Helping Ourselves is a concise guide to traditional Chinese food energetics, as useful for the layperson as it is for the practitioner. The book contains charts detailing the energetic properties of over 300 common foods, and succinct explanations of the principles of Chinese medicine in an easy-to-read format.

This invaluable reference manual forms part of a trilogy with the Energetics of Food wallchart and Recipes for Self-Healing by the same author, both available from Redwing.

Acclaim for Helping Ourselves
"There are other guides to Chinese dietary therapy on the market, but none that I have seen makes the subject so readily accessible." -Simon Fielding, European Journal of Oriental Medicine

"The thing I most like about the presentation of this book is its simplicity. In the introduction the author says that the book is intended both as a learning resource for students and clients of traditional Chinese medicine and as a reference manual for practitioners. In my opinion it succeeds brilliantly in both instances: it explains Chinese energy concepts... in terms that most lay people would understand." -Altair de Almeida, Traditional Acupuncture Society News

"Helping Ourselves takes two important steps towards making Chinese food energetics accessible. Firstly, it is extremely easy to read and explains Chinese energy concepts such as the Spleen, Yin, Yang, Cold, Hot and Damp in terms most lay people would understand. Secondly, it classifies the foods into what they do energetically so you can easily look up which foods help to resolve Dampness and which foods are cooling. To my knowledge this has not been done in English before." -Bill Palmer, Shiatsu Society News

"I particularly like that by using this book we can advise patients to take positive action and enhance their treatment by adding certain foods to their diet, as well as excluding others. It is a useful book to have in practice and I use it regularly." -Sally Blades, acupuncturist

"Helping Ourselves is a relatively short introduction to the basic principles of Chinese dietary therapy... the foods discussed are easily available and the writing intelligent, clear and concise." -Peter Deadman, Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Written for practitioners, students, and clients of Oriental medicine, this text provides an easy to use, concise, and accessible reference for information on yin-yang and five phase food energetics. The revised and expanded second edition is 30% larger than the first and, as well as updated information on all foods, it includes a significantly expanded list of foods, a totally new section on the properties of over 150 western medicinal herbs , a guide to the properties of commonly used essential oils, and a new section on diagnosis. Other notable works from the same author which dovetail nicely with this text are Recipes for Self Healing, Guide to the Energetics of Herbs Chart, and Guide to the Energetics of Food Chart.