Gu Qi: The Nutritive Qi

Nutritive qi or the Gu Qi is a special type of energy that the body needs to support all of its actions on a day to day basis, essentially it is like the gas in the tank the body runs off of. Gu Qi literally translates to “grain energy” and is extracted from the food and nutriments we take in the form of food we eat. The process to building good Gu Qi is two fold relying on both a balanced diet and the ability of the body to properly transform what we eat and drink into useful energy.

Food has always been my love language and ties me deeply into family traditions and the joy of gathering around a table as well as the rich cultural learning I have experienced though traveling and tasting food from all over the world. It wasn’t until I became a mother and took on the role of nurturing another life that I learned the value of simplicity and rhythm in nourishment. I naturally gravitated to the study of food as medicine as part of my in home healthcare routines and in the support of my clients which lead me back to understanding the more we can make food “easy’ the more we can find balance.

I have also learned that nourishment doesn’t only come from the physical substance of food but is absorbed though love, support and the intentions or creative processes we express and receive in life. There is a deep connection on how we nourish ourselves and our sense of value and trust, and how we were nourished and supported as children. From a mind body perspective the earth element relates directly to our primary mother bond and our ability to receive love and support as babies, as adults we learn to evolve that initial bond and care into self care and self nourishment. When we feel valued and have value in the self we naturally will want to feed ourselves with the things that bring us stability and balance and will have an easy time receiving that support.

I am huge advocate for eating real food, seasonal eating and setting up a rhythm and ritual around eating to support regularity and balance. The concept of real food is simple: eat food in its whole form and reduce the amount of packaged and processed foods. This approach takes you on a wonderful journey that will teach you how to work with Whole Foods and learn the nuances of their characteristics. Eating real food is also more budget friendly as you learn to use all parts of the food and eliminate the cost of processing and packaging. Those extra costs are traded in for a deeper intimacy and relationship to your food that is found in handling and processing and getting creative and resourceful with all parts.

“Let food by thy medicine  and medicine be thy food”
-Hippocrates

Many years ago I spent the summer gardening with my uncle Dave we would watch the skies together and notice the flight paths of airplanes and observe the movement of clouds and weather patterns together. That year I planted over 30 tomato plants in the intention of learning how to preserve them for the winter, having the help of my uncle who was a master gardener and famous for his salsa and tomatoes was a blessing that year that. He visited regularly though the season. I learned his technique for staking the tomato plants with wood and strips of old t shirts and how the timing had to be just right to assure the support and growth of the plant. I learned companion planting with marigolds, basil and was blessed with a whole bunch of his seeds and special heirloom garlic which we monitored and grew together thought the year. That year these lessons became metaphors for partnership and shared work, the acts of learning together and preservation of transition and knowledge I remember feeling such purpose and strength come though my entire being. One afternoon while I was harvesting potatoes collecting them in my apron that served as a hammock to carry them I felt nostalgic and satisfied with the harvest energy as I brushed the dirt off of them; uncle Dave looked up at me in that moment and told me I reminded him of his grandmother and his time with her as a child on the farm in Nebraska. In that moment I knew how important these simple moments around growing food were threading meant deeper connections with my roots and giving me straight to support my future.

At the end of the season we harvested what felt like a field of tomatoes, peppers and garlic in preparation for salsa making. Uncle Dave showed up with stacks of mason jars and two large canning baths that belonged to my grandmother. I remember seeing the large black canning pans dotted with white specks in the basement of her house and immediately felt her presence as he set them don on the table. We chopped peppers and garlic all afternoon watching piles of them form on the counter while working in batches to boil and remove the skins from the tomatoes. By the end of the day we had gallons of salsa simmering on the stove that Dave attended to with a wooden spoon stirring regularly and tasting and adjusting herbs along the way. I remember the aroma of salsa simmering though the air as the children rushed in and out of the kitchen with playful laughter and watching him attend to the salsa with a present watchful awareness, un bothered by the children food concentrating all his intention on the perfect combination of ingredients, this is why his salsa was the best, because with every stir he wove love into its dynamic flavor.

This was my first lesson in canning, learned how to sterilize the jars, wipe them clean, and full and process them for storage. I felt like I was remembering a part of my heritage and at the same time being given the keys to a depth of knowledge and empowerment I could carry on to teach my daughters to preserve, as if I was a gate keeper of part of my culture. We put up countless jars that year. Deep in the winter months there was something so profound and nourishing that happened for me every time I would crack open a fresh jar, the smell hit differently than store bought jars, like a reminder of who I am and my heritage in each pop of the seal and turn of the band. The taste seemed to penetrate every part of me and the satiation of the meal that salsa accompanied made me feel whole, content and like I could trust in myself that I held the knowledge to care for myself and my family. This is when I learned for real what food as medicine meant and that nutriments aren’t only the vitamins, minerals and structure of our food but the ritual and experience that food goes though from seed to harvest and the love that is put into preparation. One of the most profound thing I think we can do for our nourishment is cook tougher with our families and preserve tradition as it is a pleasure that weaves our stories and traditions into us.

Food as medicine is a not only a concept but a lifestyle and commitment to understanding your self and relationship to your food. Though deepening this relationship over time you learn the vital nourishment that is confined in different foods, why you crave certain things the essence of color, smell and taste as well as the structure of food that ultimately becomes the structure of us.

You begin to notice how foods resemble different parts of the body like carrots look like the iris of the eyes or the chambers within the tomato like the chambers on the heart. You learn about the nuances of taste and how they move energy in the body like bitter as a support to drain or cleanse energy. The art of food begins to come alive and meal by meal you recognize you are what you eat.

Food entering the Stomach is first “rotted and ripened”; then transformed into a usable form by the Spleen. The energy derived from this food essence is divided by the Spleen.

Seasonal and local eating is another simple rule of thumb that can be worked into meal planning and provides a great framework for connecting to what you eat. When possible if you can purchase food that is grown near you will reap the benefits of its essence on many levels. The less people to handle and less travel guarantees you will be getting food that has less to go though to get to you and will maintain its freshness. Growing your now garden, farmers markets or garden swaps are a great way to know where your food is coming from and eat what is in season. There is an intelligence to when foods are ready to harvest during specific times of the year and how those foods provide the perfect nutrients for what your body needs in that season.

Right now in harvest earth element time hard squashes of all sorts are a wonderful choice. The mimic the color of the changing leaves and the yellow tone of earth energy. They have a natural sweetness to them that couples with dense fiber and carbohydrates to create a fuel efficient meal that will “stick to your bones” The earth element is all about stability, sweetness and storage of energy. Try our simple roasted squash recipes.

Back to the Gu Qi now that we have an idea of some general rules of thumb on getting the right fuel for our bodies and the relationship to feed and nourishment; lets talk about a few other culprits found in the modern diet that are best to be avoided or only consumed in small amounts including refined sugar, additives, too much dairy, processed and packaged foods. Opting for proper fuel that includes nutrient dense foods, whole real foods and a relationship to preparation and cooking is crucial for proper gu qi.

The Gu Qi is created through the earth element energies of the spleen and stomach working together to transform food into energy. This process requires a synthesis of function between these two organs and is best done in a relaxed manner. The mouth and stomach are responsible first stage of transformation and do the active or yang part of the digestion process. Chewing, and mixing the food with saliva in the mouth, swallowing and taking the food inside the body to be churned and further broken down by the stomach. This energy requires a steady downward grounding to assure the ability of the body to anchor and process the actual food material.

When this yang part of digestion is disrupted symptoms like, nausea or vomiting, cramping or heart burn may show up as indicators something is off balance. From a mental emotional standpoint this could be due to stress, anxiety, worry or overthinking or the presence of something that the body can not tolerate. It is important to sit still and take food in during meals in a relaxed non distracted state. The Taoists advise the wisdom of silent eating to assure the process of digestion is not disrupted or disturbed. We become what we eat, nourishment essentially becomes the ground substance of our tissues, when we sit still we create stability and presence for digestion.

There is a specific correlation between the stomach and the conscious mind, ever heard the saying “let me chew on that” or “food for thought” or fat the feeling of not being able to “stomach” an idea? All these figures of speech are a reflection of the fact that the stomach is responsible for what thoughts, food and experiences we “swallow’ and has the job of initially breaking them down. The stomach also is related in Classical Chinese medicine to the act of thinking, you can see this as a metaphor, when something crosses our minds we mill over it, churn it around and think about it, this all creates a ripple in our consciousness that brings our attention to the mater at hand or matter of thought. Over thinking and worry disrupt this natural process of thinking getting out of hand which can take a lot of energy to keep churning on and cycling though our thoughts. There is a connection between the quality of our thinking and the stomachs function of churning and processing. This mind body connection is at the root of upper GI problems and can show up as intolerance ( the inability to process more) rejection (vomiting) and lack of appetite.

Lets look at some the rhythm of eating as it related to the build up go gu qi for the day, Earth element time is 7-11 am this is when the energy is concentrated in the stomach and spleen channels. Possibly this is why you have heard the old adage that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, makes sense that the organs that do the work to process food are highlighted during this morning time. It is this time of day typically after a morning bowel movement our bodies are ready for re-feuling for the day. The morning ritual of breakfast is a valuable asset to mental, physical, emotional grounding and balance though the day.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard in the clinic,”I don’t have time to eat” “I don’t eat breakfast” “ I eat a smoothie while in traffic” or “I am rushing the kids out the door eating while standing up, watching the morning news, shoveling snow and getting in a quick yoga stretch” breakfast has become a hustle to get in or an absent link in the daily routine for most people. Rushed morning activities, the absence of breakfast and all of the wild substitutes for sitting down and making space for this daily nourishment set up the conditions for shaky ground.
Think of it like this. If you have a whole day or doing ahead of you that you rush into without proper fueling your body, you don’t have the nourishment you need to run the active processes of the body. Breakdowns are ultimately going to happen, as you body will start to pull energy from your reserves to sustain itself. If you are running around in circles doing a million things while you are eating your first meal of the day you are putting undue stress on the digestion process giving it extra work overloading it with too much to process so it will shut down and reject the nourishment your trying to give it.

The anxiety sets in as there is just simply too much for the conscious mind to process and digest! The worry sets in as their in not enough fuel for the day and your body mind begins the process of feeling the lack of nourishment and worries if it will have enough to get by.

The Spleen naturally works to recycle and stabilize our gu qi through the action of pushing the refined qi upward to be used by the body. If we think of the active conscious part of the earth energy belonging to the stomach the spleen partners in the function and relates to the sub conscious fabric that upholds and supports us. The spleen helps in the process of building and fortifying the blood cells by utilizing the first extraction of nourishment from our food that becomes the underpinning of our foundational support substance of healthy nourished blood.

Both the Stomach and spleen are very sensitive to much cold foods and liquids because they have so much work to do to transform and process food having the extra job of warming what we ingest puts undue stress on them and in turn effects the production of gu qi. Being mindful of the amount of raw and cold drinks you take in especially as the weather gets colder is a good way to assure balanced digestion. Lightly steaming and cooking along with room temperature and warm drinks will assure your body doesn’t have to work too hard to digest.

The gu qi of the body finds itself concentrated in the entire digestive system from the salivation in the mouth, thought to the stomach and spleen as well as the gallbladder and both small and large intestines. Each area supports and contributes to the processing and extraction of this qi. Gu qi then mixes with other qi energy of the body which then flows into all our meridians as well as out protective and supportive energies that keep us intact.