![]() “Before, it was salads, California fish, and olive oil. “My own food pyramid changed,” Gong says. She believes that food should be balanced, seasonal, beautiful, and individual, rather than used in a calculated diet that makes eating a stress-inducing chore rather than a joy. She credits Yang Xiao Lu, a book written by Chinese doctor Gu Zhong in 1698 that focuses on food as yangsheng, or life-nourishing, with leading her to the approach she takes in food therapy today. Gong began to dig into the TCM principles she’d grown up with. She saw how much they didn’t enjoy the food and how they often suffered because of it. During hospital internships, she saw that patients were required to eat a certain amount of calories, but in the form of burgers and canned fruit. Nutrition classes taught that there was a specific amount of vitamins and minerals a person needed daily Gong didn’t understand how that number could be the same for each person. in nutrition and public health at New York University.īut during her time at NYU, she started to question some of what she was learning. And after experiencing the healing power of food, she decided to pursue a career as a nutritionist, earning a B.S. Nothing worked for her until she changed her diet, eliminating dairy altogether. She had a persistent skin rash and joint pain and regularly went to the hospital for treatment. as a teenager and health issues began to surface, Gong found herself turning to Western medicine first. She remembers her grandmother slipping longan and goji berries into dishes for overall health and her mother taking her to an herbalist for acne. Gong grew up in Shanghai, where TCM was a regular part of her family’s lifestyle. “I want to bring another side to healthy eating, where you can be relaxed and flexible and you don’t have to give up your cultural cuisine.” “We are really trained by society to follow trends in wellness. Instead, there are dishes that satisfy as well as nourish, like hearty bowls of soba noodles in a bone broth fortified with angelica root and desserts of sweet rice and black sesame porridge. There are no protein shakes or one-size-fits-all supplements, no turmeric “elixirs,” detox juices, or shame-inducing diet regimes. For the people who follow her or attend her classes, she is redefining what healthy food looks, smells, tastes, and, most importantly, feels like. And in 2018, the World Health Organization added a chapter on TCM to its global health compendium, the International Classification of Diseases.ĭiet is a fundamental part of TCM, and Gong’s expertise centers on TCM food therapy. In 2015, Chinese scientist Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering a new antimalarial remedy based in TCM. While TCM has been a part of mainstream medicine in Asia, including China, Japan, and Korea, for thousands of years, it has more recently received increased attention outside of Asia. It is practiced through a wide range of applications: Herbal remedies, acupuncture, and exercise are a few. TCM is a holistic, intuitive way of caring for oneself, of bringing the body into equilibrium through evaluating qi (the body’s vital energy) and how it circulates through meridians (channels in the body that are typically associated with organs). Gong is a chef, a consultant, and a teacher whose methods are rooted in traditional Chinese medicine. The people to whom she was referring are the more than 200,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok who seek out Gong for her distinct approach to healing through food. “People ask me about joint pain or skin care, but I can’t cure everything,” Gong replied with a smile. I took a sip and felt a rush of warmth from the woodsy, familiar flavors - along with, to my distinct surprise, a slight but immediate prickle of energy. A few minutes later, she poured an ochre-hued herbal tea into a glass and handed it to me with a warning: “It might be bitter.” ![]() Gong rinsed the dried goods and threw everything into a black ceramic pot of simmering water. “American ginseng, jujube dates, longan, tangerine peel, goji berries,” she said as she collected the ingredients in her cupped hand. In red heels - her house slippers - Gong glided from the door to her expansive pantry of dried herbs, fruits, flowers, grains, and fungi. She looked at me empathetically and seemed to know just what to do. Despite the coffee I had downed earlier, I found myself low on energy - something I blurted out as I stepped into the chef’s apartment in Brooklyn. I was exhausted when I first met Zoey Xinyi Gong.
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