Q&A With Zoey Gong Pt 2: TCM Remedies

Meet Zoey Gong, a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) chef and nutritionist. After two breast tumors, constant skin rashes, amenorrhea, and joint pain, Zoey embarked on a journey to find healing. She now holds a B.S. in nutrition and public health, a 200-hour yoga certification, a registered dietitian certification, and is currently pursuing her M.S. in Traditional Oriental Medicine. She’s also the founder of Five Seasons TCM, a BIPOC-founded boutique wellness brand that shares and modernizes the knowledge of TCM food therapy through educational content, and functional products. With health and healing being a bigger priority than ever before, we knew we wanted to feature Zoey on The Orcé Edit to share some of her extensive knowledge and expertise.

 

What are your favorite TCM superfoods?

Varieties of vegetables, goji, reishi, mugwort, yi ren, and chrysanthemum.

What types of herbs/foods do you recommend for strengthening the immune system?

To build immunity, we need to boost our defense Qi and digestion. I would recommend ginger, garlic, honeysuckle, and reishi.

What types of herbs/foods do you recommend for a beautiful complexion?

Skin has a lot to do with the Lungs and digestion (ie., the spleen, or dampness). In general, we want to incorporate slightly cooling and yin-nourishing foods for the skin, such as snow fungus, lotus root, celery, pear, mushrooms, lemon.

What types of herbs/foods do you recommend for hormonal imbalance?

The word “hormone” doesn’t actually exist in TCM vocabulary. Usually, hormonal imbalance is understood as the imbalance of yin and yang, especially in the kidney and liver meridian. This means it’s difficult to give general suggestions, since those who need to nourish yin should have different foods from those who need to nourish yang. Here are some foods that can supplement both in a gentle way: goji, dang gui, sesame, Chinese yam.

What are your recommended remedies for detoxing the body/gut health?

I actually created teas with my favorite remedies for digestion and detoxing so that everyone can easily incorporate these ingredients into their lives! You can shop them here and here. :)