What Food Is Good or Bad for Your Qi?
By Master Qinyin

Few people would disagree with the importance of diet for health. Western dietary and nutritional studies abound. Coming from the Qigong background, I’d like to emphasize properties of food from the perspective of Qi (vital energy), which have largely been neglected in the West so far. Since I came to America about five years ago, I have had many chances to observe American diets from friends and even more from my students.

Salad is good
An element in the American diet that I admire the most is salad. Compared with the usual method of excessive Chinese stir-fry in preparing vegetables, salad provides a healthier yet still palatable alternative. However, salad is not good for people with a “cold” stomach.

Fast food has no aura
I’ve also seen the increase of fast food in America. Is fast food necessarily junk food? Some people argue that refrigeration for a long time keeps bacteria in food under control; hence it is a feasible and “harmless” way of mass producing food. However, I once had the opportunity to walk into the storage facility of a famous fast food store; the meat patties had no aura at all ? meaning they contained very little clean vital energy. Of course, if you only eat these kinds of food once in a while, it doesn’t matter much. But if you often take in these no-aura foods (to make it even worse, some food has a brown or dark aura), toxins will gradually build up in your body and diseases set in.

Too many chicken signals
Some Americans eat too much chicken. Since my third eye is open, sometimes when I walked down the street in a special state, I saw people with chicken feathers attached to them. They just carry too many chicken signals. Scientific studies have shown that when animals are killed before reaching their longevity, they release toxins in their bodies instantaneously as they are dying. When I was teaching at Mount Madonna Center in Watsonville, CA, two students came to me for personal consultation. I was shocked when they told me they had been following an all-meat diet in order to lose weight. They lost 10 pounds or so (meat contains lots of acid, and acid tends to reduce fat), but I saw many blockages in their bodies and they did not have much energy.

Iced drink accumulates damp Qi
A bad habit is to drink iced tea, iced water, iced coke, etc regularly. These ices tend to exhaust stomach energy, and may cause cold Qi or damp Qi to stick in the body (a cause of obesity). I have seen many cases among my American students.

Too much cheese and dessert make the Qi sticky
Another well-known weakness of American diet is the excessive use of cheese and dessert, which tend to make Qi in the body sticky and unclear, and slow in circulation. Smoking makes one’s Qi dirty; fortunately smoking is banned in public places in America. As the Taoist classics “Tao Te Ching” cautions, “Five colors make your eyes blind, five sounds make you deaf, five tastes make your tongue dumb, …” (here “five” only means “too many” and hence “imbalanced”). It is healthy to eat light food instead of heavy and excessively tasty food.

BBQ and toasted food cause too much “fire”
Some Americans like to eat BBQ, toasted and oven-treated food. Unfortunately, these foods have too much Yang or “fire” (in the sense of Traditional Chinese Medicine). Most of my American students have too much “fire” (hence Yin-Yang imbalance), and I think their diet is a major cause.

Yin-Yang vs. acid-alkaline
Western dieticians all know acid and alkaline properties of food, but not many are aware of the Yin-Yang properties and their importance. Most people have various degrees of Yin-Yang imbalance, a major cause of many diseases. For example, some people get hot easily while other people may get cold easily. And the food they eat can either exacerbate this problem or alleviate it. For example, ginseng is widely used as a nutritional supplement in China. But certain types of ginseng are Yin (depending on where they grow), while other types of ginseng are Yang.

You really need to know your Yin-Yang situation and choose carefully. A more complicated case is that some people may have too much Yin and too much Yang at the same time, which is usually due to blockages that isolate Yin and Yang in the body. In summary, a good diet has to be designed individually according to his/her Yin and Yang.

Spiritual practitioners should eat clean food
 The diet requirements are different for an ordinary person and a spiritual practitioner. Any spiritual practice, be it Qigong, Taiji, Yoga, etc, connects the practitioner with spiritual energy. A common characteristic of all spiritual energies is that they prefer clean, and vegetarian food. If you practice meditation one hour every day, then a meat-rich diet is far from consistent with your practice. It will diminish the power of your practice in the least, and may lead to serious problems. Another food worth mentioning is the onion. For a regular person, onion may be good for its proven effect of killing germs. But for a spiritual practitioner, onion is too stimulating for his/her Qi, and may disturb the harmony and smoothness of the

Qi. Bigu ? the Taoist “no food” wisdom
Traditionally, after a Qigong practitioner practices for many years and accumulates enough energy, he/she may achieve the state of “too Qi-filled to eat”, i.e. Bigu. Literally, “Bigu” means “to avoid grains”. Hence it doesn’t necessarily mean “no food” (“full fasting” may mean using only water, while “half fasting” usually allows fruits and vegetables). This is advanced Taoist technique for fundamental cleansing. Based on the precondition of abundant universal energy, Bigu (energized fasting) is very different from outright “food-forbidden treatment”.

Practitioners doing Bigu will not feel hunger, or only minimal psychological hunger. Detoxification effects of Bigu are astounding, and often lead to “rejuvenation”. However, to achieve the state of Bigu by yourself would take many years in traditional Qigong. My personal research in Qigong and Bigu in the past two decades have led to the new Qinway Qigong system that greatly accelerates this process. Now I offer a “Fundamental Healing Retreat” regularly in the San Diego area, where all students, including those with serious diseases like cancer, can achieve Bigu almost immediately.

Cleansing is a good way to improve taste
Many people know that certain food is bad for their health, but they lack the will power to control their craving. On the other hand, some people pay excessive attention to what they eat to the point of pathological obsession. The good news is that after students do energized-fasting, their bodies become cleaner and their taste would naturally change as well. Their bodies would generally prefer clean, and vegetarian foods. Hence, cleansing is also an effective way of acquiring a good taste.

For more info about Master Qinyin and her Qinway Qigong Institute in Oceanside, CA, please call (760) 757-0007, or e-mail 930@qinway.org   Or you may visit www.qinway.org .  

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