Raw Chi

Book excerpt: Raw Chi discusses a breakthrough in health understanding, showing readers how to bridge the gap between the raw foods diet and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Offering an overview of the nature of foods and herbs used in TCM (ginseng, aged citrus peel, cinnamon twig, licorice root, and many others) in addition to sections dedicated to men's and women's health, author Rehmannia Dean Thomas educates readers on how to use centuries-old Chinese herbal formulas to balance a raw food diet. TCM practitioners have typically discouraged maintaining diets high in raw foods, citing that they are yin in their energetic nature and can dampen the digestive fire, often resulting in fatigue, excess weight, or bloating, among other symptoms. Thomas observed that herbal formulas in the TCM material medica have been designed over many centuries to warm the middle Jiao area—the area from the diaphragm to the navel—and assist the digestive fire (similar to metabolism), thus helping to render raw foods into energy without accumulating moisture retention. The author shoes how an educated and responsible combination of raw food and Chinese herbal teas, tailored to one's individual needs, can help raw foodists, and others, attain daily and long-term health. Thomas describes chi in Western terms, helping readers to understand the meaning of this energy, how it is acquired and used for metabolism and health, and as an overall driver of evolution. He continues by describing the yin and yang of chi and how the foods we eat affect us all, and specifically as men and women—offering three herbal recipes each for men and women separately, and two tea recipes for both men and women. The text includes an appendix with instructions on different methods for herb preparation and sources for high-quality herbs.