#81 – When Digestion Stalls: A Chinese Medicine View of Bloating and Brain Fog with Ellen Goldsmith

[music] Hey, we're the turn nerds. We're glad you're here. Before we take the plunge, let us introduce ourselves. I'm Dr. Becca Sand, a naturopathic physician and licensed acupuncturist, specializing in digestive, microbiome, and hormone conditions, and integrative fertility. I'm Dr. Ami Kapadia. I'm a medical doctor trained in family medicine and functional medicine, with a special interest in combining standard therapies with lifestyle and nutrition-based interventions. And I'm Dr. Lada Gervic. A naturopathic physician, licensed acupuncturists, and a fellow of the American Board of Natural Pathic Gastroenterology. I specialize in IBD, IPS, and other functional GI disorders. Let's dive in. [music] The following discussion is for educational purposes only and not intended to diagnose or treat any diseases or conditions. Please consult your doctor before incorporating any of this information into your care. The information presented on this podcast is not medical advice. [music] We are excited to have you here. We are joined again by the illustrious Ellen Goldsmith, who is a licensed and board certified acupuncturist, and Chinese herbalist. She joined us for an episode a bit back on food in Chinese medicine and how we can use it to prevent disease and help our gods. It was amazing. Go back and listen to it. Today, we are going to be talking about something that bothers a lot of people, us included from time to time, and that is bloating. Bloating is such a pesky thing that we see in our practices all the time, and we're going to be doing a different take on it today. The way that we know it bothers a lot of people all the time is A. We see it all the time, the clinical practice. The episodes that you guys download again and again and again, those come to the top of our queue. We can tell what you guys struggle with out there. And we are here for you. And I will say, we did an entire series on bloating through a Western perspective, but what we talked about when Ellen joined us last, is how Chinese diatetics in particular has a very different view of the digestive system. Food is things that you guys can control three times a day. We brought her back to explain Chinese medicine and bloating. Can you explain it to us? What are we supposed to do? Well, let me back track a little bit. I always like to get a big view from the top. Yeah, because I think it helps us, you know, understand something in context. In diatetics, we're talking about not just what we eat, but how we digest. No, you are not what you eat. You are what you digest. Oh, I love that. You know, I love that. It's a very, very good distinction. Yeah. And so there are many schools in Chinese medicine. And there's this liver school, the fever school, the kidney school. But I'm of the stomach spleen school. And the stomach spleen is earth. That's an element that we talk about in Chinese medicine. It's the center. It's where we take all that food in and the action of the stomach is to move things down. So if you're bloating, things aren't moving down. You don't want that thing going up. Yeah, you don't want to go up or you get reflux or you get bloating because it's just not. It's trapped. It's trapped. And, you know, yeah, and the HCl balances off and all of that. So we want that stomach spleen to be really in good shape, which means the stomach can break it down. It pushes it into the small intestine. The small intestine separates it and further. And then it goes to the L. The large intestine and then you get rid of what you don't need. And what you need gets transformed and absorbed as we say, turns into Gucci, turns into your blood, which is your nourishing. Love that Gucci. Yeah. And you know, they can't have a Gucci, but I like the Gucci. Yeah, exactly. Because you know, when you go to the dock and you get your blood taken, they can tell what's going on your body. And so that blood chemistry is your nourishment. Right. So you want that regulation of that stomach spleen. You want it to be able to function. And when it doesn't, you're miserable. And so that bloating. And I was talking earlier to Rebecca saying, you know, when you're bloating, not just bloated, you're kind of miserable. Your brain doesn't work. How many patients do we have that come to us bloated with brain fog? Like those go together. So many people. A marriage made in hell. Yes. And you know, we say in Chinese medicine, there are three treasures. There's the Jing, which is your kind of ancestral chi, that which you were born genetics, your genetics. It's kind of what you come into this world with what you do with it. That's up to you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but it's not only up to you. I mean, you may have adverse childhood experiences. You may have trauma. You know, there's, you may have life life, not access to regular food, et cetera. I mean, there are a lot of things that can impact your genetics, but your chi, which is your vital force and your energy, really lives here in your stomach and spleen and your, and that's what we're talking about, transforming. So you have energy to function, right? In life and you have clear energy so that you're able to really participate. And it'll be like cloudy, like you talked about. What's the third treasure? And the third treasure is Shen, which is spirit. Oh, yeah. And that resides in our hearts. And it comes out through our eyes, we say, in Chinese medicine. Our Shen, our spirit really is about our mental emotional state. And so we say that chi, and it's a very masculine culture. So if the chi is the forefather, forefather of spirit. So if your digestion is not good, how interesting. You're not going to be feeling calm. Right. You're not going to be restless. You may be cloudy. You may be irritable. You may be, you know, just not much patience. You know, so we want, and we talk about it in Western medicine, that gut brain access is like, right? You want that. So we want our digestion to be functioning optimally so that we can function and feel good in our own skin as they say, you know. I think it's like we in medicine is kind of this long history of separating the brain and the gut. And your psychological disorders and your gut disorders. And then we go through waves of kind of like, oh, yeah, I know they're related. But everyone with IBS has anxiety or depression. A lot of people have PMS along with it. You know, if you're not digesting well, you're not going to go through a good metapause. You know, I mean Chinese medicine has known this forever. Yeah. And then it's corroborated by, you know, the biggest nerve, those right for you. Very physically. And in Chinese medicine, we say the stomach, I think the word for stomach is shouchen, which means small heart. So that old expression, the way to a man's heart is through stomach. But the way to all of our hearts is yours. Yeah. What I use what I tell patients is a healthy digestive system is one where you feel hungry. And you feel like you have to poop. But besides that, you're not thinking about it. But if you are spending all of your time thinking about the distension, thinking about what in Chinese medicine, we call food stagnation, which is it just sits there forever. Of course, your mental emotional state is not okay. You know what I mean? Like literally if it's not moving, you are stuck. You're not digesting your thoughts if you're not digesting your poop. And then you're ruminating, ruminating again and again and again and again and again. Think about all the saying, you know, I can't stomach that. I can't digest that. That's like too much for me. You know, so I think there's a lot that we can look at in what you were just saying, you know. Yeah. Okay, so we've got these three different treasures, the Jing, the genetics, the Qi, the digestion, and the Shen, the spirit. And she is also not the digestion, but it's what we do every day. If we breathe, are you breathing right now? Take a nice deep breath. No, haven't been breathing about 10 years. Yeah, which you know, you know, you don't need, you know, helps to kind of circulate the oxygen helps calm your nervous system. diaphragm, big nerve again. Exactly. So taking a nice deep breath calms you down and it's our movement. And then it's our daily, you know, social and activity environment, those old effect, right? So that means that we have a lot of possibility to. Build and support and maintain archie and vitality. So why don't we start in from a Chinese medicine perspective? How do we break our digestion? Like what is the, what damages it? Let's start there. What leads to bloating? Well, okay. We know of course in Chinese medicines for Chinese medicine nerds out there. You know, one disease, 10,000 cures, one disease, 1000 reasons why. So you can have, um, bloating, you can have a stomach, gliest stomach, you can have, I like that dampness. It's very dramatic. No, you can have dampness. You can have damp heat. You can have cheese stagnation. All of these are kind of metaphoric terms for different reasons why from the Chinese medicine perspective, which would ask for different foods. Because everybody's different. Like I said, in our last episode, you know, the vegetable you ate today may not be the one you need in six months. So the thing that helps regulate your stomach and spleen she now may change because your blood chemistry changes, right? So go back to that question before you said, what was it that what breaks it? Well, how do we get? Okay. You know, one thing I think, um, and we don't want to blame our parents for everything. But just the convenient thing. But it's like I just once told me many years ago that when we're born, we are our self regulatory, you know, regulating our nervous system comes, we learn that we don't come like it's, you know, it's already there because we don't wear defenseless. We are dependent upon our caregivers to love us to nourish us to tend to us. Yeah, and teach us how to regulate. So they pay attention when we're hungry and we eat. They pay attention when we're tired and we sleep and that regulates our cortisol, right? So what breaks us is dysregulation, nervous system of dysregulation. Now it's not always our fault. Like I said, if you've had high levels of trauma in your life or even low levels over years and years and years, your nervous system is not regulated. So So I think we, I just want to honor that with people because, you know, it's enough when you're not well. We don't need to put more blame upon you. It's not quote your fault. But we want to kind of tease out what are the factors that contribute. So stress is huge. Right. And patients love when you tell them it's your stress. Yeah. They should probably go meditate more. Love that. Because meditation is definitely not stressful. But it is a discussion about having, because we don't teach people that in this culture. It's like you got to work until you die, because that's your worth. Yeah. But really, like we, for the health of our gut, for the health of our entire being, we have to learn how to slow down an ice. I mean, learn. We have to learn how to do it. And I always said this. I said, you know, with my daughter raising my daughter, she was my rhythm machine. She told me when it was time to slow down and rest. Wow. That's so true. There's too much stimulation. Okay, like quiet. Wow. You know, she told me when to eat. Yeah. We pay attention. We become a kind of, you know, we work together. It's a partnership. They're more attuned to like the natural rhythms of things. Yeah. I feel like we got sort of talked out of like capitalism. I don't know about it. Yeah, exactly. They know. So a question is that stress will break us. You know, meditation's not right for everybody. If you're ADD, I say just go take a walk. You know, all you need is 13 minutes to get endurance in your system, knitting, any kind of repetitive, any kind of artistic project that you're involved in, whether you listen to music or play music and swim thing. But I'm hearing not work. I know. That's when I was a word. I know you love to. I also do love to work. But you also love others sitting around a table and talking about. I'm learning how to cook. Yeah. There you go. Wow. School new cook. So you know, anything that gets you into flow is a good thing for you. Taking a deep breath. Like when you realize, oh, I'm so tense, or I'm so upset. Just breathe in through your nose, count to four, hold your breath for four, take four, let it out and just feel your body soften. This will have a huge impact on your nervous system. And your digestive. And your digestive. I'm going to say one thing that I teach my patients, especially women, because we're all taught to suck in our bellies, you know, since like each two, we're not supposed to have abdomens, I think. They're just not supposed to be protruding. These boys teaching people how to breathe and relax the body is simply just curing. Because if the tube is kinked and all tightened up, you're going to get bloated. But also while pooping, we've talked about that. We have. You got to breathe. Yeah, you call that square breathing, right? Square box breathing. Yeah. A chin dot set in for hold for four or three. I like the four, seven, eight, better because it helps loosen the. In for hold seven, release eight holding at the top of that ex exhale. Atop of the inhale helps to stretch the diaphragm a little bit. And then having the exhale a little bit long is helping you shift into that parasympathetic. And breathing out through your mouth to help you let that let's let's. A lot of power in that. We just forget because it's free. Yeah, it's free. Okay. So now we're nervous system relaxing. So that's one thing that could be helpful. What else are we thinking about? I'm thinking about things that people do all the time, which is say, don't eat regular meals. Oh, the adorables timing. Or they snack. They're not eating regular meals. It's a huge thing. I don't know how many cases of anxiety I have helped to calm down by just having people eat regular meals so that their bodies can predict what's coming. Well, also that they get nourishment keep their blood sugar right now. I will tell you so in my world, I have breakfast down. I have breakfast down. I have dinner down. Lunch is where I lose my way because I don't think about prepping for lunch. And then I end up raising for lunch. And then when you are not prepped, you grab all the garbage and anybody who has kids knows there's garbage sneaking into the house. You like it or not? I lose lunch. And then I feel like if I'm going to be irritable, if I'm going to be tired, if I'm not going to feel good, it's going to be like two hours after when I should have eaten lunch. So here's a strategy for people. There are a couple of strategies. One is if you cook and I hope you do. Like on a Sunday or a day when you have time, you know, make a large soup and then put it into small containers and freeze it. And then, you know, if you go to work, just grab it and bring it and then you can heat it. I don't love microwaves, but it's better than nothing. If you're, you know, working in an office, make sure and if you have a fridge, make sure you have some snacks there like hummus or, you know, some kind of spread or avocado or some, you know, whole grain toast or pickles. Some minutes. Yes. Like I love my condiments. But, you know, it's hard. I mean, I want to, you know, hard, hard boiled eggs or something, but soups are a really great way to do it because they're easy to digest, especially in the day if you're working and you're stressed and you have to get things done. You're on deadlines. You know, your digestion is not, you're not like you have a log, you have a leisurely European lunch. You know, love that model. Yeah. I do too, but Rebecca wants to be fresh. Not live in the fresh. Yeah. But you can have a soup, you know, and that's a really nice way to get some food in soups. Save us. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you can take it all sorts of directions, but absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, it's absolutely and soups like I always think of it as like IV three a month. No, you're getting, because it's easy to digest. So stomachs, fleeing likes easy to digest. So I, many of you know, many of you don't, I was born, I was born in Lithuania, raised with a Russian heritage. And my grandmother lived with us for a long time. She moved to America and she would make all of our meals and every meal, every meal starts with a soup. Well, you know, why? Because that hot liquid opens up your digestive process. Yep. You know, in the old old days, you would have bouillon to kind of wet your appetite and and help you digest. It's interesting in China soups are usually at the end of the meal. So but yeah, soup, a broth like I just yesterday made a turmeric, ginger, chicken broth. If anybody ever gets an invitation to eat at a house, take it. I have gotten that opportunity a lot of times. It's never as well. It never ends poorly. I never answer all that would be bad. But so okay, what breaks it? So stress breaks it. Holding our breath breaks it. Missing meals. Now look, if you don't have food access, that's a real thing and I want to, you know, honor that. So how do we work with less? You know, I'm not against, you know, canned beans or frozen vegetables, you know, anything. You can boil up some vegetables and then just put them in a jar and then take some salad dressing with you and then you have a nice boiled salad. All right. So those are a couple of things that break it. I would say, of course, eating highly processed foods will break it because everything you eat turns to fat and sugar. So that's not going to be so good for your body. I would say, you know, any excesses like a lot of fried foods, greasy foods, creamy foods, something like a standard American diet. Yeah. Definitely. Excuse me. Yeah. You know, if you're having poor sleep, your cortisol regulation is completely off. Right. So you want to get that addressed. I mean, acupuncturists are very useful for that. Yeah. Movement is very useful for that. Of course, there are times in our life when we have higher levels of stress in our minds. They're just, you know, and we want to honor that. So like, notice that and get some help with that. Be there therapist or, you know, loved ones or something we can talk things through and problem-solve. So, sleeps another thing. Now, here's a thing that people don't think about a lot and that's food straight from the grab and go or the fridge. Because I'll never forget when Dr. Tsong came to NUNM, the Chinese medicine program. There's a specialist from China, Hunter Fruhoff's teachers. And he took all of our pulses and he's like, "Oh, spleen pulse, very low. What's going on?" And then he kind of paid attention to all of us. And he went, "Oh, you guys, you're eating such cold food. We're physically colds. Yeah. Physically cold, cold smoothies, salads. We'll get into that in a second. But cold, let me talk about cold. So the body needs to bring food up to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit to be able to metabolize it and break it down. So if you're eating cold food, your body goes, "Whoa, that's cold." So I'm going to spend all of my stomach fire, which is your HCl and digestive energy to warm up this food. Okay, it's not breaking down yet, right? So you're kind of wasting a lot of energy and that coldness and that slowing down of digestive processes then kind of create, can create more dampness. So the darkness in Chinese medicine is something that your body can't metabolize and it just kind of hangs around. I mean, and that's what it feels like when you're not just in a stag. And the nausea, queeziness, it feels wet and luh. Stagnation. Like that is the best term. That is a Chinese medicine term. It is stagnant in your digestive organs, just sitting there as if it's like a reservoir. I'm going to buy a 50-kip going on. I mean, it's like, but it's a feeling that patients are very, that we all know, that they can understand it. So, you know, and then there's the thing of like not chewing our food. Hope. You know, it's just asking too much of you digest. It is because it, you know, part of it happens in the mouth and then you have to again spend all this energy. So those are like some really big key things. And of course, if you do any excesses in alcohol or too much coffee or too much sweet things or too much sugar, spicy foods. Oh, yeah. So spicy foods, I'd say a little spicy is good because sometimes it can warm up a dish and kind of activate you. And in our last episode, you talked about the flavors. Is spicy a pungent flavor? It's a pungent flavor, but it's hot. So I would put in that category, galangal, garlic, even. Not ginger. Ginger has a kind of warm, it's warm, but it's not hot unless you roast it, gunjang. Pajang. Pajang is fried. Yeah. So, you know, you want to have, it's actually moderating ginger. It's good for the stomach. But if you're having like peppers, a great story is one time I was teaching a class at In Unem to the nutrition students. And we were doing cooking with medicinal herbs, right? And we made our students make different soups. And there was this one guy, like adding pepper to everything. - There's always that guy. - Yeah, and we had like a couple of weekends and then we had a break for three weeks. So I asked all the students, "What's one takeaway that you wanna kind of pay attention to in the next three weeks, just to see what you notice and what you learn?" And he couldn't come up with anything. He said, "Do you mind if I suggest something?" He said, "Not at all." So I suggested that he cut out the spiciness and he went, "Because he like, well, I mean, like ghost pepper." You know, like we're talking, he came back three weeks later. He looked different. He was less red in the face. It wasn't, he wasn't really red before. So he just looked clearer. So I went around saying what did people find out? He said, "You know, I felt calmer. I could focus more. My wife said I was different." And then like a few weeks later, another saved a marriage. A few weeks later, my other students said to me, "You changed his life." I said, "I didn't, he did, you know." Crazy. But you know, I think we underestimate, because we're human and we're attached to like, what we like. Right. You know, and so we think, "Can't eat food without it." So I always ask my patients, "Hey, do you like spicy food?" Like, "Oh my God, I put it on everything." Then I go, "Okay, that's a place we need to like, cut it back a little." So it creates a lot of inflammation, a lot of heat. It's just counter, it's not really good. But also too bland. Also can be pathologic. You know, like not, like too much of the same. Yes. And also the pathologic. Yeah. Veggies and the aromatics. Yes. I mean, like we talked about in our last episode, you want to have a variety. I mean, I love this thing of, you know, 30 different vegetables from the microbiology. You know, people go, "I can't do it." Yes, you can. I mean, I remember one meal I had. I was with a friend and we counted with it. We had 19 different vegetables. And because you had a basil and cilantro and lamb. Like any soup, five at least. Exactly. So you want that variety. You know, it's interesting because in sweet, there's a subcategory called blance sweet. It's actually in Chinese dietetics. They think blance sweet is like heavenly. Yeah. So we'll see that in like a congee, which is a rice soup porridge. You know, because it's very easy to digest. You can, it's like a blank canvas that you can moderate. It is. And I will tell you, congee, when I'm having any kind of digestive distress, the only thing I want is congee, because I can make it salty. And I can make it pungent. And I can slowly add stuff to it. You know, as you're feeling a little bit younger. And you can make it for your Rebecca with some butter and some honey. I feel like you've already seen. To build your tea, you know. You can add herbal teas to it. You can do all kinds of things. But even if you'll go back to the old SCD diet where it was like rice, chicken, mushy carrots, you know, this kind of is easy to digest. So blance sweet can be a very good way to kind of without getting real rigid in your diet to just create a way that takes the stress off your GI. Right. OK, so then the thing that you said we would come back to is-- What was it? I'm not sure. We know what I told you. But we were talking about things that break your digest. Yeah. So we've got to focus on things that fix it, too. Right. So again, like this kind of simplifying your diet, going more vegetable-based. This is kind of a people intuitively. I mean, when you're sick, when you're like laid out, you're poisoning or something, when you can kind of get to the point of eating again. Your body tells you it's not the time for Doritos. It's time for-- It's never time for Dorito. Well, people would beg to differ. But it's like your body tells you, let's eat some really bland stuff. That salty and crackers is sort of what the West has done with Kahnji, you know. Salads. We were going to talk about salads. OK, this is the raw food. And yeah, again, this is-- you know, people think raw food is good for them. And that's because they're vegetables. And I say, yes, vegetables are good for you. But if you have any kind of bloating, it's not a good idea to have salad. Can I just say? I had terrible bloating for a very long time. And I'm not going to go into too many details, but let me just tell you it was really bad. And you want to know what I did? What did you do? I went raw vegan for six months. Ooh, girls. Get's worse. In Minnesota. In the winter. OK, so there's a lot of ooze in our here. Does anyone want to guess what that helped? No. It did not help. Here is what I'm hearing, translating what Rebecca just said. She had a cold stagnant, I guess, of system, which then she introduced more cold raw in a cold climate, the middle of the Midwest and the middle of winter. It was like zero degrees. It was probably under zero degrees. I mean, I was so stressed college student. Like, yeah, fast forward. It did not work. Let me just say it did not work. I was so sick. I was so sick. So sorry. Thank you. But I learned my-- You learned your lesson. What do you have to do? You know, people like salads. And what do we like about them? It's fresh and crunchy. That's a mouth feel thing there, right? Totally. It's simple. So OK, going back to that true nature of the vegetables that we're eating. So I have some ways that you can work with that. One is you can take like a cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli, cauliflower. You can be take string bean carrot. And you can cut them into smaller, not teeny pieces, but like pieces that you can bite into, but not our huge. And you can parboil them. So they're not soft and mushy, but they're cooked. So they're not-- Crunches left. A little bit of-- There might be a teeny bit of crunch, but not a lot. So parboil. Parboil means what? Means parboil maybe like five minutes, you know? Just like a quick way. I mean, I think green beans are four minutes. Three to four, yeah. Yeah, it's very good. Yeah, I guess it's quick. Yeah. And then you cool it and you chop it up and you can put it-- chop it up into the mouth size you like. And then you make a dressing. And then you have a vinegar red or a teeny dressing or tofu dressing, whatever you like. Maybe not tofu because people have a-- are sensitive to soy. But you know, you have that. And then you have this kind of satisfaction of a salad. And then maybe you can do some wilted spinach underneath it or a little fresh arugula. Is there ever a time where you do eat raw or where you do think it's a good idea to eat raw? I mean, I think in summer-- Oh, and if you have a strong-- digestive system, you can have some salad. Definitely, like you said, not in the middle of winter, not a great idea. But you can, if you can, if you're GI system, it's not an absolute. But if you have a sensitive GI, it may not be the best idea. I have a recipe in my book with remain lettuce where I cut it into quarters. And I put a teeny bit of avocado oil in. I broil it for like four to five minutes. Ooh. And then I make a dressing with anchovy, scallion, and lemon. And then I put roasted pistachios on top. It is so delicious. It's so simple. It's so simple. And people, it's like total crowd, please. Yeah. You don't have to be like Chinese medicine to like it. If you don't like the anchovies, you can just do it without it. You know, use the scallion and lemon and some olive oil and salt. So Ellen just said, you don't have to be all Chinese medicine. I was actually just reading this article like a week ago. How becoming Chinese medicine is like the biggest thing ever now. It's all over TikTok. And people are like-- I think it's all over your TikTok. No, no, I didn't like some New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Like, what are those articles, you know? And where they're saying that people are like now only drinking warm water. They're not drinking ice cold beverages. Yeah. Where they're walking in their house with slippers. They're west of the world. We talked about last time we had Ellen on. We talked about how it was like all of these things are just like built into Chinese Asian culture that we don't-- Traditional culture. I don't understand the West. And now being all Chinese medicine is like the hottest trend thing. I said this text message out to all of my classmates. But to be like, look guys, we were like 20 years ahead of the trend. We were so cutting edge. Anyway, I want to just kind of think about what helps our GI. You know, like I talked about eating simpler food, soups again, or a great way. Egg drop soup. That's kind of what-- You know, people forget. Like, I don't love eggs. But I don't mind it in egg drop soup. Again, it's like the vehicle for transport is the liquid, right? So you can make a really simple-- like where you can saute some scallion and some ginger, maybe put in like a cut up tomato, saute that for a little bit of water, a teeny bit of sake or rice wine to it. Then you can add a little bit of our root or kuzu to thicken it. And then when it's done, and it's some soy sauce, or if you don't like soy sauce, just salt. And then you beat up an egg. And when the soup is done, you turn the soup off. And you just kind of drizzle the egg in around the edges, stir it a couple of times, and you have egg drop soup. So eggs are this beautiful, yet completely balanced in young food. The young is in the yolk, the innocent, the album, and the white. And also, if you're feeling like I want some substance, but I don't want to have meat, I don't want to chew anything. That's a nice way for you to do it. Or to have stock that has chicken broth or lamb broth or fish broth or something. So you get that nourishment, you know? You feel so good after you eat stuff like that. Yeah. And you feel full and satiated. So you're less-- You know, I think a lot. I was thinking about it. Sometimes when we want to eat for Thai food in particular, after I'm done eating Thai food from a restaurant, I am like craving sweets. But I am looking everywhere. Yeah. Because I am not satiated because that meal had so much sweet in it. It had fat and sweet, but no vegetables. Like, and I get extra vegetables, but still, it's very rare that I leave a Thai food meal, not looking for something sweet. That is a very good sign that my meal was not balanced. Right, exactly. If you're craving something afterwards, I mean, I think it's okay. In China, traditionally, after a meal, you get oranges. Why? Because oranges are just clear stomach heat. Yes. You know? So, you know, it's okay if you have a little piece of food or some various or something. But I think if you-- So a lot of giant slice of cheesecake. No, that's going to really-- But a small slice of cheesecake. You could do that on your own. I say if you like dessert, just have a dessert meal, not instead of dinner. but like, you know, two times, you know, yeah, or something. But think about like root vegetables, where do roots grow? They grow on the ground, underground. They go down. Yeah, they go down. We want this energy to go down, you know what I mean? So carrots, carrots are known for like, descending rebellious stomach, you know? So, you know, - Rebellious stomach. That's my favorite cause of loading. - I know. - Rebellious stomach. - But you know, she's a woman. - I just got stuff to say. - Actually. - So, you know, again, but you have to kind of discern, what's the root cause here? - Right. - Is it dampness? Is it like, this stress or, you know, entrama? Is it irregular eating? Is it excesses that they're adding? So that's why, you know, if we're a practitioner, we kind of want to have a conversation, right? Just get to know our person instead of prescribing. Because, you know, if I tell you what to do, you know, you're gonna have your own relationship to that. Maybe not so good, like, I've already, like, like my mother used to go, I was so bad. I didn't take my bum along. - Go, mom, you're not bad. - You know what I mean? - You just forgot. - You just forgot, you know? So, you know, discipline is like remembering what we want. - So I always think about changing our food, which is like the easiest thing if you get better by changing your food, but it's the hardest thing because it's changing your food. So I like to say, like, let's go on a journey. Let's see what, you know, like if someone says to me, oh, spicy on everything and I tell them, well, let's cut out spicy for like three weeks, you know? - And short experiments. See how you feel. - Exactly. - And then, you know, and then if you like, can do it and then you have the spicy, just notice what you feel in your body. - Right. - What's different? So that way it's like a closed experiment. You get to see what the effect of it is. And you get to see if there's any change. Now, sometimes three weeks is not enough. - Yeah. - But, you know, you have to start figuring out what are the obstacles to cure and then you start to kind of work on building up your energy and helping support that downward movement. So there are many different ways to do that. I love this, Ellen, this was a great conversation. I also feel like I have some understandings about like actual actionable steps. How do people find you? - Okay, well, I want to say thank you for having me. I love talking about this. I could be talking about it. - I would also feel that. - Ellen and I have a hike that we do every month. - Exactly. - But we talk about this for hours. - I need some hobbies. - Yeah. - How can people find me? So I practiced at a Portland organ, but I do virtual consults and I work with practitioners who are working on cases. I work with people who are trying to understand, you know, how do they work with changing their food. So you can find me through my website, PearlNaturalHelst.com. And I'm on Instagram at Goldsmith, Ellen. I'm on Facebook at Nutritional Healing with Chinese Medicine. And this is my book Nutritional Healing with Chinese Medicine. - There was a new training us on YouTube. You can see the cover here. It has one on the front. - Jere favorite. - The Jiong Jirins. - Jirins. And there are 175 recipes in here organized by the season. - You did an amazing table. You created a table of properties of all the stuff we did today and a ton more. - And I've really built this book so you can enter it anywhere. You know, if you want to learn learn about Chinese medicine, go for it. You can learn about it. If you want to understand, how do I get into my kitchen and start creating a kitchen that works for me? I have chapters on that. - I just want to say, I just open to the page on constipation. - Wow. - Which figure. - That is still our number one rated episode. - I know. - I think my bread and butter. - Yeah. - I will also say there is a lot, you know, when we were in school, both Dr. San and I are acupuncturists also. When we were in school, there was a massive book on Chinese properties, but it was so undigestable. It caused mental bloating to be honest. Literally, then wrote the book on it and made it simple. - Nutritional healing with Chinese medicine. I know as a fact that's available on Amazon. Good job. - Thanks. - Thanks for joining us. - Thank you for having me. And you know what they say in Chinese is, - Tryal, Eat Your Medicine. - Oh, I love that. - Bye, Terts. - Bye, Terts. - Thanks for joining us today. Stay tuned. We release episodes every two weeks. - If you like this episode, please subscribe and don't forget to rate and review us to help spread the Tert Nerd word.