Alaska Institute of Oriental Medicine

Introduction to the Course by Cynthia McMullen

May I tell you a short story?

Back in the 1990s, I experienced a healing crisis that was so bad! Western Medicine wasn’t able to diagnose me with anything, my many symptoms were horrible, and my search for a cure was part of what led me into this line of healing work that I do now and love so much.

I started doing QiGong and Tai Chi and saw an Acupuncturist who worked with me on Five-Element Nutrition. This approach was so profoundly healing that it changed the course of my life.

My firsthand experience with the very direct healing effect that Five-Element Nutrition had on my body started my journey into studying everything that I could about Oriental Medicine, Taoist philosophy, the Five Elements, bodywork and energy systems, and the perspective of looking at food as therapy.

This online Five-Element Nutrition Course includes all of the notes and handouts from the amazing class that I taught live here in Anchorage, Alaska, for many years.

My goal, as you’re going through this course, is to make sure that you understand how to apply the information to get the absolute most out of it while also having fun and being highly creative. At the end of the course, I want you to be able to use this valuable information to benefit yourself and your family. And if you are a professional health care provider, this course should leave you with an excellent thought process that will allow you to evaluate the way your clients eat on a daily basis and provide them with easy suggestions to improve imbalances in their bodies.

Five-Element Nutrition is not a strict diet. It is an individualized art form that guides each person through the different elements by evaluating the path that you traveled on to get here, looks at where you are standing right now, and creates the Way for where it is you want to go from here.

In addition to a lot of other relevant information, the course material includes a special chapter on each one of the Five Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.

To get the most out of this course, I recommend that you read a little of the course material and then stop and experiment with the information. Buy ingredients, cook, touch, taste, smell, and feel the food. This is so much about forming an actual interactive RELATIONSHIP with your food.

Take your time and digest the information as you go through the course. This means read it, think about it, meditate on it, and experience it through the Spirit of the Food. You might even dream with it!

Most importantly, enjoy the course and your food. Make sure that the food tastes delicious to you. Let it heal your body and your soul.

With deep gratitude to my first Five-Element Nutrition teacher, the late Leslie Reeves, L.Ac.

Five-Element Nutrition - Course Overview

I offered this Five-Element Nutrition Course as a certification course when I taught it live in Anchorage, Alaska, some years back. Students who were interested in pursuing certification attended class once a week for approximately one year.

I would give the students weekly homework assignments to find or create recipes based on what they were learning about Five-Element Nutrition. As part of each assignment, they were also required to actually prepare the food and bring it to the next class to share it with their fellow students. Everyone greatly enjoyed this culinary experience, and it was an added bonus for me that I got to sample the food and enjoy it as well!

In addition to teaching the course, I also participated in sharing recipes and my own cooking with the students.

Most of the recipes presented in the Recipes section of this online course (Appendix 1) originated from the live certification course. Some of the recipes are my own, and the rest were contributions from some of my former students (shared here with permission). The students either created the recipes them­selves or found them online or in other resources such as cookbooks. 

You will find many wonderful, tasty recipes in this course that will help you to more easily implement Five-Element Nutrition into your own cooking and life.

See the boxed Wood Element recipe below for an example of the types of recipes that you'll find in this course.

In this course, you will learn:

• What the Five Elements are.
  
  
• How the Five Elements interact with one another.
  
  
• How the Five Elements are related to nutrition.
  
  
• How knowledge of the Five Elements can be used to heal the body.
  
  
• How nutrition can be used to bring the body into balance.
  
  
• How the energy of specific foods is related to the human body.
  
  
• How to safely do a liver cleanse.
  
  
• And so much more!
  
  

Course Highlights

Whether you are taking this course for personal or professional reasons, you will learn how to energetically use nutrition for healing the body through alignment with the Five Elements of Chinese Medicine. Each chapter provides information and techniques that will help you apply Five-Element Nutrition in your personal life or professional practice.

In addition to presenting detailed information about each of the Five Elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water) and their relationship to nutrition, the course includes an abundance of BONUS MATERIAL to further your learning experience in the areas of the Five Elements, nutrition, and health.

Course highlights include the following:

• Energy of Food: How to use food according to the Five Elements of Chinese Medicine.
  
  
• Recipes: More than 35 pages of recipes in the Recipes appendix, plus individual recipes that are included within some of the chapters themselves.
  
  
• Grocery Lists: A grocery shopping list for each of the Five Elements to help get you started.
  
  
• Bonus Material: Extra tips, information, and resources.
  

For the list of course topics, check out the Workbook Table of Contents in the Course Curriculum section below. The Table of Contents can be viewed for free by enrolling in the FREE PREVIEW.