You Are What You Eat

Everyone knows that food is the fuel that keeps our bodies running. If you think about eating well, you probably think about making sure you get enough of the essential nutrients that our bodies require: vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. You probably haven't spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not your food has enough qi to keep your body running at maximum efficiency. All living organisms have qi - it is the energy that keeps us alive. Plants get it from the sun, animals get it from plants and other animals that they ingest.

Once you remove something from the mechanism that provides it with qi (whether that's picking fruit from a tree or ending the life of an animal), the qi will drain out over time. It's pretty obvious when food is fresh and when it isn't. Fruits, vegetables, and animals have protective barriers (skins or peels) that slow the rate at which qi drains. Just look at an apple that has been sliced. It turns brown quickly, and it becomes inedible days (and in some cases, weeks!) before it would have if the skin had remained in tact. The fresher your food is, the more energy it has, and with a few exceptions, the tastier it is.

Processed foods lose huge amounts of qi in their preparation. In some cases, they lose virtually all of it. Just look at the Twinkie. The ingredient list includes eggs, flour, and corn syrup, among other things that were once part of healthy, energetic foods, but the Twinkie itself is completely devoid of any nutritional or energetic value. Most processed foods contain processed ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, and partially-hydrogenated oils. The further away from nature you get, the worse the food is for you. It is possible to live on a diet that has almost no qi. Vitamin supplements can help to provide your body with essential nutrients, but being processed themselves, they offer no qi. People eating diets composed of mostly processed foods are going to be lethargic and unhealthy. Without enough energy, white blood cells aren't exactly going to have the power needed to fight off diseases.

I realize that it isn't practical for people to cut all processed foods out of their diets. It's just important to make sure that you get plenty of whole foods in your diet.

It isn't enough to make sure you get enough qi in your diet - it is also necessary to pay attention to the quality of the qi. A person who is chronically ill has less qi than someone with a cold, who has less qi than a healthy person. Someone who lives under constant stress and in poor living conditions has less qi than someone who lives in a comfortable home and has all of their needs met. The same is true of animals. The majority of animal products - meat, dairy, eggs - available in the US comes from animals that are mass produced. Upon reaching maturity, the average meat cow is sent to live in a tiny pen where it is fed corn, which it can't digest properly. Its pen isn't kept in good condition, so it stands around in its own feces for the rest of its life. Because of its poor diet and unsanitary living conditions, the poor cow is susceptible to all sorts of diseases, so it's pumped full of antibiotics that keep it alive until it's slaughtered. The average chicken (both for eggs and meat) is kept in a cage too small for it to move, packed into rooms with hundreds of other chickens, none of which ever see the sun. If you eat meat from these animals, you'll get the full compliment of essential amino acids and loads of iron, but the qi you get will be sub-par, to say the least. Fortunately, there is a growing demand for animal products that come from animals allowed to live the life they were designed for. You can get grass-fed beef from cows that have spent their entire lives grazing in a pasture, and you can get cage-free chicken. It's more expensive than its mass-produced counterpart, but I think it's well worth the price. I'm eating less meat than I used to, but every bite is from an animal that led a decent life and had good quality qi.