When life seems a bit tough, head for the larder!
In Chinese Feng Shui, eating the right foods does not simply make us healthier, it can change our mood and even reverse our fortune.
A whole fish is said to bring riches and abundance. But be careful not to turn it over as all the good luck will tumble out! Rich, ripe fruit, the colour of gold, like the round shaped tangerine, orange and pomelo have a coin-like similarity and are thought to bring prosperity.
Multi-layered cakes are wonderful conduits of good fortune because the luck rises tier on tier as we eat. If made with sticky rice flour, the good luck will stick to us giving us a “sweet life”.
The pineapple, too, is a symbol of good fortune. Statues and carvings of this luscious fruit can still be found in the extravagant homes built for European industrialists and Asian merchants after the fruit’s ‘discovery’ by Columbus.
Foods have their own inherent energies. A salmon gives us the chi energy to keep leaping forward in life and overcoming obstacles, whereas eating chicken, the bird that constantly pecks, will pass on an energy that enables us to do many things at once. Ground hugging vegetables like cucumbers encourage a more relaxed energy, while root vegetables give us inner strength.
Please pass me that bowl of fruit, I could use some extra cash!
© Julia Courtenay-Tanner & Hoi Yee Yip