10/19/2026
As gardeners and wildcrafters, we have always loved harvesting, preserving and preparing our own food and medicine. We don't grow our own rice, so seeing it growing, drying, sold, and cooked in China fills our bowls!
Funny thing is, within a half hour drive of our facility in Grass Valley, thousands of acres of rice stretch across California's Central Valley, so the crop is not foreign to us! But seeing rice grown in its motherland is next level.
In East Asian culinary and medicinal traditions, rice in its many varieties and preparations plays such an important role that the words for "cooked rice" and "meal" are interchangeable 饭 (fàn).
In terms of TCM energetics and therapeutic principles, rice...
🥣 Nourishes Qi, Blood, and Yin
🍚 Enters the Spleen and Stomach
🍯 Is Neutral and Sweet
Rice, cooked with extra water into congee, is both a daily breakfast staple and also a medicinal food for many afflictions ranging from digestive upset to home sickness.
We'd love to hear what role rice has played in your diet, healing traditions, and emotional landscape 🌾
