Nutrition & Chinese Medicine

[MUSIC] >> Welcome to GW Integrative Medicine, the podcast about disease prevention and health promotion from the Office of Integrative Medicine and Health at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. >> I'm Dr. Misha Kogan, Associate Professor of Medicine here at GW and also Director at GW Center for Integrative Medicine. >> And I'm Janet Rodriguez, the Office of Administrative Director. Today, we talk about traditional Chinese medicine and nutrition with Ellen Goldsmith, a nationally board certified license acupuncturist, Chinese herbalist, and co-author of nutritional healing with Chinese medicine. >> Ellen's work is centered in intuitive approach to care in this ground and in decades of study and experience, which are the key to collaborating and working with people to help them reach their goals. >> From working with AIDS patients in the 80s to trauma survivors, to performing artists, to high functioning professionals, elders and young people, Ellen is deeply equipped to guide people through challenging issues. >> Ellen, so exciting. Welcome to GW Integrative Medicine, podcast. >> I am so happy to be here with you both. Thanks for having me. >> You're welcome. We finally have you. We've been meeting to do this for, I don't know how long, but you're here now. We're very happy to have you. >> Thank you. >> So let's start with something super simple. What is Chinese medicine? >> All right, yes, Chinese medicine. Many people in the United States know Chinese medicine through the practice of acupuncture, which is used mostly well known for the treatment of pain. But Chinese medicine is the oldest, continually practiced medicine in the world. And we know that because of the texts that we have access to from thousands of thousands of years ago, and it is constantly adapting and evolving, and making its voyage around the world through the travels along the Silk Road, where we see the influence of Chinese medicine in Iran and what are called vegetable doctors, to Southeast Asia, et cetera. And it's really grounded in the observation of nature, meaning that people, Daoists, thousands and thousands of years ago, and they had nothing to distract them except the elements, we're constantly working with, what's going on out there, what's going on in here. So it's this idea that we want to live mostly in harmony with our environment, with our internal environment, and how do we do that? And that's where the medicine comes into play. And the foundation of it, the values, are really about preventing disease and promoting good health and longevity. And even thousands of years ago, when the premier text of the medicine, the Yellow Emperor's internal classic, you can see that there's a conversation about, why is it that people used to live to 100 years old? And now they, because they knew how to live, they knew how to regulate themselves to eat regularly, sleep, move their bodies, maintain and regulate their stress. And now they drink wine like water, they sleep at unusual hours, they don't eat regularly and they die at 50. This was like 3,000 years ago. So this is like a human problem that's been going on in cultures forever. And so those foundations are really lifestyle habits. And there are therapeutics and methods in Chinese medicine that we utilize along with a theory of diagnosis to find not only what are the symptoms, but the root cause and how can we help a person regain their internal balance so that they can regulate their own health. Now we know, there's so much out there today on food. If you eat well, if you take care of yourself, you can have a very good quality of life, all the research in the blue zones, et cetera. But in Chinese medicine, again, we know it here as a practice of acupuncture, but it really encompasses food therapy, which is what my specialty is. Chinese herbalism, which is the medicinalists of Chinese medicine, acupuncture, which under that umbrella is cupping. People know cupping from the Olympics years ago, those circles that people see on athletes to help promote circulation, release tension, et cetera. But it's also used throughout the world. I have had patients from Russia, Mexico, Vietnam, Venezuela, France that have had a cupping used for stubborn coughs, for rheumatism, et cetera. So there's cupping. There's a practice called guacha, which is scraping again to increase circulation. There's a moxibustin, which is heat therapy. So that's under acupuncture, which is like the physical therapy of Chinese medicine. And then you have chigong, which is a movement exercise to work your Chi or your vital force, your energy and your body to circulate it through your body. I guess people know yoga more commonly in the West. And that too helps to circulate the energy. But this is about building it and also using it for healing. And then there's bodywork as well. So Chinese medicine has many different therapeutic branches. But its real goal is prevention, health promotion, and longevity. And then utilizing these therapeutics to help resolve acute illness chronic health issues. So that's the story on Chinese medicine. And it is constantly evolving. I would say as it moves into different cultures, different cultures have different strengths. Like in Germany, there's been a huge production of equipment and to register vibrational patterns and acupuncture points. And Vietnam, there's a different way of practice. Korea, they specialize a lot in hand acupuncture. So you see it all over the world. Well, we are supporters of Chinese medicine. People may not know, but really the Office of Integrative Medicine and Health evolved from the GW Center for Integrative Medicine, which evolved from Dr. John Pan, who got into Chinese medicine after being a OBGYN for decades. And he started the center. And so our origin really comes from Chinese medicine. I think it's so beautiful. And I want to just share with you this, because I think it's really, really important. Chinese medicines, those foundations, are so strong. Their therapeutics are so strong. And even the foundation of culinary medicine is grounded in Chinese medicine. Dr. David Eisenberg, at a par, or talks about his influence and his study of Chinese medicine and how that sparked his creation of culinary medicine. Because that was the way we can help people really work on their health on a daily basis. So yeah, that's wonderful. And it also can be in collaboration with Western medicine. It doesn't have to be either or. They work very, very well together. And I treat a lot of people with stubborn chronic diseases with acupuncture. And it helps them to regulate their nervous system and reduce the stress, which always worsens any kind of experience of chronic illness. Yeah. Well, let's go into more of-- so TCM is actually in this country, it's known more for procedures. But actually, the biggest power of it is always relate to the food, herbs, and kind of this general lifestyle concept. And it goes really far in. So the food as medicine is not a-- it's taken not just serious, but entire practice based on that. Can you talk a little bit about this? And particularly, there's kind of an overlay or interplay between the herbs. And it's not just herbs. I mean, in TCM, they use minerals. They use some extracts from animals and all kinds of stuff that they use. And how it that sits with the concept of food as medicine. And what's the interplay here? Well, yes, there is an interplay. And I would say that there is a saying that first you treat with sesame oil, one of the kind of forefathers of Chinese medicine said, you find the root cause of disease. And first you treat with food. And if that does not work, you go to medicinal. And those medicinals would be herbs. And we also have a saying, the stronger the taste, the stronger the impact of the food and the herb. So there is an interplay. And in fact, in Chinese dietary therapy, you can utilize Chinese herbs in food. Now, you're not going to use those terribly bitter herbs like avodia and coptus and all those things in your daily soup. Because those are strong herbs that have a very strong heat clearing, clearing of virus, toxins, et cetera. But you are going to use food grade herbs that are-- we know a lot like a straggler's, Dice Korea, which is Chinese Yem, Goji berries, dates, things, mushrooms. These are all very good medicinal foods that can be utilized on a daily basis. But they're different and the same. So in Chinese medicine and in Chinese culture, food and medicine are inseparable. Food heals, food is medicine, medicine is food. And if you talk to even young people today, they're grandmas, they're aunties, because of course Chinese cultures changed a lot. It's become much more westernized. They remember them saying, drink this soup now because you have this problem. It's in the culture of China. And it is still in certain cultures, you can kind of see hints of it. But it is very strongly embedded in the culture. And many people, common people who are not doctors or herbalists, etc, have experiences of using food as medicine. But the herbalism is, like I said, it's different. And it can be integrated. So Chinese herbal formulas are usually concocted with a combination of Chinese herbs to meet what the problem is. Now, here's the deal that gets complicated. Is that in Western medicine, if you have this problem, you'll take this drug or that pharmaceutical, etc. But in Chinese medicine, we say, one disease, 10,000 cures, because everybody's different. So everybody's terrain is different. Everyone's condition is different. Everyone's constitution is different. Their lifestyle is different. So you have to kind of-- it's a very personalized, tailored medicine to the individual from the practitioner's perspective. Of course, there are many things people can do on a daily basis that doesn't have to get so complicated and fancy. I just want to highlight this, because it's a really important concept that I want to make sure I listen. I was full understanding this. In a standard model we are in, right? There is this understanding that basically you have a diagnosis and you have a treatment. You have a guidelines for this treatment. You have an evidence-based approach. And here you're looking at something like-- in states, if somebody has diabetes, there may be 20 things that can be done, right? But they're, again, they're following certain protocol. You're looking Chinese medicine. First of all, the word diabetes could mean 20, 30, 50 different problems inside. This is going to be based on such a more complexity of the agnostic. And then every patient will be treated pretty much slightly different. It's not an easy swallow for a Western mind beyond. I'm not just talking about difficult swallow for health care providers. I'm talking about for everybody. It's the concept that if you haven't truly grown out with this, it's hard to embrace. Let's go in there. And let's talk a little bit about what do you think would be the easiest for a patient who's never really thought of this, who don't understand that the complexity is so beyond more complex. How should someone like this say, look, I'm open to learning about this. I'm open to understanding. Advises how patients should think about this. I'm not even talking about learning it. Forget that. That's just to complicate it. Just a philosophic portion of it here. That is such a great question, Misha, because a lot of people come to us at the end of the line. They've been to doctors. They're not getting the help they need. They're pushed through a mill. They're taking medications. They're having side effects when they come to us. And I never-- and people who are deeply respect say, well, OK, good. Don't do that. Do this. No. I think there are many ways to the place when people want to go. And people also have to gauge their comfort. What are they comfortable with? To change your diet, hard thing to do-- I always say it's the hardest thing to do and the easiest. If you change your diet and you start to improve, you can say, wow, that was pretty easy, right? But it's hard to change habits and flavor preferences, et cetera. And the whole point of the medicine is to help people feel like they can trust themselves in a way in their own body. So I think as practitioners, we have to recognize who this person is, what's going on in their life, what are their conditions, their lifestyle conditions, et cetera. It's a social work aspect here. And how can we help them make steps to improve their health, perhaps while they're getting treatment, right? And to see if that improvement can come, and then perhaps conventional treatment can be altered. But I think anyone who tells you I'm going to cure you is not being honest because we never know. So I think we have to help patients make small steps. And one of my earliest Chinese medicine teachers said the most important thing is to gain trust. So if a someone comes in, they have diabetes, but their main problem is they have a headache every single day and they're in pain. Number one, I have to help them resolve that headache issue and that pain issue so that they start to have trust not only in the treatment, but in their bodies that things can change. They kind of go together. It's interesting. But you're not going to directly just treat symptoms. I just want to emphasize this so that you're going to treat the whole system. And because you know that the headache is only a symptom of a bigger constellation of issues. And so you're going to target it all at the same time. Yeah, exactly like a headache is not a headache. You can have a headache in the front. You can have a headache in the top. You can have a temporal headache. You can have occipital headache. You can have headaches that come at hormonally, et cetera. So yeah, we're always looking at the underlying kind of balance of what we say in Chinese medicine, if Yin and Yang of self-regulation, so to speak, in the body of blood and she. These are concepts that I guess I'm not going to go into here. But these are the underlying concepts. So we're looking at that. And we're trying to promote some self-regulation in the body. But I do feel it's important for a person, not the theory, but the person, that they feel some sense of benefit. So you can kind of do two things at the same time. And it's important to treat the whole person. Ellen, we've never talked to you about your book. So give me a little background on that. How did that come about? So yeah, like I said, I've been working with people for over 30 years. And people come to you-- I mean, even doctors, people come to you and then they stop coming, right? People come to you for acupuncture. They come to you for body work. They come to you for advice. And then they leave. But they don't stop eating. And-- To ride. So who is really a very powerful medicine? And personally, just I've had the experience of it really transforming and changing my health. And so I felt like I need-- and the Chinese medicine wisdom, I think, is so strong and powerful because it really-- it is about living in balance and learning how to do that. And not just conceptually. But through cooking and food preparation, and eating seasonally, and eating for your conditions, et cetera. So I wanted to put something out there in the world that could be of use every single day, kind of where I think it matters most, which is the kitchen. Because that's a big place where we live. Not just eating food, but it's where we create family and community. It's where we're generous with ourselves and each other. And so I wanted to write a book that was really accessible, accessible for my patients. They wanted to learn about Chinese medicine that could-- good for my Chinese medicine students that I teach or my health professionals that I teach about Chinese medicine and food. So it's like-- it's as if I'm talking to them and saying, hey, this is what she is. And why it's important. And this is how we eat in the winter and why it's important. And so because it's about food, I created 175 recipes. And I created them by season. Because I think that's a really straightforward way into using Chinese medicine as a guide to eat more healthfully. If you get into concepts of Yen and Yang, and she in blood, it's very heady, and it doesn't land in the body, right? So I created-- I have these recipes. And every seasonal chapter has the same categories. So you have foods for breakfast that you'll eat in summer. And then you'll eat in all the other seasons. You'll have soups. And those are appropriate for that season. And then you'll have main dishes, which are from vegan to meat eaters, pescatarians. And then we have vegetable dishes, and side dishes, snacks, beverages, which include everyday teas that are slightly medicinal. And also taught-- wines because much as tinctures in Western herbalism in Chinese tradition, there's the use of decochting certain herbs in wines or alcohol to strengthen their potency to utilize in small quantities and then desserts. And I also wanted to make it so it was for all kinds of people. So it's gluten-free desserts, it's very little dairy except for some ghee once in a while or like sheep yogurt as a garnish of something like that. And there are conges, there are traditional foods, there are grain-free breakfasts, you know, so and my recipe developer, Maya Klein, who is just fantastic and I really wanted to make foods that were delicious. And so I hope that's so important. It's so important because you know you're not going to want to eat healthily if it doesn't taste good, right? You know, it's just going to be more or you're not. Well, what tastes good for one person doesn't necessarily taste good for another. And you know the Chinese. Are you saying stay away from the cilantro? I'm not saying anything. I'm just sitting here reflecting, you know, I've been to China a couple of times and I'll tell you, you have to know the cultured because it's certain foods. I think our Western palate is going to say one more time of this and I am checking out here. Okay. bitter melon. No bitter melon. Bill and a bit of metal is just bitter. I'm talking about like whole plural of different spices and stuff. But listen, what we did in this book was we didn't create a, I'm not Chinese, I'm an Ashkenazi Jewish person with heritage from heave and Ukraine, you know. We created a book that has a lot of palettes in there. It's not a Chinese cuisine book. You know, I have vegan borscht in there. You know, I have my sister-in-law's chicken adobo in there. We have brisket in there. We have, you know, salads. I mean, we have, it's not a Chinese book. I mean, there are some really excellent Chinese cuisine health books, but this is not that. This has a real abroad variety palette. It does have some of the Chinese concepts, but having different flavor palettes with them. So I think there's a pretty big variety. I think there's something for everybody in the book. There's some really good cookies too. Okay. So I have to ask you something. This is going to be provoked if it may not sit well with a lot of listeners. I have to go there. There's a logic to that. Maybe we can talk about this logic in a little bit. So, you know, TCM generally does not support vegan diets. There is some aspect of it that can be implemented. But as a whole, Chinese medicine basically says you will not get enough nourishment all in all. Now, I talked to us about this in a more balanced way, because we don't want sort of to tell to our vegan listeners, look, that's better. But put a perspective here. Like, you know, why is this thought process often implemented? And, you know, of course, in medicine, medicine, we seeing people with medical problems. They don't come to us in perfectly healthy. But, you know, from perspective of medical aspect, why is there this idea that generally most people who are having health problems should not consume plants only? And, you know, I'm not forcing you to answer this in any uncomfortable way. But I want this to, because, you know, this comes up. This comes up quite a bit. It comes up in my, my own household since my wife is Chinese medicine provider. And, you know, we chose not to have a vegan and vegetarian diet heavily based on this concept. Yes. But, you know, talk to us about this. Yeah. Well, there is, you know, first of all, there's a cultural thing, right? I mean, if you go to India, the strong cultural thing is about vegetarianism, right? So we just have to honor that tradition there. Sure. You know, Chinese culture traditionally does not eat meat in the way the West does. It's a little bit of meat and it's a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of vegetables. Right. So that's what I wanted you to sort of point out because there's this sort of, yes, on this standing, I think often, that what does the plant-based truly means? It's not necessarily means zero animal. It just means a lot of plants. It means a lot of plants, which we know in this country people don't eat. You know, if I could get my patients to eat more dark leafy greens and wider variety of vegetables, man, would I be a happy practitioner? You know what I'm saying? And I think their guts would be happier and they would feel better and all of that. But there is that, there is that thought that, you know, in Chinese medicine blood, which is, again, for the listeners out there who don't know Chinese medicine, I'm sorry if this is going like way out there a little bit. But, you know, well, even in the West, blood nourishes your internal organs. It's like the foundation, one of the foundations for health or blood chemistry, right? That's why you do blood work. And in Chinese medicine, you need certain elements to nourish that. First of all, you need a very strong digestive system. You know, it's not just what you eat, it's what you digest. And we know there's big problem with people's capacity to digest food. But, you know, so animal foods nourish the blood, nourish the Chi, you know, provide a different kind of nourish fund, foundational nourishment that we've always believed is important. Now, I too see vegans with issues that I think could be mitigated and helped with a little bit of animal food. But I respect people's dietary choices. And sometimes I'll say, well, what about if you just had a broth, you know, so that you're not chewing, you know, it's not a moral thing because it is a medicinal thing to get that kind of nourishment through a broth. And I think, again, not everyone can go vegan. And also what I see with vegans is because you're eating plant-based, it's a very cooling diet. You know, you're not getting a lot of warms. So people kind of go for warms and veganism through carbs, which turns to sugar, which turns to fat, which doesn't do you much good. This is great. This is exactly what I want you to say. I think I think we're often oversimplifying our thought process about foods and diets. We think that if particularly expert to a group of experts believe in something that somehow this is an ultimate truth, the reality is, you know, it doesn't matter in essence what you eat. What matters is how that food interacts with your body. How when you're taking it in, what happens? And I love that in TSM general, this whole concept of different temperatures and how things process. Actually, TSM is not unique in that, right? So there are other systems. There are other systems exactly the same, right? So it's not a unique concept, but it's practiced. I think the problem with our current dietary approaches, we're looking at this reductionistically like the rest of Western model. We think like, okay, you have a heart disease, eat dinornish diet. It's lacking the wholism. No matter how better this approach may sound on paper, but it's lacking this way of saying, well, for that person, will this person process the food right? And is it the right food? And also, there's a right time. Exactly. I mean, you can be a vegan. There might be a right time for you to become vegan in the summer. It's a good time because it's hot. And also in time of your life. And the time of your life, right? It's not a good time. There are a lot of reasons it may not be a good time. But this idea of cooling and warming is very, it's foundational to Chinese dietary therapy. And that's what, you know, I do a lot of in the book. That's why it's seasonal, right? What foods warm foods cool you. Iran has a very deep practice of this as well. And, you know, the thing about if you're a vegan and you're cold and you're a woman and you're not getting your period and you're kind of depressed and you don't have energy. Then something's not right with what you're eating. You know, and if you're a meat eater and you're having those problems too, something's not right with what you're eating. It's not one or the other. But it's like, we have to learn to trust our bodies. And if we're not feeling well, something's not right. All right. Can I just pause you and have you repeat exactly what you said? Because this is just like, this is such a like, well, we're laughing and it's so like intuitive. But believe it or not, I personally feel that the biggest failure of our healthcare system is the fact that we stop teaching this concept. We're not teaching this concept. Listen to your intuition. Listen to your body. Understand what it's asking and what it needs. Instead, we always have the best new article showing some kind of, and then so everybody flocks to this and says, okay, now I should be taking vitamin D, right? Okay, in five years, forget vitamin D, who cares about vitamin D, and then the thing is like something else. So that's That's such a, just so I'm gonna stop myself here 'cause I got overexcited. And I'm getting the repeat exactly what you said. - Oh my gosh, the same words, listen, if you're not feeling well, right? If you're not feeling well, you don't have energy. You feel guilty even, don't gonna add something. You don't feel good about what you're eating. You are depressed, your mood's not good. You're not sleeping, you're not sleeping well. Despite what's going on in your life. If you're not feeling good, something's not right. So, then something has to change. And the most fundamental thing we can do is change our food. If you're feeling cold all the time and you're grabbing food from the grab and go, drinking juice, drinking ice water, et cetera, et cetera, maybe you shouldn't be drinking all these cold foods. Maybe you wanna add some, you wanna cook and you wanna add some nice warming spices and you wanna have some nice warm tea. Even in summer, it helps cool you down. We have to learn to kind of tune into our bodies and go, hmm, something's right. And get help because it's so hard to change. And like you said, there's so much information out there and people are just so confused. Oh, one person said eat this, the other person said eat that. So, I think the beautiful thing about nutritional therapy from Chinese medicine point of view, is it actually gets you reconnected to your sensing and feeling body in relationship to you in the stage of your life that you're in, the activities you're doing, the environment you're living in, the climate you're in, you wanna feel more in tune, so you have more flow, so you feel happier, so you feel healthier. I think these things are important. I think that's what people are seeking. - All right, so I've already figured out the next podcast with you, Ellen. - Okay, I need to have you and Misha and Dr. Lee Frame on to just discuss whole foods, ultra-process foods. - Processing of the foods period. - Food is medicine, the whole entire, how did you refer to it? Chinese culinary medicine? Yeah, I mean, I think culinary medicine is, yeah, it's very general and I think Western medical doctors have kind of taken that, but culinary medicine has been around from millennia. It's nothing new. - It's nothing new. All of our ancestors knew how to do it, you know? - That's the sad part. It's like, there is thousands of years of a human medical evolution where we knew what we're doing and how we're doing, and so suddenly somehow now it's the new thing, as if it's actually a new thing, which is the oldest thing there is, but at least it's happening, right? It's better than that. - You know, I give tremendous credit to Dr. Eisenberg for bringing it back and bringing it to the attention of the medical community in a really good way, and always honoring Chinese medicine when he does it, always. - So just for listeners, so David Eisenberg was, he's kind of one of the grandfather's of all alternative medicine. He is together with Andrew Wilde. He was the first voice in the America who said, "Look, it's this is important." He brought a lot of information back from China, but basically his first study said, "Look, more than 30% of the entire US population "heavily relying on the integrative or holistic "or whatever the word would, I think camp, the right." - Alternative medicine, that's what I'm talking about. - Camp, complimenting the alternative medicine. So and his selection, it works, and we still theoretically meet with him at the conference, so he's a monumental figure. Maybe at some point we should try to bring him in. - Mm-hmm. - He's an extraordinary human being and very dedicated to, you know, bringing food into healthcare, you know, completely committed to it, and he's just doing an amazing work and, you know, colleagues and what he's created, I think, is just a great gift back to us, but what we mustn't forget, you know, to our medical doctor colleagues that this is something that people have known about for millennia, and we need to kind of reintroduce that, you know, all of our ancestors, the three of us here are from very different places, and all of them have, you know, have food traditions that are beneficial. - Mm-hmm. All right, I think this is a good place for us to wrap up this wonderful discussion, 'cause we can go on. - I know. - 'Cause I was about to be a little stinker and bring up the fact that, you know, there's a healthy way to eat vegan, and there's an unhealthy way to eat vegan. - Well, I think-- - I'm talking to you folks that are eating all that ultra-processed vegan food. - Let's actually, let's do schedule the second, take two, and I, no, I love your idea, Janet. I think that's really the core, like, 'cause I think we talk about different diets, but we're not realizing that it's way more than just the type of food, it's how you process it. - Yes. - Is there so many pieces to the, to the, to, you know, whatever you're describing this as a food intake or culinary or any word you're using? And I think, well, I don't think we've ever done anything like this, right? - I don't think we have either, because I was just listening in and making connections that I had not made before, but in Chinese medicine, you kept on talking seasonal eating for the season. Well, if you're eating for the season, you're buying fresh food. You're buying fresh whole food as opposed to the ultra-processed stuff. So that's where all of this came from, is just finally making connections as I was listening to you guys talk. - And natural cooking and processing of foods is highly seasonal. I mean, you're not gonna process the food the same way, but that's never discussed. So all this pieces, you're so right, there's all of this pieces that each would be so valuable to discuss in specifically like our Western approach versus like this traditional Chinese medicine approach, which is such a deeply rooted and a medical aspect of everything for what, 5000 years? - Yeah, so three, three, three to over 3000. I really appreciate what you're saying, Misha, because I don't think it overrides the Western, but I think it brings a dimension to understanding that I think helps practitioners. I teach medical professionals about this and they're always like, well, now I don't know how to use it on my patients. I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't worry about your patients. Take care of yourself. Use it on yourself. Get connected to yourself, your body, your sensing, you will then have more potency in the room with your patients because you are connected and you'll be able to sense and learn about your patient in a different kind of way. So I think there's a lot here that, it's like taking the wisdom and using it in the modern context. It's not having, I mean, we can't teach Chinese medicine in a podcast, let alone a lifetime. But we can kind of introduce concepts that I think people know about, that they know when they feel cold or hot, they know when they have energy or don't have energy, they know when they feel frustrated and tense or feel relaxed and in kind of in the present moment in the flow, so all these things help. I never mentioned the title of my book, which I liked. (laughs) Well, first of all, yeah. What is the title and where can they get it? Okay, so the title is Nutritional Healing with Chinese Medicine with 175 recipes for optimal health and they're, I guess, that organized by season. You can get them on Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, your local independent bookshop. I always like to support many libraries have it, university libraries have it, et cetera. So yeah, I hope people pick it up and find it useful. It's got great reviews on Amazon, everybody, just saying. All right, thanks. (laughs) Even better on Goodreads, how'd you do that? I don't know. Goodreads, like you're serious, way. Hey, that's totally organic. (laughs) I'm unintended. Well, I think that's, I think on this note, I think that's all time we have for today, and it was such a pleasure having you. I think we had so much fun, I personally had so much fun. I did too, I really appreciate you both, thank you. We're gonna definitely do it. Take two or whatever we're gonna call this part two. Okay, get on my nutrition nerds in the room. I'm gonna step back and let you guys have, let you guys go. Okay, this is the GW Integrative Medicine Podcast from the GW Office of Integrative Medicine and Health. I'm Dr. Misha Kogan. And I'm Janet Rodriguez. Thanks for listening. 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