Did you know summer is the season of the heart?
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) each organ system is stimulated and nourished during different times of the year.
When you think of summer foods, what comes to mind? Delicious veggies and juicy fruits? Yes! These foods are physically nourishing to the heart and are energetically cooling 🙂
In traditional medicine, we look at the energy of food as it relates to the energy of specific organs in the body.
When it comes to the heart, we do NOT want a hot heart. This is a very dangerous condition and is what we known as “heart disease”, “high cholesterol”, “high blood pressure”, “heart palpitation”, etc. With these conditions, the heart needs to be cooled.
Another thing to understand is the heart is not a solo operator. And as amazing as the heart is- it’s just a pump. It’s not responsible for the health of your blood or cholesterol level.
Yes, you heard me right! The heart is NOT responsible for the health of the blood!
The liver is the filter of the blood and the producer of cholesterol. If you’ve been reading my articles as of this spring (aka liver season), I spoke a LOT about supporting the liver because it’s the most important organ in the body as it has the biggest influence! And if the liver becomes congested, cholesterol is produced, blood thickens, blood pressure and heat rises damaging the heart- and even the brain!
So this means “heart disease” is actually a liver condition! To heal the heart, we have to cool and heal the liver. And we can do this easily through food.
Nature is smart, it gives us the exact nutrients and energy we need for each season and each part of the body. Cooling foods grow in the summer because it’s hot and they help cool us down. Examples of these cooling summer foods are:
Vegetables: leafy greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini, basil…
Fruits: peaches, plums, watermelon, mango, pineapple…
Plant based eating heals the liver and thus the heart. And minimizing animal meat is vital with this condition. Land animals like beef, chicken, and pork are energetically very warm- they are building foods. With heart disease we want to cool and cleanse so the best animal meat is fish! Fish is energetically much more cooling than land animal meat. And fish are high in Omega 3 fatty acids which we know to be very beneficial to the heart!
In addition to just diet alone, the viral load in the body is crucial to take into account with heart disease.
Viruses, usually related to Epstein Barr (strep, mono, chickenpox, tonsillitis, herpes, shingles, any “itis”) lie dormant in the body throughout our lives. However, this virus is continuously dumping tons of debris and neurotoxins into the body that need to be cleared through the liver. Especially if the liver is already over worked from a Standard American Diet (SAD), high stress, alcohol, sugars, or prescription drugs, this makes liver stagnation even more likely.
Liver stagnation is hard on the heart because the heart has to pull harder to receive blood. And because the liver is congested it cannot properly clean the blood of debris and viruses so this thickens the blood. This thick blood is hard for the heart to pull thus creating high blood pressure and overworking the heart which weakens it over time.
Heart palpitations are caused by two factors.
The first is the most common and it’s viral. A virus, like Epstein Barr releases toxic debris into the body that congests the liver. The congested liver cannot clear all of the debris from the blood so it gets sucked up to the heart and gets stuck in the mitral valve causing palpitations. This is something modern medicine does not understand and from their perspective there is “no cure” (Medical Medium, 2016).
The second is due to heavy metals in the brain which trip the vagus nerve and create heart spasms which are similar to heart palpitations but are different and harder for medical tests to diagnose properly (Medical Medium, 2016).
Cholesterol is produced by the liver when it’s congested and inflamed.
A sign of too much LDL aka bad cholesterol, is showing there is inflammation in the liver and the liver needs to be cleansed. The liver produces LDL to protect itself from it’s inflamed and toxic state.
So we should NOT take cholesterol medication! First of all, all medication is toxic so we are only increasing the debris and toxicity in the liver which is why it produced LDL cholesterol in the first place. And second of all, cholesterol is a protectant for the liver. I tell my clients it’s like having a scab. A scab does indicate that there is an injury. But, would you remove a scab and say, “ok good, now that the scab is gone the injury is gone”? HELL NO! You only made it worse and weaken the body!
When it comes to cholesterol again, it’s not a heart condition or even a blood condition. It is a liver condition and the liver has to be cleansed!!!!
Strokes also relate to the liver and viral toxic debris.
It’s a domino effect between the liver, heart, blood and brain that has many if not all of these conditions:
- Congested/stagnant liver
- Thick blood
- Chronic dehydration
- Sodium/potassium loss
- Viral Infection
- Suppressed Immune System (due to viral load) (Medical Medium, 2016)
… and according to TCM, hot energy rises in the body starting in the congested liver damaging the heart and ultimately the brain.
I know this is a lot of information but the good news is, all of this can be prevented and reversed using food! Yes, DIET MATTERS (despite what medical doctors say)!
Healing the Heart & Liver
- To clear and cool the liver eat veggies!!!!! TONS OF VEGGIES
- To reduce the viral load eat anti-viral foods and herbs!
- Garlic, oregano, thyme, rosemary, cilantro, parsley
- Eliminate meat. Seafood is the best option.
- Reduce grains/flours to free up the liver’s glucose stores.
- Eliminate dairy
- Eliminate alcohol & sugar
- Eat berries and fruits which tone the heart and blood vessels
- Rose tea and apples (part of rose family) cool and tone heart
- 4th Chakra is the heart chakra and the color is green= green colored foods!
- Cook with love!
- Heartless food damage the heart (drive-thru, fast-food, packaged food)
And lastly- I could write a whole blog about this- but, the energetic and emotional body has everything to do with the physical condition of the heart and the liver. Any emotions that are suppressed or withheld are stored in the body- specifically the liver. This creates irritability, agitation, anxiousness (palpitations), fiery temper, etc. In TCM the liver holds the emotion of anger.
The heart holds the emotion of joy.
So if we are suppressing our joy or “don’t have enough time” to do the things that bring us joy, that damages our heart as well.
Below is my favorite recipe for my famous heart healing Gazpacho! It’s full of seasonal summer veggies and heart healthy ingredients. I would like you to make this with love and share it with friends or family who bring you joy! It also pairs nicely with some locally caught fish!
Much love to you, your heart, and especially your liver!
Heart Healing Gazpacho
Always use organic high quality ingredients and local whenever possible!
- 2 large yellow heirloom tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1 avocado, deseeded
- 1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
- 1 fennel bulb, rim off stocks and roughly chop bulb
- 3 scallions, chopped
- 2 cups spinach
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 cup fresh basil
- 1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
- 2 limes, juiced
- 1 tbs apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp pink Himalayan salt
- 2 cups water
- 1/4 cup Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Add ingredients to a high speed blender (I like to add the soft ingredients first like the tomato and cucumber so the blender has an easier time). Depending on the size of your blender you may need to work in batches, but this should fit in a Vitamix.
- Blend ingredients until pureed and smooth. Serve chilled and garnish with a drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
If you enjoyed this recipe, I would love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below and be sure to share with family and friends.