For every one theory in medicine there is another one to contradict that. This is one reason why I fell in love with Chinese medicine-because there are no absolutes.

What is good for one person may not be good at all for another. The human body and spirit are treated according to their sets of balance and imbalances.

So there are relationships between the organs and the various kinds of energies and there are XS type symptoms and deficient type symptoms.

A wonderful depiction of this is the 5 element picture of the  5 elements-go to orientalmedicine.com ( avery very old site we developed 15 years ago and never really did much with, I forget it is even there)-anyway, there is a picture there of this. When you look at this chart you can begin to relaize the depth of these relationships.

The reason I brought this up today is that the concept of raw vegetables has been a hot topic of late. In alternative schools of thought-the hype is raw raw raw. And, yes, I do subscribe to a lot of that "hype" I do, because one cannot discount the fact that when you consume raw, all the vitmains are in tact unadulterated. However, if you have alot of leaky gut, which most epople with chronic illness do, too much raw can actually irritate the already very irritated gut and worsen the condition. In Chinese medicine, it is said if there is bloating and Cold in the intestines then raw is out-cooked is in-to promote=-Warmth. In essence, this actually gives the digestive tract a break and lessens the burden and allows the systme to gain strength before it is faced with digesting raw vegetables.Too much raw can lead to a lot of problems until your system is able to digest them. Just like too many vitamins-or certain vitamins need to be elminiated until your body can do with them what it is supposed to instead of consuming things that will only fortify your illness instead of you! In Chinese medicine, we might look at it like, if there is XS you cant tonify it or it will become greater. This is a simplifcation but it defintiely relates to this situation.

In life there is one thing I have found that is absolute...nothing is. Life is fluid and bendable and we need to look at ourselves and recognize where we are and that it may take us many steps to get to where we want to go. And, each step is as important as the next.

Dr.M