Qi~Full Eating Tips for February: Transitioning to Spring

February 4th is a very special day in the Chinese calendar, the lunar calendar. It marks the time when spring is on its way starting from that day. From February 4th on, spring energy starts building more and more each day.

As February arrives we enter into the energetic transition from winter to spring. This is the time to support your liver and liver energy. Liver energy is green, just like spring. In spring, the energy begins to expand and just as the plants in spring blossom, the liver qi represents your blossoming too.

Nourish Your Liver's Energy

There are some simple things you can do to nourish liver and liver energy.

Now is the time to increase your exercise. Do a little exercise before you eat. This helps both your appetite and your digestion. You can also take some time to stretch your body. Your liver stores blood when you are at rest and stretching releases the blood to your muscles and tendons.

Another way to build and activate liver energy is to spend time being creative. There are many ways to be creative. You can be creative in the kitchen and cook recipes you’ve wanted to try. You can sing, dance, or journal about your life and your vision for the near future. Creative expression of every kind helps nourish and channel the wood energy of spring in a very healthy way.

You can also activate and nourish your liver's qi by adding green leafy foods to your diet. Cruciferous vegetables like kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, all chlorophyll rich foods like fresh dandelion greens, spinach and lettuces are wonderful to add to your diet now. Spirulina, chlorella and seaweed, like kelp, are excellent too. Adding some beans like Adzuki and kidney help build your blood. Bean sprouts are also a very good food to eat for this month. As long as it remains cold where you live, you can add greens at the very end of cooking a hot soup and just wilt them. This way you can feed your liver energy and keep your body warm too.

You don’t want to eat deep fried food or roasted nuts at this time or anything that’s stale, especially nuts. Limit your intake of sweets and avoid eating anything sweet and sour that can deplete the liver energy. In fact, for the whole month it is best to avoid sweet and sour food.

As the weather gets warmer, and young shoots rise from the ground, you can add more fresh greens to your diet to help detoxify your liver. As the days become warmer, you can add lemon, the ‘sour’ taste to your diet. Even sour greens like sorrel can be added as well, again, once it gets warmer. 

Be it the east or the west, both cultures agree that when you increase blood circulation and oxygen your bones increase in strength. One of the main components for healthy bones is kidney energy. Formal studies show that the stronger the kidney energy, the stronger the bone density.