What if your best health is at the intersection of modern science and ancient wisdom? A lot of patients ask me, “What should I be eating? What can I do in terms of different types of foods that help my condition?”
Because everyone’s condition is highly specific and foods have such unique properties, it can be a hard question to answer. However, my best blanket advice to patients is simple: try to eat seasonally and locally.
Today, we are going to explore a perfect example of this philosophy using fresh, local produce, focusing specifically on the miniature white cucumber and its unique properties in Chinese medicine.
I’ve recently been getting my vegetables from Hope Farms, a local farm right here in Houston, Texas. They grow seasonal, local produce, ensuring that whatever you buy is meant for this specific time of year and our specific geography. Eating what the earth naturally grows and thrives in your region provides your body with exactly what it needs for that season.
In a recent vegetable basket, we received a beautiful mix of items: fairy tale eggplant, red okra, yellow peppers, malabar spinach, potato greens, Thai basil, and miniature white cucumbers.
While we are used to the larger green cucumbers, the mini white variety has a unique look and flavor profile. In Chinese medicine, the color of a food tells us a lot about how it interacts with the body. The mini white cucumber has an ivory, off-yellow color. White signifies and is associated with the lungs, while yellow is associated with the spleen and stomach. Based on its appearance alone, this cucumber has an affinity for these specific organs.
Right now, it is mid-September. We are officially past summer and entering early autumn. However, there is still a lot of residual heat left over from the summer, and the dampness of the season is just starting to wane into autumn dryness.
In my clinic, we balance herbal formulas to account for this declining humidity and increasing coolness. The mini white cucumber is the perfect transitional vegetable for this time of year. Growing close to the ground on a vine, it connects to the earth element (the spleen), bridging the late-summer spleen energy with the upcoming autumn lung energy.
The Peel: The skin has a slight bitterness to it. In Chinese medicine, bitterness is a cooling property. Leaving some peel on helps clear and drain summer heat from the body. You can adjust how much peel you leave on based on how much cooling your body needs.
The Flesh: The fleshy inside contains the most fluid, which helps replenish the moisture lost to summer heat and quenches thirst, perfectly combatting the upcoming autumn dryness.
The Seeds: The seeds are associated with the deeper parts of the body, specifically the kidneys and the bladder. They help direct fluids downward.
The Flavor: Cucumbers are considered a “bland” food. Bland foods act similarly to a diuretic in Western medicine; they help drain excess humidity and dampness from the body through the bladder and kidneys.
When it comes to seasonal cooking, it is best to keep things as simple as possible. You want to let the natural flavors come out and guide the healing properties to the right organs.
Here is a simple, four-ingredient recipe to help balance your body for the early fall:
Toss these four ingredients together for a perfectly balanced seasonal side dish. It helps get rid of excess summer humidity in the body, replenishes lost fluids, and provides a gentle cooling effect.
By keeping your cooking simple and utilizing the ingredients currently thriving in your environment, you give your body exactly what it needs to transition smoothly between seasons.
If you are in the Houston area, be sure to check out Hope Farms for incredible local produce. And if you are interested in learning more about how we bridge Eastern and Western medicine to help you live longer and finish your story, visit us at houstonacupuncture.com.
ntroduction to Seasonal Cooking and Local Produce
…which is what we’re going to talk about today. I’m going to go through the flavor profile, the color, the significance, how we can use it as an example in cooking. And then we also have a few other items that they gave us. We have fairy tale eggplant, some red okra, and then yellow peppers. There’s other items, too. I didn’t bring everything out to show. There was malabar spinach, and there’s also potato greens. There was some chives, and some Thai basil. So, a good mixture of different local seasonal items that you could cook and make a few vegetable dishes for your weekly meals. So, that’s a little bit about Hope Farms and what they’re doing.
[Music] What if your best health is at the intersection of modern science and ancient wisdom? I’m Dr. David Cherian. On my show, we bridge the gap between Eastern and Western medicine to help you live longer and finish your story. Welcome to the convergence.
Why Dr. Cherian Recommends Eating Seasonally
Today, I talk a little bit about food. A lot of patients ask me, “What should I be eating? What can I do in terms of different types of foods that help my condition?” And it’s kind of a hard question to answer because everyone’s condition is so specific and foods have such unique properties. And so one of the ways I try to give a blanket statement to patients is I just tell them try to eat seasonally and locally. And so today I’m going to give a small example of how I try and do that.
So I’ve been recently getting vegetables from Hope Farms and I brought a little bag plug from them. These guys are a local farm in Houston, Texas, and they are growing seasonal local produce so that whatever you’re eating, whatever you’re buying from them, it’s meant for this time of year and this time of geography.
Discovering Miniature White Cucumbers
This is Hope Farms. You can check them out. I’ve been using them for seasonal produce. I like them. And I’m going to give you guys a small sampler just what we had recently in their vegetable basket. We got mini white cucumbers, which is what we’re going to talk about today. I’m going to go through the flavor profile, the color, the significance, how we can use it as an example in cooking.
And then we also have a few other items that they gave us. We have fairy tale eggplant, some red okra, and then yellow peppers. There’s other items, too. I didn’t bring everything out to show.
Understanding Cucumber Colors in Chinese Medicine
There was malabar spinach, and there’s also potato greens. There was some chives, and some Thai basil. So, a good mixture of different local seasonal items that you could cook and make a few vegetable dishes for your weekly meals. So, that’s a little bit about Hope Farms and what they’re doing.
So, what I’m going to do is focus on the mini white cucumbers. And you might not commonly see or use these. We’re used to the larger green type of cucumbers, but mini white cucumbers are a little different. They have a slightly different flavor profile. I’m going to talk through what makes them unique and how we can use them to do seasonal cooking and how that makes an impact on your health.
If you look at the mini white cucumber, you’ll notice a few things. First of all, it’s a little bit of an ivory, off-yellow color. And so, in Chinese medicine, white signifies the lungs and is associated with the lungs. Yellow is associated with the spleen and stomach. So if you get this type of a cucumber, just based on the outer look of it and the skin, it’s going to have a little bit of affinity for the lungs and it’s also going to have a little bit of affinity for the spleen and the stomach in Chinese medicine.
Seasonal Changes and the Body’s Needs
Right now in Houston, it’s about mid-September. These were just plucked probably a couple days ago and they are being harvested right in mid-September. And so mid-September is the time of year officially past summer, and we are in early autumn, but it’s still the time of year where there’s a lot of residual heat from the summer left over. And the dampness of the summer is also starting to wane. There’s a little bit more dryness coming into the autumn season.
So in my clinic, we will balance our herbal formulas to take into account the declining humidity, the declining dampness—although it still feels very hot and damp, we’re starting to run into a little bit more dryness, a little bit more coolness.
How Cucumber Peel Relates to Cooling Properties
And so the mini white cucumber is a good vegetable for this time of year. It’s a vegetable that still has a bit of coolness to it, and I’m going to walk through the coolness part of it. And it’s also a vegetable that gives some moisture. Mini white cucumber is on a vine; it grows a little bit closer to the ground. So in Chinese medicine, we think of that being a little closer to the earth. The spleen is the organ associated with the earth element. This is a good vegetable for this time of year specifically—that summer spleen earth time moving into autumn metal dryness. In Chinese medicine, the different seasons of the year are also associated with different organs.
The Traditional Role of Cucumber Flesh and Moisture
So spleen is usually during that summer, late summer time and then autumn is associated with the lung. So you kind of have this movement from the spleen to the lung and that’s actually kind of what this vegetable is blended between. It’s a little bit white connecting with the lung, a little bit yellowish now that connects with the spleen. It’s kind of a transitional vegetable good for this time of year.
There’s a lot of moisture when we cut it open. I’ll show you the flesh and the moisture that helps to replenish some of the dryness that’s coming at this time of year. Also, a lot of the heat damage that happens during the summer gets replenished by the moisture.
So, first thing I’m going to do, I’m going to just dice these. And we’re going to make a small mixture of cucumber, mint, and a couple other ingredients. Something seasonal. I’m not a chef. I’m not here to give you guys a cooking show. I just want to teach you guys a little bit about how to think about food seasonally and locally, and understand how the properties work in Chinese medicine and how they connect with our organ systems and how we can manipulate flavors to address and direct it towards certain organs.
So, I’m going to go ahead and dice these up. As I dice it, I’ll just talk to you guys a little bit about some of the properties of it. Let me just shave off a little bit of the peel for you so you guys can see. Now, if you look at the peel, the peel of the cucumber has a little bit of a bitterness to it. And in Chinese medicine, bitterness is a cooling property. So, that bitterness on the exterior of the cucumber is really useful during the summer time to help to clear and drain some of the heat in the body. So, one thing you can do with the cucumber is depending on how much coolness you want on the dish and how much bitterness, you can adjust it based on how much of the peel you leave on. So, I personally don’t need a lot of cooling. So, I’m going to actually just kind of shave off portions of it, but leave some of it still on there as well to keep some of the cooling aspect, but not too much of it.
Cucumber Seeds and Fluid Balance
So, inside of the cucumber, you have the seeds and the flesh portion. The flesh portion is where you’re going to get most of your fluids from. And so, in summertime with all the heat, eating a little bit of a cucumber, the fluid part of it, the flesh part of it, helps to replenish the fluids in the body and helps to quench that thirst. The seeds portion of the cucumber are also a little bit more associated with the deeper part of the body, the kidneys, the bladder.
Understanding Dampness in Chinese Medicine
So they can help to direct fluid downward. One thing with cucumbers is also they tend to be a little bit more of a bland type food. And bland foods in Chinese medicine are also useful for helping to get rid of too much humidity and dampness inside the body. So just like we can have humidity in the environment, humidity can build up in the body. We call that dampness and it’s a problem with water metabolism, and dampness is a problem that can be treated with bland type foods depending on what type of dampness you have.
I’m just going to peel a little bit of these off. Keep some of the peel on there. So like I said, blandness, you can kind of think of blandness similar to a diuretic type property or what we would consider diuretic in Western medicine. It helps to move the dampness and the fluids downward and drain it out through the bladder and the kidneys. And the high water content in these cucumbers, they help to moisten lungs. They help to move the fluids down into the kidney and the bladder. They help to support the spleen and the stomach, which can become burdened by the heat as well.
How Cucumbers Relate to the Lungs, Spleen, and Kidneys
Listen, oftentimes the heat is with the lungs, not always, but oftentimes, and with the upper part of the body. And so definitely with these type of cucumbers, the peel is a lighter, it’s thin, it’s kind of got a lifting action to it. And the seeds also, like I said, they go down to the deeper part of the body. So useful to travel to the kidneys, the urinary bladder. They can also help with the large intestine. Sometimes constipation during the summer months can be treated with a little bit of fluids from these types of cucumber seeds.
Okay, now that we’ve got all of our cucumbers sliced up, we need to put them in our bowl. And we are going to just toss it with a couple other ingredients. One of the things about seasonal cooking and regional seasonal cooking is that in my view, you want to keep it as simple as possible. We don’t want to overdo it. We want to let the ingredients and their natural flavors come out. And so we don’t want to make it too complicated.
So for this dish, I’m going to just add… I diced up a little bit of mint. Mint is just growing in abundance right now. Mint is also a cool type food. It’s very lifting.
Preparing a Simple Seasonal Cucumber Salad
It’s opening in Chinese medicine. And along with that, we’re going to add just a touch of rice vinegar. Just a small touch of it. The rice vinegar helps to move. In Chinese medicine, it gives a little bit of movement to the chi and to the flavors. And then the last thing I’m going to do is just add a little bit of salt. You want to put just a little pinch of sea salt in there. And the sea salt helps to direct the flavors more towards the kidneys and towards the bladder.
Adding Fresh Mint, Rice Vinegar, and Sea Salt
And so, like I said, you’ve got the cooling herbs and the seeds of the cucumber which direct downwards, and it can help to drain the dampness. So, a little bit of the sea salt just helps to direct the flavor profile and the action of the ingredients into the kidneys and urinary bladder. And so, like I said, this is helping to get rid of some of the excess humidity, excess dampness in the body. It’s also helping to replenish some of the good fluids that the body’s losing during the summer heat. And it’s also got a cooling flavor to it. And so, it’s really perfect for the late summer, early fall time of year.
Bringing Seasonal Cooking and Chinese Medicine Together
And it’s very simple. Like I said, seasonal cooking, you want to keep it simple. This is just four ingredients. We’ve got mini white cucumbers, a little bit of mint, rice vinegar, and a touch of sea salt. And that’s all you need. You want to let the flavors come out naturally. You want to let the flavors and the profile of the ingredients direct and guide in the body and help to give you what your body needs during this time of year. Because if you think about it, the earth is naturally growing what thrives during the season, during this late summer, early fall. It’s growing what naturally thrives right now. And so when we use those ingredients, it has the properties that our bodies need.
Final Thoughts on Eating Locally and Seasonally
So let’s just take a little taste of that. Really good. There’s a little bit of bitterness from the cucumber peels, the aromatic flavor of the mint, a little bit of astringency from the rice wine vinegar, and a touch of salt. So that’s a little bit about how we can do some seasonal cooking to help with Chinese medicine. A little bit about the flavor profiles using miniature white cucumbers, eating seasonally. Check out Hope Farms as well. They have some good produce and you can eat locally if you’re in the Houston area. And we’ll see you next time. If you’re interested in learning more about what we do, you can visit us at houstonacupuncture.com.
