Hi everyone! It’s your SOF ambassador, Trisha! I hope you are all doing well.

As a Hawaiian Lomilomi massage therapist and an acupuncturist, I try to incorporate these teachings into my lifestyle (to balance out my party girl nature).

Oriental medicine has been loved and valued for a very long time in Hawaii, probably due to its similarities to Hawaiian traditional healing arts. So it was only natural for me to study oriental medicine when I moved to Hokkaido, Japan, the nature wonderland I love!

OK, fine. So I’ll admit it. I love winter but sometimes the merciless coldness of Hokkaido really hits me.

When the weather is cold, Qi (energy) doesn’t flow smoothly in our body as needed. Kinda like people, right? Wouldn’t you want to just stay in bed all curled up under your blanket on a super cold day? Yup, I do! But sadly, sometimes we just can’t netflix and chill; we have to kick our butts out of bed and same goes for Qi.

So how can we make kicking Qi’s butt easy peasy when we, ourselves, can’t even kick our own butts out of the coziness? Food!!

You see, we are all born with Qi and we can boost it through eating, drinking, and breathing. Qi obtained through eating, drinking, and breathing is called Acquired Qi. Unlike Inherited Qi, which is energy given to us from our parents and ancestors , we can control Acquired Qi. How? By determining what we put into our body! Vegetables, fruits, and natural food sources are the best choices you can make to acquire Qi. But even vegetables, fruits, and natural food sources can be affected by pesticides, hormones, and other chemicals that lower the quality of Qi. If you want high quality Qi, choose organic! It’s the nature’s way.

Vegetables that are in season by nature are filled with Qi to the max! Seasonal vegetables also have elements necessary to get through health conditions we face during that specific season.

Right now, winter vegetables are in season and they are filled with Qi! Winter vegetables also have nutrients that keep our body warm and boost our immune system to fight common cold and other winter ailments. The nutrients in winter vegetables that warm up our body will help Qi flow better throughout our body as well. Remember? When it’s cold, Qi doesn’t flow so well. Warmer the body, better the Qi flow! Simple as that!

So next time you go grocery shopping, I recommend adding broccolis, lotus roots, burdocks, and daikon beets, just to name a few. Great thing about these winter vegetables is that they don’t perish easily! Even if your Qi lags and you get too lazy to go shopping, you’ll have nothing to worry about with a pantry fully stocked with winter veggies.　Winter vegetables harvested from under a blanket of snow are said to taste sweeter than conventionally grown ones. Cabbages, Daikon radishes, carrots, lily bulbs, potatoes… Hokkaido’s　winter root vegetables harvested between end of February through early March are the best! Go SuperOrganic and enjoy these naturally enhanced sweetness and goodness!

Winter vegetables are fun to cook with! You can get all creative and fancy but if you are not in such a festive vibe, randomly chop them up and whip up a simple soup. The vegetables themselves are already fully loaded with Qi so there’s nothing you really have to do with them but if you want to, by all means go right ahead – you are the chef!

In oriental medicine, winter is a time of rest. So let’s take it easy! Listen to your body and intuition and rest when you feel that you need to. By doing so, you are nurturing your Qi. By taking care of your basic storage of Qi, you’ll have the energy both physically and mentally to overcome things in life.

Increase and boost your Qi by simply enjoying organic winter vegetables.