fantastic food book

Submitted by ann.helen on November 21, 2005 - 10:59am
Body: 

Hi

I just wanted to let you know about a great book i read recently. It's called "Healing with Whole Foods".

Christine have you heard of this book?

The reason I love it is becuase i have been struggling with finding a diet that aligned with Tradtional Chinese medicine ideas

This is 'cos from this first year of studying acupuncture i was familiar with the principle that there is not a certain type of food that suits all and wanted to know more.

For example, of the the type of thing in the book..If a person were to nearly allways feel COLD, and notice a lot of MUCOUS in her body and live in a cold climate like canada (sept to april) then it would be very harmfull for her to follow the plenty of fruit and fruit juices and nuts type regime.

This would overwhelm her allready "cold" type body with a source of food that was very cold and damp. (most fruit is cold, nuts are very damp as they are oily in quality - except for flax seed oil!)

WHile for the person who is allways warm or lives in the warmer climate and is dry, this type of food would be helpfull.

that's a basic example...

I am the classic cold, damp person, allways feel cold, even on the hottest day, and am mucousy, allways waxy ears in the morning, ( wow don't i sound hot - lol) and one week following ideas here and i have no ear pain for the first time in two years, am not feeling the cold and have a lot more energy.

I had also allways wanted to do a cleanse for the prolapse and all round health, but knew that the fruit,fruit juice, nuts one would be know good for me..

This book has cleanses suitable for each consitutional type of person and I'll let you know how i get on with it when i do it.

Amazon has plenty of reviews anyway so you can check more feedback from people there.

(I don't have anything to do with the author or the book by the way!)

Hope you're all keeping well despite the POP's... (Ohh i like that sound's just like little pops in our body and minimises them.. think I'll stick to that moniker for mine.)

Slan Leat

Christine

November 18, 2005 - 8:14am

I love this book...try the tofu sandwich with sprouts, seaweed, and tahini....it's SO yummy!!

Christine

November 18, 2005 - 8:35am

No message

Christine

November 18, 2005 - 8:38am

Another fabulous book is "Why Some Like it Hot" by Gary Nabhan. He takes the hot/cold thing even further and tells why we're genetically determined to eat certain foods and how our health can suffer when we stray from those. I've only started the book, but it looks like people from the British Isles do not possess the genetic capability of processing a lot of fruit sugar very well. Of course, the ones who've suffered most from adopting the diet of the dominant culture are the desert Indians of the American Southwest, almost all of whom now have diabetes. This diabetes thing in America is so out of control. I'm traveling this week and just noticed they now have a sharps container mounted on the restroom wall in the airport for used insulin needles! This reminds me...for those old enough to remember...thirty years ago adult "Depends" did not exist and the only place you could find adult protection of that sort was through mail order - ads placed in the back of books like Reader's Digest. Now those products fill entire isles at grocery and drug stores. Suppose the current surgical rate has any connection???

ann.helen

November 21, 2005 - 10:20am

Wow can't believe that about the sharps bins in american airport- shocking.

and yeah can't wait to try out some of the recipes of that book allright.

The second book you mention comes from a pretty different perspective on the hot/ cold thing i would guess.. It sounds more like a metabolisation/ genetic orientation.

The Chinese prespective is a lot more individually oriented than that.. That each individual will have particular requirement according to a diagnois via 8 paramaters (yin/yang, excess/deficient, interior/exterior, hot/cold).

That whole thing about - what works for you would'nt neccesarily for me, (within context of the basics - whole food, in season, in moderation etc..) It makes a lot of sense to me.

But then i'm naturally biased cos i'm studying it and it sorted my funny ear problem so quickly!

Best Wishes all

Christine

November 21, 2005 - 10:57am

No message

Christine

November 21, 2005 - 11:00am

Yes, I understand the difference. Nabhan is an ethnobotanist with advanced training in genetics and has drawn a direct correlation between traditional foods and the genetic changes they sometimes caused to help populations adapt to certain diseases. I agree that diet is very individualistic, within broad boundaries. Before the shrinking of the planet we would never have seen an Asian person living on milk and fruit, nor a European on rice and soy. I think it

ann.helen

November 27, 2005 - 8:52pm

OOps didn't mean to sound Ms. "know it all" :)
Sounds like a good book too.

Oh and on the book topic - another book i really loved, more directly linked to POP was one (i think) was called "women's stories of hysterectomy" by lise coultier steele. A really insightfull and bravely honest set of womens own stories. Stunning.

Best Wishes

ann.helen

January 8, 2006 - 7:29pm

Hi

sorry for delay in replying - was home for two weeks over xmas with no computer access.

When a systematic 'coldness' is evident the general advice given according to trad chinese medicine principles is i think along these lines.

Avoiding raw cold foods, especially in winter. So avoiding salads, fruits, cold iced drinks, sushi, that sort of thing.

Whats seen as preferable is porrige, soups, stews, grilled veg, stir fry. The warming cooked foods.

Then within this, regular frying as a method is the least preferable form of preparing foods as it brings a quality that is seen as too 'hot' on the spectrum and the preference is for 'warming' foods.

This is so as not to then push the person into 'heat' and so from from one side of the spectrum to the other.

Water is seen as preferable at around room temp or warmed drinks. I like green tea and lemon slices and decaffenated tea with lemon (made by just drinking the second brewed cup and throwing out the first - gets rid of 90% of cafeeine from the tea)

i made the mistake origionally when hearing a bit about these ideas to eat constant curry's and spicy fried foods and so was then not 'warming' but just adding an excess heat in one area - my stomach. That wasn't especially helpfull:)

So it's more an avioding the cold and veering more toward what's warming. The book is much more detailed on this with lot's of recipes as some of the food's are intuitive some others are tricky as to whether they are cold warming hot or neutral.

In terms of building up heat it also recommends some supplements (if neccesary) like the blue green algea "chorella".

The nut's then are more spoke of in terms of having "damp" qualities, so this is a bit different from the cold/hot spectrum.

But dampness is associated with prolpases in TCM because the organ seen as responsible for HOLDING and SUPPORTING everything in the body is most prone to the patholgoy of dampness (which involves dragging things down and heas a downbearing quality.)

This can all sound very medieval i think... but is really a very sytematic empirically proven 3/4000 yr old medical discipline.

I do wish i could explain these ideas better but i'm just beginning my studies and will continue to do my best to find out how TCM can help us gals.

When i finish my studies my plan is to go and spend a month in a gynecology ward of a chinese hospital concentrating on prolpase's.

If i could add a small thread to Christines tapestry i'd be a very happly woman!

Best wishes all

xx

Christine

January 9, 2006 - 7:58am

Thanks so much for this Anne-helen. Did you see the article in Qi magazine on uterine cysts and tumors? Pretty amazing.

ann.helen

January 14, 2006 - 11:17am

Hi again and thanks,

Nope i didn't see the article, but one of my local shops has a good selection of the less mainstream mag's so i'll look out for it this week (if it's still on the shelves).

xx

Best Wishes