New Year Diet Tips

• The typical Asian diet consists mainly of grains, vegetables, tofu, tempeh and/or small amounts of meat or seafood for overall balance. Try eating smaller portions of meat. American men have the highest rate of prostate cancer in the world; whereas, Asian men have an extremely low rate of prostate cancer. A study which followed Japanese men who moved to America and adopted an American diet showed that they had the same rate of prostate cancer as their American born counterparts. So, it seems that an Asian style balanced diet is advisable. By the way, Asian women also have an extremely low rate of breast cancer and rarely experience menopausal symptoms.
• Enjoy your food. Try to avoid eating when you are upset, angry, sad or overly worried; it may cause stomach aches, indigestion, acid reflux, heartburn, ulcers or other digestive disorders.
• Chew your food well. The first step to digestion takes place in the mouth where secretion of the enzyme amylase begins the breakdown of food. By properly chewing food you will avoid taxing the stomach and spleen which would otherwise work much harder to break down the food. Chewing is especially important when eating carbohydrates and tofu.
• Since tofu is not a whole protein, lacking amino acids and some vitamins, make sure to eat tofu with whole grains and vegetables. I recommended eating whole, unrefined grains and five servings of fresh organic vegetables daily. If you cannot get fresh organics, frozen are O.K.
• Do not overcook your vegetables. Overcooking kills vitamins and minerals. Lightly steam your veggies instead. Chinese bamboo steamers work great!
• If you eat meat, buy organic. This way you can avoid consuming synthetic hormones and antibiotics that non-organic farms feed to livestock to increase production. You will also avoid ingesting toxic chemicals such as sodium nitrite and MSG.
• Integrate beans into the diet slowly to avoid digestive difficulty. Cooking beans with ginger helps remove gaseous properties. Latin cultures add white vinegar to beans for the same purpose.
• Avoid processed foods such as most boxed, frozen meals and canned foods which are high in sodium and low in nutritional value.
• Read the labels on everything even if you shop at a health food store. A general rule of thumb to avoid harmful chemicals and additives is - if you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.

At Aiyana Acupuncture & Chinese Herbs we offer
Weight Loss Acupuncture!

Don't want acupuncture? That's okay because we also offer Chinese nutritional counseling sessions. Nutritional counseling is great not just for weight loss but we can also help you eat in a more balanced manner for overall health maintenance. Call us for details: 212-894-0767 and check out our website amazinghealing.com for more information and free health & wellness articles.

Posted by: Juliette Aiyana, L.Ac.