Recipe: Earth Nourishing Soup

This is a recipe to strengthen and regulate the digestive system, which comes under the domain of the Earth element in Chinese medicine (hence the name). It’s simple and easy to prepare, and tastes delicious. Ingredients (Serves 2): 4 carrots 1 small onion 1 stick of celery 3-4 good pinches shredded dried tangerine peel (chen […]

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Asthma treatment with Chinese Medicine

Asthma is an increasingly common condition, now effecting 1 in 4 children and many adults. The good news is that using Chinese medicine for asthma is an effective way of controlling the condition. During an asthma attack the airways constrict, become inflamed and are lined with mucous, this causes wheezing, shortness of breath, cough and […]

Kitchen Herbs: Ginger

Ginger – where would we be without it? Ginger is one of the most therapeutically useful herbs in common use in the kitchen, and has been revered as a healing herb for thousands of years in China and across the world. According to Chinese medicine, fresh ginger and dried ginger are both useful, but in […]

Pre-Birth Acupuncture

Acupuncture, and related branches of Chinese Medicine, have an important role in helping from conception through to child-birth. In this post I’d like to mention a little-known aspect of acupuncture that can be of great benefit in the pre-natal period. The term ‘pre-birth treatment’ refers to a series of acupuncture treatments in the final weeks […]

Herbal Medicines to be Banned

If nothing changes, in April 2011 many of the natural herbs and supplements used by many thousands of people in the UK will become illegal under European law. Mayway, one of the largest UK suppliers if Chinese herbal medicines, says this: “European Traditional Herbal Medicine Directive in April 2011 will see the end of practitioners […]

Taoist Yangsheng: Preserving Life At All Costs

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to spend the day at a series of conferences and workshops entitled ‘The Embodiment of the Dao: Daoist Yangsheng Practices and the Cultivation of Health and Vitality’. It was an inspiring and informative day, and I’d like to share some of what I learned… In the […]

Kitchen Herbs: Rosemary

Rosemary is one of the most useful culinary herbs for strengthening Yang. It stimulates the circulation and warms the extremeties. If you are normally cold, with cold hands and feet, rosemary is an ideal herb to use on a regular basis. It is also used to promote clear-thinking and relieving absent mindedness and poor-memory, and […]

Recipe: Simple Cabbage Soup

Cabbage soup has a bit of a bad name, but my version is tasty, and extremely easy to make. It is a very nourishing recipe, a Warm Blood and Qi tonic suitable for everyone. As a good Blood tonic it benefits general health, especially for weak, thin & dry people and is especially indicated for […]

Fibromyalgia Treatment with Chinese Medicine

A recent study has found that T’ai Chi can improve quality of life for fibromyalgia sufferers, with both mental and physical improvements noted for the T’ai Chi group, significantly more than the control group who were given wellness education and stretching exercises. Although this was a small scale study, it is further evidence for the […]