Daoist Diet - Meal Suggestions?

[Gerard]

One size doesn't fit all.

 

Golden rule which also applies to diet.

 

Secondly, what you need to bear in mind is the following:

 

Properties of food from a TCM perspective

 

What are the different body constitutions in TCM?

 

Health Tips for Different Body Constitutions of TCM

 

 

Thirdly:

 

1. Eat according to the seasons. Our world doesnt follow this essential rule anymore, unfortunately. Eating mangos in winter and oranges in summer is nothing uncommon due to transportation, food availability and refrigeration.

 

2. Eat slowly and mindfully. I like the old Christian habit of praying before eating, this helps you to attain that mental habit of slowing down and chewing your food well and slowly. Digestion starts in the mouth. Your stomach, spleen and liver will be thankful if you adopt the proper way of eating, not the current modern model, which is toxic and an insult to health and wellbeing.

 

3. Don't eat after midday, if you can't try reducing the size and type of meals (meat and warming food) after 12pm. I recommend having the most important meal around 6-7am and then the last one around 11am.

 

Best.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Gerard

[dogson]

At the risk of seeming too simple, taoism to me just means being your most authentic self and being close to the way nature designed us. Epigenetics is now proving that we can rewrite our own DNA via our beliefs, thoughts and emotions, though - the idea of who, and what we are is very plastic. I think it's crucial to think about what kind of food works best for you, and if you don't know, experiment!

 

My own diet changes constantly depending on what I'm doing - how much physical exercise I'm getting, how much mental / creative work I'm doing (in which case I eat very light, mostly berries, fruit smoothies, raw honey, etc)

 

I have found it very helpful to stop eating around 6pm or earlier.

 

The more "live" food you get, the more your body will stay in enzymatic balance. We weren't born with kitchen supplies, and it's my own personal belief that our diet should consist primarily of raw plant foods. This runs contrary to the Chinese theory that food should always be warm, not cold, but again, it really depends on your climate and your specific metabolism. As far as raw diets go, many people do well on a fat-based raw diet, ie salads with lots of olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds. A few thrive on a high-carb, mainly fruitarian diet. These diets are very powerful *AS AN EXPERIMENT* for a few weeks. Clearing out everything and going back to basics will teach you your body's real cravings for certain things, ie sugar, fat, salt.

 

Superfoods and Herbs are great and can be potentially life-changing. As I've gotten deeper into diets, I try to eat more "essence" and less "substance". IE, I'll favor raw chocolate and a smoothie with goji berries, maca, hemp seeds or spirulina over a very heavy macro-calorie based diet of sandwiches or a lot of bread, which is high in calories but very low in nutrients. When you start taking things like eucommia bark, deer antler, ho shu wu, ginseng, shilajit, those are very high in minerals and in subtle essences you just can't get from stuff at the grocery store. Ginseng roots for example, some of them are 10+ years old and, from an energetic perspective, absorb much longer cycles of energy than a plant which may only have lived for a season before being picked and eaten.

 

Food and dieting is an art, not a science. It's all about feeling, how do you feel ABOUT the food, how do you feel when you're eating it and afterwards. Do the aesthetics of eating meat bother you? What specific goals are you eating for? More physical stamina or more mental / creative ability? There are specific foods, diets and supplements that target this. When you say Taoist diet, that (to me) just means, your personal diet. Something that's as close to your specific needs as possible.

[Taomeow]

Here's how I do it:

 

Choose a large variety of foods -- they have to fit MY season, not the season on the calendar, and they dare not bore me with incessant repetition, uneventful blandness, or tedious predictability.

 

A great number of experiments. I don't pledge allegiance to any one way of eating -- if that was what I was after, I'd choose one of those fundamentalist religions that come complete with strict dietary rules, and just observe them, a no-brainer. Nutrition predates religion though, predates science, predates absolutely everything you've ever encountered in your life. It also exceeds everything you've ever encountered in your life in its historic complexity. It predates agriculture, it predates the ice age, and the tropics and herds of mammoths in the North Pole, and the great meteor that caused the Mediterranean sea to dry out -- any and all events that caused the primates surviving them to change the way they ate before the change, which was the only way for them to survive. Be aware and respectful of the fact.

 

An integrative approach -- use your brain and what it learns, not just your body and how it feels after a particular meal, modern bodies are known to lie to their owners all the time. Some wrong ways to eat manifest as physical or mental disorders only years or even decades after they are embarked on -- not everybody is blessed with an allergy that will inform him or her right away what not to eat, some people have all their food-related health problems only in a latent form until it's too late. So, study, not just taste, what particular food choices are doing. Keep in mind it's complex -- don't fall for any one-sided story, look deeper. My pet peeve, e.g., is gluten -- it's not the same as what your great-grandparents had in their bread, it's at least ten times (or more) higher amounts per slice than what your great-grandparents were getting (selective breeding for "high protein content" of wheat, to say nothing of genetic modifications). So it's not enough to know that for centuries, a particular food item was eaten safely. Find out what it's really like today, it may prove very different...

 

Pay very close attention to the traditional food combinations, but only those unaffected by any particular religious beliefs. Many are works of genius, it's hard to believe people didn't get this info from some omniscient source or other. My favorite example is beans with pork -- each food item by itself has some pretty harmful lectins, which however inactivate each other when cooked together, but not if cooked separately. Lectins were only discovered a hundred years ago, and studied in any depth only in the recent decades -- the depth achieved still pretty shallow though, they are still largely a huge blank on our map of food constituents, understood by few scientists and fewer (if any) nutritionists -- but apparently more important to understand than, e.g., vitamins. My other favorite example, of what not to eat together -- crabs and persimmons -- from the chart published every year with the Peasants' Calendar in China, for some two thousand years -- was thrilling to find scientifically explained two thousand years later, as I recently did. (I keep meaning to make public that Chinese food combinations chart which I had a friend translate for me. This will only appear in my blog though, things get lost at TTB as my experience shows, and things ancient might be worth immortalizing in a more search-friendly manner. )

 

Oh, and I did write somewhere a bit about what I learned from master Wang's lectures on nutrition. There we go -- don't feel like repeating myself, but don't know where to look for that entry... I'll change the immortal techniques to blog entries, I swear.

[Spotless]

Greetings Bums,

 

I'm trying to modify my daily diet to improve my practice (and general health/wellbeing of course) and would welcome suggestions from any and all about ideas for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks that would be in keeping with a Daoist diet.

 

I have seen plenty of lists of foods which constitute good Daoist types e.g. avoiud red meat, spicy food, cold food/drink, processed food etc etc. but I am an absolute incompetent in the kitchen and as regards cooking and preparing food etc. It is something that I don't have the time or the inclination for to be honest, so contstructing my own recipes and ideas is something that gives me the fear. I think I'd be much more successfull in my endeavours if I was able to have a clear and prescriptive structure to follow.

 

SO if anyone could share what they eat on a daily basis - that they believe constitutes a good Daoist diet - then this would be much appreciated! I'm hoping to put together a simple plan for three simple healthy meals.

 

I should say that I have a moderately active life - commuting/working with long days (though in a sedentary job) with some light exercise and qi gong in the evenings and daily meditation.

 

Any input much appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

 

You will find a great many living masters that use heat (spice) and enjoy a great many things cold or cool.

And if they are of Chinese culture then processed foods are not uncommon - certainly white rice, white flour, everything white and sugar are not shied away from as well as msg.

 

The theory of fresh, organic and no or low processing is solid. If you practice alot at some point little or no meat simply becomes a choice made by your body as does your inclination to drink alcohol. Stimulants become an issue at some point but sugar fluxuations are of paramount importance for serious practice and sugar / processed starch can act as a stimulant and has an un steadying quality.

 

Dairy will get curbed down considerably as practice proceeds as it is very heavy and much of it is packed with sugars or fat. The mention of this is enough to spontaneously combust some but dairy is not generally good for health or practice. Here in the USA it is lobbied into everyone's head from birth so it is a topic that everyone loves to hate and no one will go there. Personally I love Greek yogurt and foods cooked in the stuff - but I have reduced the amount to near nothing now - I went Vegan. Small amounts are not a problem.

 

I am bringing this up because your diet will and should change over time - your practice will guide some choices because as you progress it will not be possible not to notice the subtle but blaring effects of certain food and drink. Your body will also change and suddenly one year you can eat a horse and loose weight and the next year you just look at it and you've gained ten pounds.

 

Personally I enjoy cold and always have, lots of different spices and I also loved bloody red meat for years until it became very clearly a downer to my energy - a heavy leaden feeling. At about the same time alcohol was a downer though I was really used to a nice glass of wine - but what a downer it became so I dropped it as well.

 

Your body is your tool for Being in this life, do not make the mistake of allowing it the drivers seat regarding your practice. Food consumes many of us while we appear to be consuming it. It can take our awareness and focus entirely - between food and sex most people are fully seized by them, add their politics and you've got total sleep with three levels of constant medication.

 

Be aware of your beingness - greet your food and enjoy it - notice what disturbs your awareness of your being ness.

Other than quality natural unprocessed or little processed food, I would care more about the quality issues and less about the old "rules", they are generally not followed by even the masters and for the most part they are dogma.

 

In the west we do eat way to much meat and dairy - the excess causes arterial problems and cancer in that order.

 

 

 

[The Daryl]

Pizza.

 

That's the perfect food for any dietary concerns of spiritual exploration.

 

If you are concerned about health, and natural cycles, I would suggest growing your own Pizza Trees, and a few toppings bushes (for variety).

 

Seriously though, as interesting as some of the suggestions and opinions in this thread are, that's all they are. Opinions and suggestions.

 

You can find "sacred" wisdom admonishing spices, red meat, cold food, etc and others extolling their virtues.

 

There is no one "right" diet, any more than there is one "right" belief system, or practice. There are, however "right" things for you; it's subjective. The suggestions and opinions may (or may not) nudge one in the right direction, but in the end you have to trust yourself.

[BaguaKicksAss]

Different diets are recommended for different people depending on ones constitution and their energetic makeup when you go to see a traditional chinese medicine doctor. No one diet for everyone sort of thing. I've also noticed that it can change during different periods of your life. Interesting stuff.

[Tursiops]

Greetings Bums,

 

I'm trying to modify my daily diet to improve my practice (and general health/wellbeing of course) and would welcome suggestions from any and all about ideas for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks that would be in keeping with a Daoist diet.

 

I have seen plenty of lists of foods which constitute good Daoist types e.g. avoiud red meat, spicy food, cold food/drink, processed food etc etc. but I am an absolute incompetent in the kitchen and as regards cooking and preparing food etc. It is something that I don't have the time or the inclination for to be honest, so contstructing my own recipes and ideas is something that gives me the fear. I think I'd be much more successfull in my endeavours if I was able to have a clear and prescriptive structure to follow.

 

SO if anyone could share what they eat on a daily basis - that they believe constitutes a good Daoist diet - then this would be much appreciated! I'm hoping to put together a simple plan for three simple healthy meals.

 

I should say that I have a moderately active life - commuting/working with long days (though in a sedentary job) with some light exercise and qi gong in the evenings and daily meditation.

 

Any input much appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

You asked for meal suggestions and have gotten very few, while you have gotten a lot more diet advice. >.<

I'm vegan (more or less) so what I eat is necessarily so but here are two meals I make a lot. I particularly like them because when I busy I can make them in large quantities and have the leftovers for a while.

PM me if you want actual recipes.

 

"Garlicky-Pasta"

Pasta and a variety of veggies (usually chick peas, kale, and broccoli) with enough olive-oil to keep the pasta from sticking horribly and loads of garlic.

 

"Fried rice" - the way I make this now really isn't fried

Rice and a variety of veggies (green beans, carrots, onion, cabbage, broccoli etc.) seasoned with some soy sauce and cilantro if I have it. I used to put chicken and or egg in this when I ate them. You can "fry" this with basically no oil and it comes out great.

 

For breakfast I usually have a couple pieces of fruit when local fruit is in season or I have a bowl of some sort of cooked grain (brown rice or oatmeal usually)

[thelerner]

Let me be non PC and say dog.

Perhaps miniature poodle if you want a light snack

or greyhound if you want fast food.

[mYTHmAKER]

Let me be non PC and say dog.

Perhaps miniature poodle if you want a light snack

or greyhound if you want fast food.

Chihuahua on tacos if you like Mexican food

St Bernard for a religious feast

[BaguaKicksAss]

Can't get those legally in north america though, would have to go to thailand or etc....

 

PS the puns, ow lol.

Edited October 13, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[Taomeow]

How about a purrito?

[mYTHmAKER]

Eat a Dingo if you're feeling sexy

[BaguaKicksAss]

 

This was 10x as funny back in the 80's here in Vancouver....

[dust]

You asked for meal suggestions and have gotten very few, while you have gotten a lot more diet advice. >.<

 

When the wrong question is asked, the wrong answer must be given

[Blackfinger]

Thanks all, some great general advice and much to think on. All - ok , most - of the responses have been really helpful. There's a good few gems up above, but I was away for a few days and came back and was overwhelmed by the responses otherwise would've thanked people in detail.

[Blackfinger]

You asked for meal suggestions and have gotten very few, while you have gotten a lot more diet advice. >.<

I'm vegan (more or less) so what I eat is necessarily so but here are two meals I make a lot. I particularly like them because when I busy I can make them in large quantities and have the leftovers for a while.

PM me if you want actual recipes.

 

"Garlicky-Pasta"

Pasta and a variety of veggies (usually chick peas, kale, and broccoli) with enough olive-oil to keep the pasta from sticking horribly and loads of garlic.

 

"Fried rice" - the way I make this now really isn't fried

Rice and a variety of veggies (green beans, carrots, onion, cabbage, broccoli etc.) seasoned with some soy sauce and cilantro if I have it. I used to put chicken and or egg in this when I ate them. You can "fry" this with basically no oil and it comes out great.

 

For breakfast I usually have a couple pieces of fruit when local fruit is in season or I have a bowl of some sort of cooked grain (brown rice or oatmeal usually)

 

Thanks for your suggestions of recipes Tursiops, and yes this is particularly useful....as I mentioned above I am useless at making meals....it's not so much what to eat I need help with, but suggestions of how to combine ingredients into simple meals.

 

So yes I would be most grateful if you could post details of your garlicky pasta and fried rice.... feel free to put it in the thread here as I'm sure plenty of others will be interested too.

 

cheers

[soaring crane]

a note about pasta: we've gotten completely away from the standard white/wheat variety and buy only organic spelt (it's easy to get here, has been popular for a long time) and really notice the difference. I notice the difference every time I eat regular pasta, that is.

 

For an actual meal, I started a thread about this a little while ago, and I'll update it soon with a pumpkin soup recipe:

 

http://thetaobums.com/topic/36457-winter-brew;-liquid-power/#entry582920

[Blackfinger]

Thanks SC that winter brew looks interesting....would you class it as a meal, or a drink?

Will have to give that a try

[soaring crane]

Thanks SC that winter brew looks interesting....would you class it as a meal, or a drink?

Will have to give that a try

 

well, as a base food.

 

As described, you can bring it along anywhere and drink it in small amounts. It's for warming and beefing up the body's defenses.

 

But you can obviously make soup with it. What I did this afternoon: basically the same ingredients mixed in a pot, then added frozen organic vegetable mix, some tofu cubes that I had browned in a pan with garlic oil, and a smoked salmon steak that I cut up in cubes. Then I poured that soup over some noodles that we cooked the day before yesterday. There ya go. Easy peasy.

[soaring crane]

well, to be strictly Daoist, as Gerard says, you have to enter the 5E kitchen. I used to do it but it gets complicated and I find myself thinking too much about food and food preparation. My attitude toward food is like my attitude toward tanking up my car: I want quality, but I don't want to spend a lot of time at the gas station. I have a car to take me places, same reason I have a body.

 

I don't have a car because I enjoy planning my next trip to the petrol station. In fact, I usually stand there looking pissed off while I wait for the nozzle to click. (that comment was inspired by a runner joke: How can you tell a jogger from a runner? At a red light, the jogger does jumping jacks and stretches. The runner just stands there looking pissed off)

[thelerner]

I think for any diet system, its nice to make the 'big pot' each week. Some stew or soup that's there when you want it. Though I wonder if that runs counter to superb freshness and spontaneity of Taoish thought.

[soaring crane]

I think for any diet system, its nice to make the 'big pot' each week. Some stew or soup that's there when you want it. Though I wonder if that runs counter to superb freshness and spontaneity of Taoish thought.

 

superb freshness isn't necessarily Daoist. Soups should be cooked for days. And rice cooked three times

 

And water double-boiled.

 

Btw, hot plain water is a major part of the formula. The first thing to pass the lips after waking should be a glass of it.

[C T]

Btw, hot plain water is a major part of the formula. The first thing to pass the lips after waking should be a glass of it.

Hot water, with a couple of slices of lemon, first thing in the morning.... does wonders for health maintenance.

 

And brown rice tea (Genmaicha) is a wonderful health tonic!

 

Speaking of 5 Elements, there's a Japanese version too. Making lots of claims, this.

http://www.ancientpathweb.com/Pages/VegeBroth.aspx

[CloudHands]

I got a funny story : recently some have been talking about tea and thelerner mentioned Genmaï, well he was actually talking about Genmaïcha.

I did some research on Genmaï and found it's a soup based on rice instead of potatoes, so I tried it.

 

Genmaï is the zen temple morning soup. It's tasteless (until one of you fool makes it fancy!) as daoist food is supposed to be but healthy and very easily digestible.

 

Guen maï using pressure cooking to make the soup of Zen monks.

Guen maï, using pressure cooking; an original method of cooking the traditional soup of Zen monks and nuns. This method will always produce a creamy Guen maï, without ever burning or separating. There is no need to spend hours stirring.

Beginning

We place a very heavy object on the lid so that it stays practically closed until the following day. We need a small source of energy in order to keep the liquid bubbling. The pressure due to the weight causes a constant movement. The combination of these two factors guarantees an even distribution of the heat so that the Guen maï never burns nor separates because the contents remain enclosed and sterile.

The night before

1. Adding water - important: using 40g of rice per person, add 10 times the amount of water
2. Put under pressure: allow to boil, then place a heavy weight on top of the lid (for example another pan filled with water). It should weigh between 50 and 100 kilos.
3. Raise the heat high enough to see bubbles escaping from the pan. This shows that the mix of water/rice is moving inside, and therefore will not stick.
4. Lower the heat so that the rate at which these bubbles escape is such that only a minimum of liquid escapes.
5. Take a siesta. During the first two hours, only water escapes. It is not necessary to keep watching.
6. Check the Guen maï. Later a sort of rice juice will start escaping. Check every half hour. Lower the flame slightly in order to minimize this loss of liquid and clean up. Cooking the rice takes at least 4, sometimes up to 5 hours.
7. Cut the vegetables. During the general samu in the afternoon, prepare roughly a kilo of each of the following per 80-100 people: onions, carrots, leaks, celery and turnip.

The next morning

1. Open the lid: at 06;30 in the morning, we open the lid for the first time…scary!
2. Reheat: raise the temperature to boiling point, stirring vigorously with a large wooden spoon. The pan at Yujo is old and the heat is very high. The Guen maï burns in 30 seconds if we do not scrape the bottom well.
3. Cook the vegetables. Put the cut vegetables in another small pan with just enough boiling water to cover them. Leave them to boil on a low heat for 10 minutes. Mix with the rice and close the lid once more using pressure. This will complete the cooking of the vegetables.
4. Use everything: too often practitioners don’t have enough, while there is still Guen maï left over in the pan. What a shame!
5. Leave to cool: turn off the heat before going to zazen in the morning. The Guen maï is better when it has been left to settle. If at the moment of serving it is still too hot, add a little cold water to cool it down, or better still, use the bowl with Guen maï from the previous day.
6. Collect the left over Guen maï, at the moment of leaving the tables. Cover with cling film and store in the fridge.

Samu - cutting vegetables.

There is no need to cut the vegetables very small. For a quick samu, you need cutting boards and fairly sharp, large knives.

1. The carrots should be cut 1) in slices 2) in long slivers 3) in cubes
2. The same for the onions and the parsnips, except that it goes more quickly if step 1) and 2) are done in such a way that the vegetable remains in one piece for step 3).
3. The leek should be cut in quarters (two cuts length wise) before being washed. The earth lies at the border between the green and the white. Afterwards we can cut them 1) into three 2) each third in strips 3) all the strips of each third may be cut together.
4. The stalks of the celery are cut in the same way. The leaves are chopped. The vegetables should be covered with cling film and placed in the fridge ready to be cooked the following day. The people who came to help with the samu should wash the knives and chopping boards.

The vegetables should be covered with cling film and placed in the fridge ready to be cooked the following day. The people who came to help with the samu should wash the knives and chopping boards.

Remarks

The longer the cooking lasts, the creamier the Guen maï becomes. At Shobogenji we recommend a cooking time of up to 10 hours, for a very creamy Guen maï.

We can easily measure accurately 10 times the volume of rice using jugs. Check that the jug is 4 times the volume of 400gr of rice. For 4 kilos of rice, we need 100 times the volume of 400gr of rice. Thus 25 jugs. We use two jugs, leaving the tap on, emptying and filling each jug alternately.

There is no need to wash the rice as this causes the loss of nourishing parts of the rice. Neither is it necessary to soak the rice.

 

Bon appétit!

 

 

Edit : I cooked it with a simple pan and white round rice (really faster). 1 hour is minimal, the important parts are to have the rice exploded before you make it boil and to cut the vegetables in tiny tiny pieces (less than 4 millimeters).

 

[freeform]

Learn to make a good stock and use it in everything.

 

I won't go through the whole recipe (plenty to be found online) but I have a few tips.

 

I tend to buy beef bones - all different types, from big marrow bones to the rib offcuts. I buy LOTS for very cheap at farmers markets or butchers and I use a huge pot. If you can get knuckles, joints and bits with tendon, then all the better.

 

I make sure they're from grass fed cows.

 

The 'meaty' bones (as in ones that have some meat remaining) I grill on a high heat before puttin in the pot. This adds flavour.

 

I put the bones in cold water with a bit of vinegar (a table spoon or two) for an hr before heating as this gets more goodies out of the bones.

 

I cook it for 48hrs minimum (up to 72). If unattended, I just get the pot to a strong boil and put it into an insulator bag I created - this keeps it simmering for hours without a heat source - I pop it back on the stove once Im home again.

 

When it's ready, I usually simmer the stock down to get it a bit more concentrated. Once cool I pour it into individual portion ziplock bags that I pop in the freezer.

 

If I've made a lot, I simmer down a few portions worth to a very thick concentrated consistency... it's usually darkish and gloopy... then I pour that super concentrated stock into ice cube bags and freeze. You can then use one or two ice cubes in your cooking (pop one in some rice, bulgur or stew or even towards the end of a stir fry.

 

It will take a couple of goes before you get your stock spot on.

 

This stuff, when made well, is like a jing elixir. I'm convinced that it's extremely good for you. And its delicious.

Edited November 1, 2014 by freeform