Spring TCM Nutrition

We all feel the change coming into our bodies that the season of spring brings what with the warmth of the sun on our pale winter skin and the bright green sprouts pushing through the melting snow. We need to react to the changes in the environment with habitual and nutritional changes of our own in order to feel our best for the rest of the year. The season of spring is considered the start of things. This is a time of vitality, growth, revitalization, and the rise of yang energy. Wood is the element of spring, which, when made simple, relates to the emotions such as frustration, stagnation, and anger, as well as to the eyes, muscles, tendons, gallbladder, and liver.

According to traditional Chinese medicine in Bellingham or TCM, meals should be prepared light, and people should start to fast or eat less to cleanse themselves of the heavier foods and fats of winter. Springtime means eating raw fresh sprouted foods. These green and young plants encourage expansion and ascension and are rich in yang energy. They include sprouts and fresh greens such as broccoli, bok choy, nettles, kale, spinach, and fiddleheads. In the spring, additional veggies that should be promoted are kohlrabi, cabbages, spring onions, mushrooms, morels, green onions, garlic, fava beans, artichokes, peas, and asparagus.

Raw sprouts and foods can eliminate heat and bring about renewal. From the perspective of TCM, an all raw diet is not ideal even in spring because it weakens digestion. Instead, emphasis should be placed on a balanced diet that considers the energy, preparation, and nutritional properties of food and exploits them as instruments to support the organs that need it and to acclimate to the prevailing climate. Spring foods need to be cooked for short amounts of time, in light steams, mild simmers, and fast sautes. Since it is also best not to eat late, it is also best to rest early.

To produce a rising, expansion, and internal spring, pungent and sweet foods should be used. Pungent herbs such as mint as well as honey are ideal conventional spring tonics. Other advantageous pungent herbs include bay leaf, dill, rosemary, marjoram, fennel, and basil. Young, starchy, and sweet veggies like carrots and beets are likewise beneficial and refreshing.

Strawberries are perfect for spring cleansing as they are one of the first fruits to mature and ripen in the spring. Other ideal fruits to consume include melons, cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, nectarines, pineapples, mangoes, kiwis, figs, bananas, and watermelons. Fruit is not yet ripe in the spring, and therefore its taste may still be sour. Prioritizing the sour flavor in your meals can help the liver. Other liver enhancing foods include mint tea, mung beans, green veggies, tomatoes, mustard greens, apples, carrots, beets, rye, radishes, and lemons.

Brown crab, lemon sole, haddock, sea trout, wild salmon, mussels, lobsters, oysters, and clams are traditionally supported seafood and fish foods for spring. While the intake of meat intake should be minimal, lamb, duck, grouse, rabbit, and small fowl are recommended. To build blood, high-quality liver should also be taken into account. Stay away for fatty and heavy foods and limit your intake of salty foods, like soy sauce and miso.

Emotion and Energy

High (as well as low) emotions such as sadness, depression, frustration, and anger can harm the liver. In spring, concentrate on equanimity and try to be open and unsuppressed. Cleanse your mind of anger, impatience, and dissatisfaction that can arise over winter. Spring time is also known to be a season for philosophical queries, intuition, intelligence and a curiosity about the vastness of the universe. The voice is empowered and has been given the ability to shout.

Activity and exercise should increase. Early rest is highly advised, so one can wake up early, walk in the morning dew and absorb its invigorating and fresh vitality. Tui na massages, qigong, and stretching are especially vital in the spring, to nourish your muscles and tendons.

We have a strong dedication for the promotion of balance restoration, patient empowerment, and health education – both on the personal and community level. We believe we can all learn how to live in harmony with nature in a happy way to support the body’s inherent ability to heal itself.