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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how Hildegardian natural therapy has been introduced from Germany to Taiwan and reshapes local healing and healthy eating practices. Through a qualitative case study of the St. Hildegard Association in Taiwan, it explores the local translation of Hildegardian dietary knowledge.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how dietary practices associated with the medieval German mystic and healer Hildegard von Bingen have been transplanted to Taiwan and reconfigured through local healing practices. Focusing on the St. Hildegard Association in Taiwan, it explores how Hildegardian natural therapy is localized through herbal cultivation, fasting retreats, and everyday food practices among healing seekers.

The association introduces German scholarship on natural medicine and medieval herbal knowledge through translations of classical texts, the organization of gentle fasting retreats (Fasten), and the establishment of Hildegard healing herb gardens. Within this framework, the body is understood as dynamically entangled with the natural environment, and herbs and natural foods are used to restore bodily balance and vitality.

Central to Hildegard’s thought is the concept of Green Vitality (Viriditas), which emphasizes relational connections among humans, plants, and the wider natural world. Drawing on the ethics of care in food practices and the concept of “food work of care”(Endaltseva & Dupuy 2025), this paper conceptualizes eating as a practice of interdependence and care in more-than-human worlds. Incorporating medicinal herbs into everyday meals becomes a form of dietary care through which healing seekers cultivate bodily awareness and ecological attentiveness.

Based on textual analysis, participant observation in fasting groups and healing gardens, and semi-structured interviews, the study shows how fasting retreats transmit dietary care ethics, how spelt-based foods shape emerging food networks, and how herb cultivation foregrounds plant agency and collective well-being.

Keywords: food work of care; situational ethics; green vitality; transplantation; Hildegardian natural therapy