dietary factors

[Guest guest]

, " ALON MARCUS " <

alonmarcus@w...> wrote:

> No Adverse Lipid Effects Seen With High Fat, No-Starch Diet

 

 

I consider diet to be an essential part of good health and thus essential to

herbal practice. If you don't eat well, then you cannot have optimum health.

As Simon Mills has pointed out, many herbs do not even become active until

after they are acted upon in the healthy digestive tract, empasis upon healthy.

Unlike herbal medicine, diet is an area where a tremendous amount of valid

research has been done and thus must come to bear on traditional chinese

ideas on the topic.

 

There are many different ways to approach dietary therapy as a TCM

practitioner.

 

1. one could adhere to using either chinese or american food items according

to their taste and temperature and craft very precise food regimens. This is

only acceptable to a small minority.

 

2. one could craft special recipes for congees to supplement or substitute for

the current diet.

 

3. one could have patients adhere to basic rules like minimizing overly sweet,

spicy and greasy foods. while the typical chinese diet as portrayed in film and

american versions of the cuisine centers on rice and vegetables. However this

basic idea proably also applies to lean meats as well. the general trend in

nutritional research seems to suggest that reduced caloric intake seems to

trump the benefits of any particular diet. In other words, a low calorie meat/

no starch diet is better than a high calorie grain diet. I would offer that low

calorie diets of any type result in less damp, phlegm and food accumulation,

thus less blood stasis as one ages. Less for the stomach to do at any given

meal, the more one benefits. Perhaps some do better on grains and veggies

and others on meat and veggies (veggies are still essential, just the non

starchy

ones), but the point is that the diet centered on lean meats, high quality fats,

veggies and low starch is probably as good or better than the more macrobiotic

oriented whole grain type diets. It may turn out that one works better for

asians,, another for mediterraneans, another for northern euros. so this dictum

can be interpeted broadly in light of current research.

 

4. one could use allergy testing from either the blood or NAET and otherwise

leave the diet unchanged

 

5. one could adopt a particular diet based solely upon modern research or

speculation, such as atkins, zone, macrobiotics, raw foods, blood type, etc.

 

What do people do? What do they find works for themselves and their

patients? And if one uses a modern approach, how does one reconcile it, if at

all, with TCM bian zheng?