatments employed in Chinese medicine always focuses on an increase in the free flow of the qi, the life force or bodily energy that is thought to course throughout the living body.

One of the most commonly employed techniques is the modification of the food intake. Chinese medicine relies on nutritional regimens to reestablish qi free flow. It is interesting that this approach utilizes the differentiation of Yin and Yang, the all-permeating spiritual philosophy that governs much of Chinese culture. Therefore an ailment brought on by an interruption of the bodily energy via a channel that is believed to be Yang in nature may quite frequently sought to be balanced and counteracted by food sources which are considered Yin by their very character.

Of course, this is a much simplified explanation of the concept, yet by and large there are a few rules commonly followed by practitioners of Chinese medicine; for example, any incident that leads the physician to believe that too much Yin has entered the person's body - commonly expressed in symptoms that speak of cold shivers or an ability to get warmed up - is sought to be counteracted by an overage of Yang foods, the kinds of nutritional substances that are known to be hot in either taste of preparation. Therefore, as a practitioner of Chinese medicine who relies on nutritional regimens to reestablish a free flow of qi in the body, a physician will first ascertain the Yin and Yang imbalance and seek to find a cause or at least which side has been tipped the most. Infusion of the lacking spiritual substance that causes equilibrium is then attempted via the modification of food intake.

To Westerners, some of the food substances used in this manner are foreign and perhaps teeter close on the edge of being thought of as inedible or even moderately taboo. The use of the ground up meat of a tiger's penis, for example, is considered invigorating and therefore strongly Yang, but to Western sensibilities this is not an acceptable food substance and therefore this practice has gone somewhat underground and the Westerner in search of this item as part of a traditional Chinese nutritional regimen to cure or counteract certain health problems will have to traverse the close knit underbelly of the Internet.

On the other hand, some food substances that in the past were considered exotic and would never have passed the lips of a Westerner are now finding their ways onto the store shelves of the more well stocked health food and oriental food markets. Ginseng, duck gizzards, and bird's nest soup are just some of the food items routinely seen in the markets and which are also used frequently by adventurous Westerners either as part of a nutritional therapy or simply to try something new.