Herbal medicine and whole food therapy are both very different from Western herbal or nutritional approaches to food, diet, and medicine. It works based on the combined effects of plants and food, rather than an individual ingredient. In other words, the fact that a certain plant is high in vitamin C does not mean that it would be the best choice for someone with a cold. Proper treatment for an individual can change from season to season and from climate to climate, meaning that this type of therapy requires the balancing of different aspects of a person’s being and environment in order to formulate the best medicine.
The specific herbs and foods as well are all categorized into certain energetic patterns to treat not only the primary symptoms a person is having, but also the root cause of the imbalance. In this way, a highly specialized treatment is not the same from one person to the next even if the particular issue appears to be the same between them.
“When man is serene, the pulse of the heart flows and connects, just as pearls are joined together or like a string of red jade, then one can talk about a healthy heart.”
“He who takes medicine and neglects to diet wastes the skill of his doctors.”
“Excessive terror and pondering will injure the spirit, when the spirit is hurt, one will not be able to control himself, when the condition is protracted, the muscular prominence will become deteriorative and the muscle will be consuming and falling; when the disease develops further to cause the patient’s hair to become withered and the complexion to become abnormal, he will die in winter.”