Diet and Daoist practice

[Dioni]

Hello,

We cannot deny that food has a big impact on the mind and on our health, and science is more and more recognizing it.

What should be the best diet for someone who is on a Daoist practice?

For sure I would say not to eat to much in order to not fill full and tired after the meal, but a part from that there are foods to avoid and good foods I guess.

In particular after reading a book of Wang Liping in which he was talking about vegetables and grains I started to have an idea about it, but then when I read that his main diet is on bean curd I was a bit puzzled.

According to my studies tofu (bean curd) is quite unhealthy because unfermented soy is rich in antinutrients and hormons-like compounds.

I am reading that exists also fermented bean curd that should be ok, but in the book the "fermented" part was not mentioned.

Would be great to know your opinions and ideas about it.

Thank you!

[dust]

"Antinutrients" are found in pretty much all foods.. you're not going to get away from them. Just don't eat too much of any one thing (which is good advice anyway, from a Daoist or general common sense perspective).

 

A "bean curd diet" does sound a bit silly, but if you wanted to try it, cooking, as well as fermentation, reduces certain antinutrients... so you could just cook the tofu..?

 

 

Many scare stories about soy talk of phytoestrogens, claiming that they'll give you man-boobs or other such nonsense. It's complete nonsense.

 

http://www.livestrong.com/article/554285-does-milk-raise-estrogen-in-men/

 

According to Ganmaa Davaasambuu, a physician and scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, dairy products account for 60 to 80 percent of the estrogen consumed in the typical American diet. Drinking large quantities of cow's milk may significantly increase your estrogen levels. These hormones in milk have the potential to increase your risk of prostate cancer and reduce fertility, according to Davaasambuu.

...

Like cow's milk, soy milk contains some estrogenlike compounds. These phytoestrogens, found in several types of plants, have different effects than naturally produced human estrogens. Phytoestrogens can both mimic and counteract the effects of natural estrogen, regulating the estrogen activity in your body. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, eating soy products may reduce your risk of prostate cancer, although the center also notes that the population studies this finding is based on are "hard to interpret" and otherwise not definitive.

 

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524299/

 

The collected data from other researchers and our own data are indicating that the presence of steroid hormones in dairy products could be counted as an important risk factor for various cancers in humans.

 

 

Comparing cow's milk to soy products isn't just some vegan agenda to show that soy is better than dairy, it's a way of highlighting that soy is one of the more healthy options available. Even if you believe that 'organic' dairy is healthy, you must recognize that it's not as healthy as soy. There is a study showing that dairy doesn't affect fertility in mice... but they are mice, not humans. And the study was undertaken by the Journal of Dairy Science, so.. no conflict of interest there, then..

 

 

My conclusion: don't eat bean curd at the expense of a varied diet, but eating it regularly will be perfectly healthy.

Edited April 17, 2017 by dust

[RiverSnake]

Different people have different constitutions. Aryuvedic medicine points this out quite clearly in the doshas: Pita, Kapha, Vata. https://www.banyanbotanicals.com/info/prakriti-quiz/#quiz

 

1. Listen to your body.....ask it what it needs rather than listening to your "mind cravings".  

2. Moderation in all things. 

3. Stay away from overly processed foods (look for food that shines, has Qi). 

4. Be mindful of trophology....mixing different foods together causes difficulty in digestion. 

5. Weather, Cultivation and Activity all influence what the body needs. Adjust your intake accordingly. 

 

Those are the only general rules of thumb i can think of...best of luck.

Edited April 17, 2017 by OldSaint

[beingnature]

To find a good diet isnt really easy.If you look at it scientifically you will find a lot of different views...So i think the key is get a good intuition and try different things and look how they affect you...For me it was like when i started with meditation and qigong i just planned to eat a more natural diet (older grain forms, no white sugar, meat from wild animals etc.) Then over the years my intuition forced me to become vegetarian then vegan , then grainfree, then raw vegan, and back to trying everything what i noticed for myself is that grains and beans have the baddest influence on me after that comes cowmilk cheese and meat.

 

To strenghten intuition fasting can be very beneficial as well as qigong/meditation or just listening to your body and look at if it really needs a certain food or if it is a addiction.

 

I can say that a no grain diet affects mmediationpractices really strong.

Its really like this:

 

https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://sites.google.com/site/delawareteasociety/yoked-to-earth-a-treatise-on-corpse-demons-and-bigu&ved=0ahUKEwiHjYXSnqvTAhULEiwKHXlMDfMQFggaMAA&usg=AFQjCNFigEbccUUN8Fu_kp0WiHPc35sk0w

[Dioni]

Thanks to all the replies, lots of good insights.

 

Wang Liping also indirectly says that grain free and vegetable-based diet is the best because the human body has three parassites that are fed by grains. I also thrive with grain-free diet, especially gluten-free is good for me.

 

It's clear also for me that different people have different costitutions so there is no universal diet for everyone.

Also seems to me that in chinese medicine foods can be associated also to organs and maybe if someone needs to improve or heal a certain aspect of his body will feel drawn to that particular food.

 

I agree that meditation and fasting are a good way to reset the body to the crap-processed-full-of-toxins food and be attracted to the real healthy food.

 

About unfermented soy there is lot of debate and I cannot share my experience as it's not part of my diet.

[Rakiel]

I've been eating a LOT more whole fruit lately; and little to no grain. I feel so much healthier in a physical and spiritual way since making this transition a few months ago...

[silent thunder]

For me it's mostly fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds now. 

 

My body no longer responds well to most grains, any dairy, or processed foods... sugar is still desired, but continues to fade.

 

This has developed naturally over a period of recent years... along with the body regularly giving strong impulses that it would prefer to stay empty and I am enjoying regular 2-4 day fasts.

[vonkrankenhaus]

The human being is 100% made out of "food".

 

"Food" is just another word for "Environment".

 

 

 

 

 

 

- VonKrankenhaus

[Seatle185]

The healthiest diet as others have said is composed mostly of vegetables. A daoist would tell you the best type of vegetables for your body are locally grown and in season. Growing them yourself if you have space and time is very rewarding. Eating the plants as close as possible to when they are still alive in the process of photosynthesis is the most beneficial in my experience. Hope it helps some.

[beingnature]

To seatle185: Yes gardening is the way to go.And if you have nature around its even more great to learn about edible wildplants like herbs, treeleaves and needles etc. You will get medicine that exactly fits the season and they are just full of energy

[dust]

To find a good diet isnt really easy.If you look at it scientifically you will find a lot of different views...So i think the key is get a good intuition and try different things and look how they affect you...

 

If you look at it scientifically, you get different views, but if you look at it intuitively...you still get different views.... so that's no reason to choose intuition over science, is it? Intuition can steer you wrong just as easily. And not just in diet... the majority of mistakes people make in life generally come from a lack of knowledge/research/information-based decision making, not from too much knowledge.

 

Anyway, if one actually looks at it scientifically -- considering controlled studies, large-scale epidemiological research, etc, rather than media unreality, where baseless scare stories take hold in an instant and don't let go for decades -- one finds that there is a lot of agreement on a lot of things.

 

One of these things is that soy is good for you. It reduces the risk of breast cancer in women, essentially by regulating estrogen. So the idea that it increases estrogen in men (which is the scare story) is a little bizarre.

 

 

[[email protected]]

I come to understanding that best products are the ones which I want to eat in this particular moment. This has a clear correspondence with Chinese nutrition principles. This does not exclude other principles like phases (water, wood, fire... etc), termal nature, yin-yang and so on. But it is the simplest thing one can start doing right now.

Rgrds, Ilya

[Mig]

I've been eating a LOT more whole fruit lately; and little to no grain. I feel so much healthier in a physical and spiritual way since making this transition a few months ago...

Are you eating too much fructose? Aren't you exposing yourself to yeast infection in your gut? Just curious.

[Daeluin]

I like to avoid refined sugars and processed foods.

 

Next I like to avoid eating too much or too little, which will depend on my practice. If my practice is very water based, I may find I need to eat very little, and if it is fire based, I may need to eat more.

 

Next is to be aware of how I am metabolizing the energies from those foods. They each have a different type of energy, which will influence my own energy (you are what you eat). Since my goal is to cultivate a clean, pure qi that doesn't take extra cultivation work to deal with, I am trying to develop an awareness of how different foods lead to and away from this.

[Geof Nanto]

For those less familiar with the topic of food energetics mentioned in some of the above comments, here’s the first few pages of an excellent essay by Damo Mitchell explaining why the Qi of food is what’s most important for any practitioner of the internal arts……

 

FOOD ENERGETICS

 

When teaching internal arts there is one particular question that arises time and time again. This is the question of: 'What should a person eat in order to be healthy and assist in their practice?'

 

The subject of food and healthy eating is a very large one. There are countless books written on different diets, the correct way to balance your nutritional intake and, of course, how to make sure you don't gain excess weight. If you have ever taken the time to look at the nutrition section of any bookshop you will have seen that there are countless views that generally seem to contradict each other. Each week a new diet comes out based on the latest research — a situation that does not make the subject of healthy eating any easier to tackle.

 

Chinese medicine also has very clear teachings on how a person should eat in order to stay healthy; these teachings are a part of the wider subject of Yang Sheng Fa or 'life-nourishing methods'. If we look at what 'life-nourishing methods' means, it is simply 'healthy living'. The medical viewpoint of the ancient Chinese was greatly influenced by the Daoist tradition and in particular the energetic/ Tantric theories of the alchemical practitioners. Almost identical theories underpin Chinese herbal medicine and, as such, the idea is that 'food is fuel or medicine'. For myself, that is the first idea that I try to teach my students. Whilst there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying the taste of your food, do not make this the most important factor when deciding what you will eat. Taste is simply one of our senses and, essentially, we should not be allowing the temporary pleasure of our senses to dictate what we do. Too many people decide their diet by what they 'like to eat', and consequently we have a generation of people addicted to sugary and processed foods. On top of this we have created countless chemical formulas that aim to make our flavours stronger and stronger until often you cannot even remember what a particular item of food was supposed to taste like in the first place! The simple rule is that 'what you put in you get out'. The body runs on the food we eat, and if we really wish to be healthy and get the most out of our internal practices we must eat in a healthy and balanced manner.

 

With particular regards to practitioners of the internal arts there is also another aspect of healthy eating we should keep in mind. When a person begins to practise an art such as Qi Gong, Nei Gong, meditation or Yoga they are essentially strengthening the relationship that exists between body and mind. Through repeatedly bringing our awareness into either our body or the processes taking place within it, we are increasing the efficiency of our own personal interface. According to Daoist thought, the medium through which this interface is experienced is our Qi. The bond between mind and physicality grows through suffusion of Qi through more of our being as well as a releasing of our awareness into this particular energetic state. This becomes something of a double-edged sword with regards to our health. This is because when we eat food that has a direct effect upon the quality of our energy, it generates a far more potent reaction within our mind and body than if we were not internal practitioners. I have seen people come into the internal arts who have never bothered regulating their diet. They have been living on burgers, pizzas, processed foods and drinking a lot of alcohol on the weekends. Despite their diet they have been fairly robust; sure, they may have been carrying a few extra pounds, but in general they were continuing with their lives, sustaining themselves in this way. As soon as they start to work with the internal arts they suddenly experience a massive drop in their health. They become sick, they age quickly and they gain a lot of weight. This is extremely common, though sometimes the connection between the practice and the change in the person's health is not noticed. In some cases the opposite is true: the changes are noticed and the practitioner blames the internal system for the problem; they claim that the practice is dangerous and has made them sick. In actual fact, this is half true and half false. The system of practice has indeed been involved in the drop in their health but only because of the increased power of the food to affect them on a deep level. As these changes take place within the energetic flow, there are direct manifestations within the physical body as well as the mind, and thus the person becomes weaker. This is something that all internal practitioners should be aware of. The

other side of this issue is that, of course, if a person eats healthily then the increased effects of the healthy diet becomes amplified as well. An organic, energetically rich diet, free from processed food and chemicals, will supercharge their practice as the quality of Qi generates positive changes throughout the mind/body system.

 

It is for these reasons that all sincere internal practitioners should look at their diet and think carefully about what they are going to eat.

 

Another factor to be aware of is that life is made up of conceptual models. This is sometimes a strange concept for people to get their minds around when they begin training, but to me it is an absolute. I have seen how a person's conceptual model forms their reality, time and time again. What I mean by this is that we all have theories and beliefs that shape how we see the world. In the majority of cases I would guess that readers of this book were initially brought up to see the world from a scientific viewpoint. Possibly this scientific viewpoint was also affected to a certain degree by cultural and maybe even religious beliefs. What this means is that, primarily, a person's worldview was based in the physical and the tangible, as this is where most modern education is based. When we apply this to food we have rules such as balancing of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. This is the basic level of study for anybody who looks at nutrition according to our modern understanding of food. Of course, this works. If a person learns how to regulate their diet according to these principles, then they can understand how to get the most out of their body and thus regulate their health. This is because they are controlling their reality according to the conceptual model they see life through. This all changes, however, when people begin to study the internal arts. It is an interesting phenomenon to see that once a student begins to contact their energy body and study the nature of it, they shift into an entirely different conceptual model. As their level of contact and understanding grows they generally find that they need to make changes to their lifestyle in order to match the new paradigm their consciousness is working to. Whereas their previous diet based upon Western nutritional theory worked for them, they now find that they are not being sustained in the same way. Instead they generally feel that they need to shift away from this way of working towards a diet that is more suitable to their energetic system. I feel that I need to point this out in this chapter, as I have seen many students fall into the trap of' not understanding how much their conceptual model of life governs every aspect of their being. Whilst Western nutrition is still important, the internal arts practitioner generally finds benefit from understanding the nature of food energetics according to ancient Chinese teachings.

 

The Chinese energetic view of food is that all food can be categorised into five main types. These are Hot foods, Warm foods, Neutral foods, Cool foods and Cold foods. Each of these categories primarily concerns the way in which the food causes energy to move within the body. The movement of Qi through our internal environment causes changes to the information moving through our system, and so this in turn produces various effects within us. These changes govern the balance of Yin and Yang, which is the foundation of all aspects of health according to Daoism. Let us look at each of the five energetic food categories individually.

 

 

(For the remainder of the essay see Damo Mitchell, Daoist Reflections from Scholar Sage, pp 163-183.)

[Seatle185]

Yueya, thanks for posting, i have read his article in the scholar sage collection of articles many times. It really helped me gain a little deeper understanding of chinese food medicine. And there are a few other articles that talk about it too.

 

Iv also found this book to be a good resource

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0986798800/ref=aw_wl_ov_dp_1_1?colid=3SIS88N0M8S3U&coliid=INU9C7N2TQVDG

[Dioni]

Thank you Yueya, very interesting!

I'll buy the book to read the rest of it