CITY LIVING
FEATURE
Healthier Living In Shanghai Nyima Pratten
Cook At Home After reading our cover story, and deciding that this city’s tempting pros outway the cons of potential future health risks, you may want to put in place a few healthy and positive changes to your lifestyle. For many expats living in Shanghai, life revolves around dinners out, ‘business’ drinks and the more than occasional champagne brunch. There are many positive ways to improve our quality of living enabling us to lead a healthy, long life in the city, and Talk has rounded up a few of our favourites.
Traditional Chinese Medicine
Consider Traditional Chinese Medicine as a way to stay healthy in China. TCM is a preventive and healing medical system, which offers a range of preventive healing approaches including TCM diet, Taijiquan, Qigong, acupuncture, massage, cupping and Gua Sha. Body And Soul Medical Clinics, a private medical facility under Chinese law, was founded in 2004 by German expat, Doris Rathgeber; a specialist in internal medicine for Traditional Chinese Medicine with a mission to "Help people make a smooth transition into harmonious, balanced and healthy living". The Western and Chinese doctors and therapists at the clinics are experienced and licensed in Integrative Medicine which looks at a patient in whole, including both the body and the soul. During and after a visit to the clinic, patients can receive on-going education and support to implement positive lifestyle changes such as nutrition, diet and exercise programmes specifically for
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their entire being. TCM is very much about understanding the importance of Ying and Yang as well as the flow of Qi. Rathgeber gave Talk some suggestions of how to use the methodology of TCM to lead a healthier life. “Balancing Yin and Yang means balancing active and passive phases of the day. We need to work and rest, do exercise and relax the body, train the brain and relax it! We need to sleep sufficiently and early enough and we need to move the body in the morning, hours of the new day! In the morning the body needs a good, healthy breakfast to fill up the life energy Qi. We also need to move our bodies a bit to get this life energy moving and protecting us from the pathogenic factors that make us sick! These factors can be caused by external reasons and by internal emotions. Shanghai is a loud and very active city. We need to find space and room for complete relaxation and mental freedom. As this does not come easy in Shanghai, we need to plan these moments actively!” Web: www.tcm-shanghai.com
By cooking for yourself, rather than going to a restaurant or ordering that all-toeasy takeaway, you can regain control of the ingredients, seasoning and oils, not to mention unknown flavourings and chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides, ending up in your system. You can also begin to learn about the power of foods, herbs and spices on your health and wellbeing. Of course we all know that it is important to use fresh ingredients and whole foods as part of a healthy, balanced diet but it can be confusing to cook healthy food for yourself, especially in a foreign country where you are unfamiliar with the flavours and cooking methods of seasonal fruits and vegetables. One way to educate yourself this month is to attend Sprout Lifestyle’s Eating For Health talk series. Host of the event, Jacqueline Zhan Fraise, certified Nutrition Consultant, member of American Nutrition Association and National Association of Nutrition Professionals, told Talk, “The goal of this program is to guide our participants to choose optimal amounts of macronutrients (proteins, fats and carbs), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), phytonutrients (plant alkaloids with protective value) and other vital factors (enzymes, tastes) that can be most efficiently digested and assimilated by our body. Proper nutrition is a major form of health investing. When you eat poor quality food, you are dipping into the nutrient reserves in your bones, soft tissues, organs, glands, skin and hair: you wear the results of being overdrawn nutritionally and feel the warning signs of ill health (fatigue, pain and mood swings). Eating for Health will be one way to bring us back to optimal health.” Kimberly Ashton, co-founder and chief sprouting officer at Sprout Lifestyle, told Talk, “It is not actually hard to find healthy
ingredients in Shanghai. You have to know where to look and be willing to want to look. Shanghai is becoming healthier with more options for local and imported ingredients, from fresh ones to dried staples. There are plenty of options from wet markets, to super markets, online grocery platforms, organic farms as well as specialised natural food shops such as Sprout Lifestyle. Things like quinoa are now grown in China. We have all the spices we could want. Super foods are now easier to get and we have an abundance of fresh vegetables! There is really no excuse, and nothing holding you back but yourself.”
Sprout Lifestyle also offers health coaching, kitchen re-stocking and office pantry detoxing services along with Ayi cooking classes. It is a one stop shop to detoxifying and making positive changes to your health and wellbeing in the city. As Sprout Lifestyle’s tagline suggests, “Grow healthy habits” by making being healthy a part of your daily routine. Web: www.sproutlifestyle.com