To the TCM experts here....

[seekingbuddha]

I  was searching amazon to find a cookbook that is based on  Chinese Medicine.  Usually i give a glance to the most negative reviews on amazon, to get an idea about what people are complaining as lacking.  I could not  find a book that maybe  useful  to me (as a person who does not know TCM).  I just need to get some basic ideas on which foods would be useful for which organs. I am looking to improve my digestion  as a first step, which got totally out of whack after a gall bladder surgery.   Here is the best seller list  on amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/282878/ref=zg_b_bs_282878_1

 

Any suggestions for a commoner, who is looking to start cooking some chinese based meals on a regular basis ? I have access to good herbal stores and chinese groceries close by.  Thanks in advance.

[Aetherous]

Some CM people like congee. They like how white rice kind of tonifies and gently lifts the Spleen qi without contributing to dampness production (they consider the Spleen to be the root of the body's life)...then they add veggies to it, some proteins, and you've got a fairly tasty and healthy light meal. They can even add Chinese herbs, especially food therapy ones, to help make the congee do something if it's needed...but that requires an accurate diagnosis rather than just whimsical playing with the herbs or self diagnosis.

However, rice is also a diuretic, increasing urination which ends up draining the true qi. So really, the people who it's indicated for most, are people who aren't peeing enough. Normal people who take it every day will be draining themselves at the same time of tonifying their Spleen qi.

So, congee is good sometimes...when you want a light hydrating meal, similar to if you'd be eating pho.

There are TCM nutrition books, where they list out various foods and some general qualities...for instance, lamb is probably "warming" and might enter the Spleen (not looking at the book at the moment to verify but just providing an example). My personal opinion: that approach to nutrition is only useful when there's a clear diagnosis, and you want to boost the efficacy of the acu-moxa-herb treatments, by doing everything in your lifestyle to match the TCM pattern. TCM is based off of an herbalist approach to every form of therapy, which is based on doing similar things in combination for a greater effect.

Also, TCM zangfu patterns (how TCM nutrition is categorized) are a recent invention, and weren't historically how Chinese Medicine doctors thought about patients and dietary therapy. I think that if you look at a Spleen qi deficiency diet (which everyone wants to treat), then staying on that over a long period of time would be unnatural. The Spleen qi might end up being healthy, which is great, but perhaps there would be nutritional deficiencies of some sort. Just because the Spleen qi is the root of postnatal life, of qi and blood and fluids, does not mean that boosting that will heal everyone miraculously.

I like the principle in the Zhong Zang Jing, a book attributed to Hua Tuo, where it's said that if the patient likes the therapy then it's the one that will be effective, but if they dislike it then it's not going to benefit them. It has to feel right. This is in line with the Daoist approach of naturalness. So perhaps a good Daoist and Chinese Medical approach to dietary therapy is to trust your instincts about what you're eating. If it feels like too much, despite it apparently being the best thing for you according to the experts, stop eating it for the time being. If you really crave something that some people say is unhealthy, perhaps you need some of it. The body tells us what's appropriate for it, and also tells us when it's no longer appropriate.

In line with that idea, is how we prepare our food, and what state it's in. If food isn't fresh, for instance with something like canned sardines...perhaps it's harmful to us. A head of lettuce pulled fresh out of the ground is jam packed with pure life force, compared to that can of sardines, which has like no life force left. We can sense this and it's not an intellectual exercise to guess what things are better or worse...our bodies know and our intuition says it...so I think that eating foods that seem most appealing is good. Also, eating whole natural foods is of course good. If a food seems to agree with us more when cooked, then we should cook it...if it's better raw, then we should eat it raw. For instance, that fresh head of lettuce would be pretty weird and nasty if cooked, but is crunchy and sweet when raw. Following certain food wisdom which has been corroborated by science, such as soaking certain grains and nuts to improve digestion, is also a good idea.

Perhaps we should not have too much of one thing. Imagine just eating just that head of lettuce for a meal...you'll be starving soon. Imagine only eating a piece of steak and nothing on the side. There are nutrients missing there...would have been better to have the lettuce with it. Imagine eating the same breakfast lunch and dinner every day for a year...it gets dull, and causes us to miss out on other nutrients. Having variety is good.

Anyway, just kind of rambling.

Something interesting...most Chinese medical dietary recommendations today tell us that dairy is bad because it produces damp and possibly phlegm, which are in opposition to the Spleen. Yet, the esteemed Sun Si Miao told us that a little bit of milk strengthens a person. Perhaps modern TCM dietary advice weakens people, and decreases longevity. Also...there are a lot of little gems in the various medical texts. For instance, the Ling Shu has a chapter which discusses the 5 elements and various categories of food that are good and bad for them. For instance, wheat benefits the Heart. The Jin Gui Yao Lue also has dietary advice. No one has compiled all of the dietary suggestions from the medical texts throughout CM history, as far as I know...but someone should!

Can't think of a good cookbook, but if you just go full out with your intuition, perhaps using tried and true recipes, you'll be doing better off anyway.

Oh yeah, and finally...it seems to me like food qualities that are warming or cooling are pretty reliable. A way to apply this realistically is, if you tend to be a person that runs hot and has inflammation etc, then eat more salads and fruits (which are cooling and also happen to be unprepared, and so are not warming). It will bring some balance. If you tend to be cool, passive, etc...perhaps eating slightly more meat, spicy foods, having some beer (all of which are warming, and the foods tend to be served warm and cooked) can help balance that out. But to classify foods based on what organs they enter, apart from what's in the Ling Shu, I don't really trust that all of the time.

Just some random thoughts...I hope other people answer because this is a great question.

[gendao]

An entirely different question for TCM experts - what meridian would be responsible for poor balance and double vision?

[vonkrankenhaus]

Liver.

 

Kidney also involved.

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[gendao]

Liver.

 

Kidney also involved.

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

Source, please?  Could you explain how those relate to physical balance & double vision?

[henro]

I  was searching amazon to find a cookbook that is based on  Chinese Medicine.  Usually i give a glance to the most negative reviews on amazon, to get an idea about what people are complaining as lacking.  I could not  find a book that maybe  useful  to me (as a person who does not know TCM).  I just need to get some basic ideas on which foods would be useful for which organs. I am looking to improve my digestion  as a first step, which got totally out of whack after a gall bladder surgery.   Here is the best seller list  on amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/282878/ref=zg_b_bs_282878_1

 

Any suggestions for a commoner, who is looking to start cooking some chinese based meals on a regular basis ? I have access to good herbal stores and chinese groceries close by.  Thanks in advance.

 

The Pichtford book "Healing with Whole Foods" is one of the recommended text in TCM master degree programs. You could also look at "Tao of Nutrition" by Maoshing Ni,  "Chinese Natural Cures" by Henry C. Lu, and "The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity" by Dan Reid. Those are the 4 in my library that I often turn to outside general TCM textbooks...

 

You might also check out Cosmic Nutrition. I'm paging through it now and it looks pretty cool.

Edited November 29, 2015 by henro

[vonkrankenhaus]

Re:

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"Source, please?  Could you explain how those relate to physical balance & double vision?"

-----

 

The source of the comment was VonKrankenhaus.

 

Liver related to eyes.

 

Kidney related to ears.

 

Wood and Water energies, respectively.

 

No need for me to reiterate 10,000 online sources of 5 phases diagrams, but that is one way to familiarize with organ/environment energetics.

 

And just making a very general comment, not detail, because no real details were given to go further.

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[Aetherous]

Some CM people like congee. They like how white rice kind of tonifies and gently lifts the Spleen qi without contributing to dampness production (they consider the Spleen to be the root of the body's life)...then they add veggies to it, some proteins, and you've got a fairly tasty and healthy light meal. They can even add Chinese herbs, especially food therapy ones, to help make the congee do something if it's needed...but that requires an accurate diagnosis rather than just whimsical playing with the herbs or self diagnosis.

 

However, rice is also a diuretic, increasing urination which ends up draining the true qi. So really, the people who it's indicated for most, are people who aren't peeing enough. Normal people who take it every day will be draining themselves at the same time of tonifying their Spleen qi.

 

So, congee is good sometimes...when you want a light hydrating meal, similar to if you'd be eating pho.

 

Lately I've realized the importance of hydrating foods (for myself), and congee especially. Been having it pretty much every day for breakfast, and adding some protein fat and veggie.

 

I've also found that I wasn't entirely correct in what I said above about congee. While it's true that regular rice is diuretic, apparently sweet rice is not, and has the same Spleen+Stomach tonic effect. So it seems that sweet/glutinous rice congee (1:10 water ratio) is a really healthy staple for pretty much everyone. I've also heard of people mixing white rice and sweet rice in equal portions.

[seekingbuddha]

Thanks for that comments on porridge.  I have had some pretty tasty congees  when i travelled in asia.  Need to look up some receipe online and start doing that. I have an automatic rice cooker that i can set up the previous night, and it will be ready in the morning  when i wake up.  It is lighter than oatmeal and hence makes for a easy  start of day.  I bought the "healing with whole foods"  book, based on suggestion here - didn't  expect it to be  as thick as Bible :-)   It seems like the only book i will need, in order to understand  food approach of TCM,  if only i can find a way to skim through it, for an initial surface level understanding..