Comments on: Are contemporary diet plans compatible with Chinese medical theory?

By: Foster Ryan

Foster Ryan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:01:20 +0000

Some people don’t do well on a heavy vegetable diet. I use a system called Metabolic Typing. Dr. Mercola uses a similar idea (he used to use Metabolic Typing but he’s come up with his own thing with Dr. Weill). The problem is that the diets around the world, which we developed on, are too different. We should test people for their basic constitutional type and then recommend from there. Some people need heavy fat and meat- think of the Eskimos for an obvious example. For more info go to :www.healthexcel.com/
Also, check out the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation: http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/ppnf/
This group represents a key set of nutritional thinkers.
We need to use the best nutritional thinking from the West, based on OUR Bodies’ needs, and integrate with Chinese nutritional thought. By the way, when our say Western nutrition, I don’t mean the FDA or your school nutrition class’s thought.
These approaches are related to the previous comment mentioning Sally Fallon- she runs (or at least used to) the Price Pottenger Foundation. If you start on learning from this line of nutritional thinkers and related thinkers you will experience a massive opening in your nutritional thinking.

By: Dara

Dara — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:01:59 +0000

Gotta love Google adsense! Posting a diet ad on the precise post condemning the very thing!

By: Gibscot

Gibscot — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:08:02 +0000

LOL it tickles mine too!

By: Taylor

Taylor — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:49:42 +0000

You know what I love about this post? How Google picked up on the word ‘diet’, and as you are ranting this wonderful rant about the evil of these fast-loss, processed food evils….well, there is Google, happily supplying you with no shortage of adverts for every diet on the planet! Stuff like that tickles my funny bone.

By: Acai Energy for the Soul

Acai Energy for the Soul — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:53:59 +0000

Okay, Medifast is one thing, but what about diets that are more nationally accepted….nutrisystem, weight watchers, curves and the like?

By: Suzanne Herwish

Suzanne Herwish — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:23:07 +0000

You’re absolutely right and we should always put our physical and spiritual health before weight loss but unfortunately, and especially amongst young women, the weight loss seems to rule all! Why are we so obsessed by our weight other than those where it’s actually causing a health problem?

By: Gibscot

Gibscot — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:31:22 +0000

Two concepts I try to live by: (1) “You are what you eat” and (2) eat less + exercise more = weight loss.

Both fairly simple and easy to live by. Try not to eat junk (I think total denial can be detrimental too though) and find a good balance. The more you know about nutrition and it’s effects on you the better you will be able to maintain your health.

By: Margaret Shockley Gandy, N.C.

Margaret Shockley Gandy, N.C. — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:56:17 +0000

I find your discussion interesting in that none of the respondents seem to be studying nutritional science or indigenous diets. My husband Michael Gandy. L.Ac., and I have been collaboratively treating clients for 28 years using Classical Chinese Medicine and dietary changes to successfully treat everything from infants with failure to thrive to HIV/AIDS and Parkinson Disease. One thing I can tell you — there is no one diet that is good for everyone, nor is there even a diet that is good for someone through all of their life. An infant needs a very different diet from her mother and father. The 16 year old male (or female) athlete needs a different diet from a pre-menopausal woman. You can no more give one diet fits all recommendations than you can prescribe one herbal formula for everyone. Any diet regime that focuses only on weight loss and/or purports to be good for everyone is not worth the paper it’s written on.

Two books that begin to ground your knowledge of healthy diets are Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions and Gary Taube’s Good Calories Bad Calories. For Chinese Medicine practitioners Paul Pitchfords book is good, but does not give enough information on deficiency or excess syndromes. How to nourish an elder who is deficient and loosing muscle mass as well as organ function? A Vegan diet can improve symptoms in the short term — any diet that gets someone off their junk food will do that — but in the long run such a diet will risk exacerbating the elder’s deficiency and decline. Henry Lu’s book includes important dietary knowledge particularly applicable to a TCM practice. Knowing which foods support stomach/spleen function or clear up damp heat in the lower burner becomes crucial when dealing with chronic progressive disease. Knowing how to design a meal which supports all organ functions while nourishing qi and blood in a particular client while appealing to that client’s food preferences and fitting into their lifestyle is a science and an art.

Much like herbalism and acupuncture, learning to balance a particular client’s nutritional needs and then to teach that client the skills required to make those changes requires years of study and experience. At least start with good information and wisdom, not popular books written to make money from the gullible.

Warm regards,
Margaret Shockley Gandy, N.C.