Chiral dynamics of the nuclear equation of state

We present a new chiral power expansion scheme for the nuclear equation of state. The scheme is effective in the sense that it is constructed to work around nuclear saturation density. The leading and subleading terms are evaluated and are shown to provide an excellent equation of state. As a further application we considered the chiral quark condensate in nuclear matter. Already at nuclear saturation density we predict a substantially smaller reduction of the condensate as compared to conventional approaches. (orig.)