Naturalpath

A person's particular condition at a given time is an important consideration in making dietary choices. For example, someone who is recovering from the flu should eat a diet designed to counterbalance the sickness. For a high fever with parched mouth and throat, moisturizing, cooling foods are appropriate, whereas for someone with a fever accompanied by aches and chills, foods that are warming and stimulating would be helpful.

Because changes in climate and season can have a profound effect on our health, Chinese medicine takes these into account as well. A cooling diet of raw, juicy foods would be healthier for most people in the summer when it's hot and dry, while in the cold, damp, windy winter months a warming and enriching diet stokes our internal fire, strengthens our resistance and protects us from the elements.

“Chinese medicine is probably one of the oldest, if not the oldest system of natural medicine that has existed continuously for over two thousand years. We have records dating back at least two thousand three hundred years, so we know that these practices were being used and developed in very ancient times and have been a part of Chinese culture and Asian civilization in general for millennia.

"Acupuncture, as an example, is a method of healing that is low-tech. It requires very simple implements, and in ancient times people used shards of stone, ceramic pots, pieces of bamboo, or, in the Middle Age, they began to use different metals – iron, copper, gold and silver.

“Whatever the level of technology that the civilization had, they developed very simple tools for stimulating the body to promote a healing response. There’s a great deal of controversy, still, about how acupuncture itself was discovered or invented. But let’s just say that thousands of generations of practitioners and patients have demonstrated without a doubt that this method is effective.

“The fact that it’s so simple in its essence and so low technology to produce the implements makes it a very serviceable method of healthcare for people all over the world. One of our missions has been to promote the use of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine as a system of primary care, particularly in underserved communities throughout the world - and not only in the third world, but also in the United States, where people still don’t have access to health care the way they should”

Overview

Efrem Korngold, one of the leading traditional Chinese medicine educators and practitioners in America, is co-author (with Harriet Beinfield) of Between Heaven and Earth, A Guide to Chinese Medicine. He began his studies at the College of Traditional Acupuncture in England, and studied herbal medicine and acupuncture at the Kunming Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Institute and at the Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shu Guang Hospital. Efrem Korngold is on the faculty of the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, teaches widely in the US and Europe, was a founding faculty member at the San Francisco College of Acupuncture and an instructor in the Holistic Healing Studies Program at San Francisco State University.