Transform how you eat.
Vital Qi means imbuing your life with vibrant energy and shoring up your life force (Qi) through East Asian food therapy. We’re dedicated to not just protecting your life force but ensuring you thrive.
ABOUT OUR ORGANIZATION
Vital Qi Nutrition
East Asian food therapy teaches us how every food has inherent properties that impact our bodies in profound ways, influencing our organ systems, moods, hormones, and even quality of sleep.
One of the key texts for acupuncturists is the Yellow Emperor’s Classic, written in 2600BC. It reiterates the philosophy that food is our first medicine and maps out how to employ it in multiple chapters. Sun Simiao, the author of the earliest Chinese encyclopedia for clinical practice, furthered this frame of thought, affirming the tremendous impact diet and lifestyle have to prevent and cure illness.
Flavor
In East Asian medicine, each food flavor (sour, salty, sweet, pungent, bland) influences specific organ systems. Through mouthwatering, flavorful foods, we can influence our physical body, improve our emotions and self-talk, and support vital processes such as building a robust immune system. Sometimes the most uncomplicated flip of flavors in a meal can profoundly improve our quality of life.
Season
Each organ system also relates to a season of the year, so we recommend changing how we cook and focusing on specific flavor pairings seasonally. Steaming, braising, roasting, poaching, stewing, or raw eating all have strategic uses to protect and improve our health throughout the year. However, each season brings predictable ways that the organs will “act out” or “ask for help,” and it’s our goal here at Vital Qi Nutrition to get ahead of that with our meal plans to keep you feeling your vital best.
ABOUT OUR FOUNDER
Lindsey Thompson
My mission is to help individuals improve and protect their health while demystifying some nutrient-health connections. I want people to find joy in the food they eat while at the same time empowering them to experience the robust flavor profiles that can nourish the deepest foundations of our health.
I've always been a foodie, and as such, I care about flavor, texture, and joy in the food I recommend to others and eat myself.
My journey began during my teenage years when my digestion became finicky. I suddenly couldn't digest animal protein or dairy, leading to a constant sense of queasiness and bloating. I became a vegetarian and ate lactose-free dairy, which helped, but only for a while. For me, a vegetarian diet didn't support my tendons, ligaments, and hormones, and I started to have a constellation of other health issues, including heavy periods and anemia. I read many nutrition books, articles, and magazines trying to figure out how to eat well. And found Paul Pitchford's book, Healing With Whole Foods, at my local health food store. I read that book periodically for about a decade before embarking on my Master's in Acupuncture and Eastern medicine. It seemed like a turning point for nutrition, but I never truly understood the book until I studied acupuncture.
The fascinating aspect of Chinese medical nutrition and acupuncture, for that matter, is that it is imperative to treat people as individuals. Some people can excel at a vegetarian diet, while others can't. Some individuals need less grain, while others need grain in their diet. You get the picture.
It's empowering to learn our dietary needs. Based on acupuncture theory and Chinese medical nutrition, we can increase that personal power in the kitchen by learning how to eat month to month. There are ways to regulate our emotions with simple cooking techniques that change each season. We can protect the strength and flexibility of our tendons, ligaments, and connective tissue by swapping or adding ingredients to our plates. We can harmonize our digestive process, and for people with periods, food can be an ally in achieving easy, carefree cycles.
After years of including nutritional advice and meal planning for patients in my clinical practice, I recognized the need for accessible, easy-to-follow guidelines outside of my clinic. And thus, Vital Qi Nutrition was born! First, I produced a series of instructional videos explaining the fundamental principles of Chinese Medical Nutrition. And then, I developed an extensive suite of meal plans so that even the busiest individual can easily follow the seasonal guidelines of Chinese Medical Nutrition and eat their way to better health.
I hope I can help you nourish your organs deeply, find tools to support your mood, and protect yourself inside and out.
Lindsey Thompson
AEMP, L.Ac, MAcOM
Founder of Vital Qi Nutrition
Licensed Acupuncturist at:
Thompson Family Acupuncture Clinic
ABOUT OUR LOGO
Vital Qi Nutrition
The carrot in our logo is intentional.
Carrots are an orange root vegetable that is naturally sweet. Plus, carrots strengthen and tone the earth organs of digestion, the spleen, and the stomach. The spleen in East Asian medicine encompasses the role of both the spleen and the pancreas. Since we can perform no biological function well unless we actively digest the nutrients from our food, these organs are considered the central pivot of health. So, for example, if digestion is off, you can eat the healthiest diet in the world and get minimal benefit from that fantastic food.
The sweet flavor also anchors the rising Qi of the wood organs, the liver, and the gallbladder. That is often associated with stress, migraines, tension headaches, neck, shoulder, and jaw tension, as well as breast tenderness and swelling during PMS for folks who menstruate and can even play into irregular and painful periods.
We love the visual of a carrot growing deep into the ground to anchor us restore qi, all while reaching towards the light of the sun with a vigorous burst of greens. This balance between reaching towards the heavens and rooting deep into the ground is the same goal of balance between heaven and earth that our bodies crave.