Food As Medicine - Celery

For today’s #FoodieFriday blog, I would like to talk a little bit about those crunchy, green, refreshing stalks which we call Celery.  

Despite common usage, celery is not just a portal for peanut butter or cream cheese on Superbowl Sunday.  It doesn't just give a crunch to your tuna salad, or play the role of third wheel for your mirepoix.  Celery actually has some real nutritional benefits that we cannot afford to ignore.

Nature is funny sometimes, there is a method to her madness.  If you look at a celery stalk, it looks something like your tibia, or shin bone.  To continue the metaphor, the part at the root would be the wide bony structure just under your knee, and the area where the leaves grow would be your ankle.  The tibia is one of the long bones of your body, along with the femur and humerus and others.  Celery has high amounts of a mineral called Silicon, which is a trace mineral in our food, and it is used by the body to strengthen and renew bones, joints and connective tissue, and even the walls of our circulatory vessels like arteries.  Related to this, celery is often used to alkalize the blood which helps control the symptoms of inflammation, which in many people appears as gout, rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis, and nerve inflammations like trigeminal neuralgia, and possibly even fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Celery should be consumed daily, both raw and juiced, by those who suffer from high blood pressure.  This nutritional tidbit has been acknowledged in both Eastern and Western medical literature.  In fact, it is a safe remedy for preeclampsia, or high blood pressure and proteinuria (protein in the urine) during and/or after the twentieth week of pregnancy.  Celery with a dash of lemon juice is great for headaches due to high blood pressure, and it is also good for high fevers because it has a cooling quality. 

Celery juice is, I believe, very helpful in the treatment of diabetes mellitus (Type 2).  It has ability to neutralize acidosis, which is a side effect from the improper processing or inability to process sugars.  When untreated, general acidosis, or having slightly acidic blood and body pH, causes widespread inflammation throughout the body.  We talked a little about inflammation above in terms of bone and connective tissue health, however, current research on inflammation is finding that it is the root cause of many other conditions.

I think the characteristic that I like best about celery is that it is the perfect snack food for those trying to watch their weight.  When eaten raw between meals, it gives a resounding crunch which signals the craving centers of the nervous system that it is getting fed something satisfying.  When eaten during meals, it encourages slowing down the eating process and the very thorough chewing of your food.  This helps you reach your fullness feeling faster while eating less
calories.  And as an added bonus, celery gives you fiber which benefits the small and large intestines greatly. 

Celery is a very unassuming looking plant, but make no mistake, it is a super food.  It should be incorporated into our daily lives as much as possible because consuming it has so many benefits.

--Marissa Byrum, AP, DOM, Dipl. Ac., is an associate at Ideal Balance Center for Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine in Temple Terrace, FL.