And today I’m gonna be talking about super foods and this is how you can get better results for your patients.
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Hi and welcome. My name is Tsao-Lin Moy and I am a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist with a brick and mortar practice in Union Square in New York City. I would like to thank the Acupuncture Council for creating this opportunity to livestream information to you. And today I’m gonna be talking about super foods and this is how you can get better results for your patients.
By informing them about making these small changes and you’re gonna have, to their diet and some of their lifestyle. So we are going to go to the slides. . Okay, so super foods, and this is about getting better results for your patients and really it’s about being smarter about eating and doing it.
So they’re going to get these results. Now, every year people gain between seven to 10 pounds of weight between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that’s a lot because what happens is in the new year, We have everyone that makes resolutions that they wanna lose weight, they wanna get healthier. But after about six weeks, maybe two months, most people give up because it’s too difficult.
So if they’re not seeing the fast results, if they’re not getting encouragement, , they’re gonna stop. So here is an opportunity to give your patients these tools. Now, the US is one of the most unhealthy countries in the world with an almost the highest in healthcare cost. And as we know as practitioners that for the most part, many of our services are not covered on insurance, and patients have to pay out of pocket.
And it looks like the cost value is like, 4 trillion right, is spent on healthcare, but the quality of people’s lives is not getting better, and in fact, it gets worse. Oftentimes the solution from allopathic medicine is to end up being on multiple medications. And one of the. Main causes of death in the US is heart disease with a lot of the comorbidities of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, right?
And looking at the simple things that I’m gonna cover, that it’s gonna support your patients and yourself, they’re gonna be really easy to incorporate and help to cultivate a healthier lifestyle. . So the topics the topic is food is medicine, and I’m, we’re looking at super foods. I’m gonna talk a little bit about mushrooms.
Mushrooms have a lot of magical properties, including magic mushrooms, which I won’t talk about. Magic mushrooms just at the magic that they can produce with health. I’m gonna do an example. Different greens. I’m gonna cover also a little bit about sugar and just dairy. So this is going to be an overview.
It’s gonna stimulate you guys to do more research on your own and maybe take a look at, where you can make improvements so that the food that you have and that you’re consuming is gonna be the highest quality and nutrient dense. . So mushrooms. Mushrooms and their medicinal magic. Okay, so in this picture we’re looking at there’s Lions Main, there’s Cortis, there’s Turkey Tail, there’s Rei Chaga Maya Taki, and Shiitake mushrooms.
Mushrooms are actually from the Fungi Kingdom. Genetically we are closer to fungi than we are to other plants and so I’m not gonna go over the whole Fungi Kingdom. My suggestion is, if you haven’t already watched it, is to go and watch the movie. Fantastic fungi. There’s gonna be so much information about how mushrooms and mycelium interconnect us throughout the world and how much that we and the environment really relies on mushrooms.
There’s something called micro remediation. And this is where the mushrooms are able to clean out toxic waste. Really helping to be help our environment, right? And for us does the same thing. Mushrooms are extremely helpful and medicinal for with their properties. So most mushrooms, they have many healing properties.
One, we know they boost the immune system. They lower cholesterol, regulate blood sugar, improve memory have cancer fighting properties they contain. Proteins, minerals and are packed with antioxidants. Now the seven strains, which are highly beneficial, are often found in a mushroom powder supplement.
And I put together, I just said STAT seven. Paul Stat is a very well known mycologist and he has a company and. He has different packaging is where will contain the Cortis, the Turkey tail, REI, makihiki, and Lions Main. Now, Cortis is also known as Caterpillar fungus, right? And it’s good for energy, for memory.
The Turkey tale research is done used for. Cancer. Also REI we know is the Lingerer in Chinese medicine, which is also used for immune and also helping with cancer. Myat. Taki this mushroom is good for blood pressure, cholesterol also blood sugar. And again, the same with shiitake mushrooms, also very healthy.
You can cook with them. Lions. is one that’s known for memory and they look at neuro regenerative properties. So maybe looking towards how it can help with motor neuron regeneration brain with like dementia Parkinson’s many issues that we’re having right now with brain fog, right post or during with from viruses and pandemics.
And then we have chaga, I put a little asterisks with Chaga because you. All of these have healing properties, but there’s also a tendency for let’s say western people to think more is better. And the one thing with the Chaga, you have to be careful because in super large quantities it can cause problems with the kidneys.
So we’re always looking at moderation and. Best way is if you can cook with the mushrooms. So most mushrooms, they’re gonna work through the middle j the spleen, the stomach, the liver. They’re also good for the lung and the heart channel. They’re good for gut health and help to regulate blood sugar and cholesterol.
And in turn, heart. With mushrooms, you really have to break them down, like cook ’em because they contain something called chitin, which is protein. They’re also very high in fiber. So we don’t really want to eat raw mushrooms. I think the little button mushrooms are okay to eat raw in a salad, but for the most part, you really need to cook.
So here what I’ve highlighted is Mya Taki mushroom. So I’m just gonna go through the Maya Taki mushroom, also known as Hen of the Woods. Now, this mushroom is known to reduce cholesterol. , it helps to clean out the blood. It’s anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, and also helps with type two related diseases, other kinds of problems that show up from type two diabetes.
And I put on the bottom of this the different references for the research that’s done. I actually have a friend who. He had done some research, he had diabetes, he had high cholesterol, hypertension, like all of those three that we see so prominently in here in the west because of our diet.
And he had read about the benefits of the myat Tai mushroom and decided he was going to just intake more my Taki mushroom. And he. He made. So about one third of his diet was coming from mushrooms and ended up losing like 60 pounds and then got off, was able to get off the cholesterol, the high blood pressure medication, and also reverse his diabetes, right?
So this is really huge. This is a huge thing. So if we can avoid or minimize the amount of medication, That we’re taking this is gonna be a good thing, right? Because as we know, medication actually can cause inflammation in the liver and also cause problem with the kidneys. So oftentimes the medicines that we take and the pharmaceuticals, they have a lot of side effects, right?
And so if we can, whatever we can do on our own that’s simple would be maybe start eating some mayak mushrooms. So are there certain foods that are better to eat along with mushrooms for enhanced nutrition? Absolutely. Onions, garlic, shallots, leaks, chives. They’re excellent accompaniments for cooking with mushrooms.
So in Chinese medicine, onions and garlic are used in soups, right? We know like a miso soup cuz they open up the sinuses and the lungs. They also belong to the album genus, and those properties are also filled with vitamins, minerals, plant compounds, and antioxidants. Great for supporting immune fun immune function.
right? And reducing. They also reduce cholesterol and blood sugar. And also garlic and onions are great for flavoring. So if just in case the theme is , reducing your cholesterol, your blood sugar blood pressure and improving The your gut health. So all of these things that if we can do this, will be just, even one food that you can add in to your diet, make some changes.
It’s gonna make a really big impact and. From what I notice is that you have to give your patients really simple things that they can do. If they’re given a really complicated eat this in the morning, this in the afternoon, you have to something, then they’re gonna give up. So really like an easy thing is, have them start eating mushrooms, right?
Just say, start eating mushrooms, not with butter. But really give them a couple of easy recipes. You can roast mushrooms, right? With just a little bit of olive oil and salt in the oven. And they’re very TAs. So one of the problems in the US is sugar. So this is a, the US is the biggest consumer of sugar on the globe, and according to sources, the country’s per capita, sugar consumption is about.
30 teaspoons a day, right? And that translates into more than 10 times what the lowest recommended in intake is, which is about three teaspoons. And this translates into as it converts from grams to pounds to ounces, about over a hundred pounds of sugar per year, per person, right? Of course some people eat less.
But if you start looking at how much sugar is in like drinks and different kinds of foods that we really don’t realize, like how much that we’re consuming, right? So why do we need to cut sugar out of our diet? In the US we’ve got a lot of diabetes, 10% at least, of the adult population, which is about 34 million, has diabetes.
And then we’ve got. 34, almost 35% have pre-diabetes. So we’re already we’re trending, right? This is trending sh insulin resistance and sugar. Problems regulating sugar affect the endocrine system. We see this with a lot of problems with fertility. , a lot of women or a lot of people overall, obesity is a big problem in the us.
So we start to see problems with metabolism. The standard American diet known as the SAD diet, is really high in like animal products. A lot of animal fats dairy meat processed. Sugars and a lot of sugars and so we start to see like we need to make changes, but then all, so it’s not just stopping eating those foods or curbing it is really, we need something to help to clear out the system.
Sugar plays a role as a stimulant and it increases inflammation, right? And it can actually cause problems with yeast. It will cause problems with imbalances in mood and reproductive hormones. With a fertility. Polycystic ovary syndrome is a really big problem and we see more and more women are being diagnosed with it and often they have insulin resistance and this is what interrupts their endocrine system and reproductive hormones.
So we really wanna look also can we make substitutions? So there are a few things you can do, of course, like cutting out sugar as much as possible is really you. Is gonna be the best thing that we can do to go on like a sugar fast. But oftentimes people are looking for a substitution.
So if we compare sugar to maple syrup, I know that there are a lot of recipes that say, oh, use maple syrup. So maple syrup. Comparably in calories and carbs. It has a lower glycemic index than sugar. And it also tends to be a little bit sweeter. So this is something that maybe you’d end up using less of if you use that as a substitution.
But I also looked at a comparison of something like how’s molasses, what is molasses in terms of compared to. Maple syrup, because sugar has empty calories, sugar it’s processed. It doesn’t really offer anything other than the sugars. So when we look at maple syrup, because it comes from a tree, it’s going to have other.
Properties from the tree plants like antioxidants but then looking at what does molasses contain because molasses is also sweet. It has a sweet it’s also very bitter. But it can be used as a sweetener and things like, Coffee if you want to, or even hot chocolate. Black strap molasses is like really high in iron.
So if you have people that tend towards anemia, this would be like maybe a spoonful of the black strap molasses. And looking at in this slide how it contain, Calcium, right? Iron very high in iron, molasses, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, b3, B five, b6. If you’re going to have a little bit of a sweetener itch, this could be like to really kinda look at, am I gonna have some healthy things that are gonna come with it.
So not just the sweet. And again we’re looking at maple syrup also has. , right? So if you, if we’re gonna choose something to suite, we’re gonna look at not just the fact that it’s gonna be low on the glycemic index, but really what else can it offer? . Now getting to greens. So all greens are full of antioxidants, right?
But they’re not all equal. And I actually came I was in actually a Asian. Food market. And I happened to pass by this, sea of green and I saw these little flowers and I, wow, these are really beautiful flowers. And it happened to be like the flowers from the Chinese broccoli tips.
And so I bought them and I was like, oh, it’s really interesting. I don’t always see the flowers. And they made me really curious about what are the benefits of Chinese broccoli. And what I found out is, Chinese broccoli is one of the most, most nutritious vegetables, and one of the highest calcium content has the highest calcium content of any food.
Rich in iron, vitamin A, c, and E high amounts of beta keratin, and that helps with. Eyes for as we age we get macular degeneration. And it’s also a rich source of fiber. Now, regular broccoli is also high in many nutrients, including fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, iron and potassium.
However, having bone health, we really wanna look at if we eat a little bit of the Chinese broccoli, That, comparing it to another green, that this may be a much healthier choice. Easy to do one green, just change it right. . Another also I looked at was the celery. What is celery?
Celery contains a lot of plant compound. A plant compound a, which is a role in traditional Chinese medicine is anti-inflammatory, right? We know that. Celery is very cooling. It’s a diuretic, right? Helps remove the toxins from the body. Studies actually show it has its antioxidant and has anti-aging properties.
Actually looking at it, it also has some neuro stem cell regeneration properties too in, in some of the research papers. The aspect you can drink celery juice, right? In Chinese medicine, drinking raw green juices is not so great cuz maybe too cold. The, in terms of nutrition it’s high in vitamin K and also modest source of B, the B vitamins.
You can chop it up and saute it. Just add it into maybe some other dishes that you have really think about just adding some more of the celery and in particular the Chinese celery is a little bit stronger in terms of flavor, so you can experiment with that. . Okay, so here we are with dairy.
The American diet has a lot of dairy and cheese, right? a lot of milk, a lot of milk products. And the thing is at least 68% of the world’s population has difficulty. Digesting dairy and milk. And so what happens is it is like a point of inflammation, even if we don’t, even if it’s not acute, right?
Oftentimes people feel like, oh I can drink milk. I don’t get a stomach ache. I’m fine. , if you have an intolerance, the symptoms actually will show up later on, right? Not everyone can tolerate dairy in their diet, and in fact Being intolerant to dairy is one of the most common food sensitivities among both children and adults.
And for the most part, we consume dairy when, with in our drinks ice cream, right? Lot of desserts, creamy, creamy foods. And so an intolerance of a food usually is gonna involve a delay, a delayed biological. So a lot of patients have i b s, they get abdominal pain, gas and bloating.
Of course you can, we recommend having foods that are are fermented or eating a probiotic to help with digest with digestion. But if somebody’s still eating dairy and it’s causing irritation they may think that it has nothing to do with it because it may not be acute. , but these symptoms, because there is a delayed biological reaction.
The important thing is like maybe to cut it out of the diet we see a lot of skin problems, eczema, psoriasis, right? Rashes, just itchy skin. We can blame it on the dry weather or we can blame it on something. . But if the patient is eating milk products, that more than likely that is contributing to the skin irritation.
We also see a lot of headaches and migraines. . And that can also be attributed to sensitivity to gluten. However dairy is really sneaky, right? Because we can put it in our coffee or tea or some in some other way. And we don’t really think of it as like the problem because it could be, we had it a couple days ago.
Dairy intolerance can cause a lot of weight gain swelling, a lot of inflammation. Also things like anxiety. , right? Any kind of food intolerance creates inflammation and then can actually affect our chemistry, fatigue, joint pain, even difficulty breathing, right? Because the inflammation is going to irritate also the lungs.
All right. I’d be very interested this is the end of the slide. If have any comments or questions what are you doing with your patients if there is something that you want to learn more about. I have started to do a lot more research into all the food that I eat.
Certain things when you’re making choices to really make those switches. And so the more you, the more you research the smarter you are and you can share with your patients. So I would like to again thank the American Acupuncture Council for the live stream. And I hope to see you in the future.
And I’m not sure who the next person is gonna be on for our presentations, but I hope everyone is gonna have a really happy holiday and a very healthy 2023.