Your thoughts about this TCM book "Healing With Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition"?

[waterdrop]

I wonder if anyone here has a view  about the TCM nutrition  book  :     " Healing With Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition"  written by paul Pitchford   ? 

Edited June 21, 2020 by waterdrop

[Taomeow]

I give it thumbs down for approaching Asian traditions from the position of Western cultural colonialism: take a cultural whole and smash it into pieces, pick and choose among those pieces, appropriate what you like and throw away the rest -- dismiss, ignore, leave out or take a condescending daddy-knows-best stance.  To say nothing of its relentless pushing of the manipulative globalist vegan agenda which Asian traditions never had. 

[cheya]

I've ignored that book for years, because the author just looks so unhealthy to me. Who knows, he might look even less healthy if he was not eating that way... but it simply does not appeal.

[Song of the Dao]

I had a few conversations with Paul Pitchford when I stayed at the Heartwood Clinic while he was teaching there in 2007. I was not a student there, one of my friends was. I was just being a Dao Bum.

He stuck me as someone who was kind of obsessive but he was nice and knowledgeable. I was wearing those nylon hiking pants, you know the ones that unzip to turn into shorts. He said I should not wear them becasue they were bad for my health becasue they were made from oil. I sat with him for a while but wish I could remember more.

I think you will get some good insights, but like everything, do not take it as a bible. TCM is very hard to get right and I do not know if it was meant for Caucasians.

Oh, and Hi again everyone!

[Taomeow]

2 hours ago, Song of the Dao said:

I think you will get some good insights, but like everything, do not take it as a bible. TCM is very hard to get right and I do not know if it was meant for Caucasians.
 

 

If you doubt that a "Caucasian" can get TCM perfectly right, I would recommend Ted Kaptchuk's "The Web That Has No Weaver."  I would say a person educated the Western way and exposed to the Western cognitive paradigm only (or even preferentially) will have endless trouble getting it right -- but this person, today, is as likely to be Chinese as Caucasian.  Ethnicity and race confer no magic powers of comprehension -- education and exposure to a very elegant "way of knowing" not contingent on the prevalent methods of one's default culture do.  

[Song of the Dao]

29 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

If you doubt that a "Caucasian" can get TCM perfectly right, I would recommend Ted Kaptchuk's "The Web That Has No Weaver."  I would say a person educated the Western way and exposed to the Western cognitive paradigm only (or even preferentially) will have endless trouble getting it right -- but this person, today, is as likely to be Chinese as Caucasian.  Ethnicity and race confer no magic powers of comprehension -- education and exposure to a very elegant "way of knowing" not contingent on the prevalent methods of one's default culture do.  

 

I should have been more clear. I did not mean to imply that Caucasians could not understand TCM.

 

I meant it might not be appropriate for Caucasians to be treated with TCM. It was developed and practiced on Asian people, and they have a different legacy and genetics.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Song of the Dao

[daojones]

It was a good introductory book for me when I was getting started in this way of life - spiritual path and health oriented. It introduced me to concepts and gave me some general ideas about what was out there. Its a helpful place to start for learning about food with some mish mash of yin-yang philosophy (i think thats an appropriate name for what he describes).

It seems very clearly to me a beginners book. Helpful for referencing things as needed. By no means comprehensive. Its a very general beginners book. I think the web that has no weaver is a very different type of book, but also a great beginners book for actual TCM. Healing with whole foods is not a book about TCM, although it definitely discusses some basic TCM concepts and includes those in its approach.

Approach from western colonialism?!?! I guess if you look at life with rose colored sunglasses, everything will look rose colored. There is absolutely nothing in the book that could be remotely related to western colonialism. Its an english book for an english speaking audience, and a beginners book at that (as I already emphasized). I think if anything its more closely aligned with a macrobiotic approach, which is also why I found it helpful. Diets tend to get culty, so I can understand somebody not appreciating a macrobiotic spin, but macrobiotic works for me so I don't mind it, but I am also pretty open minded and am an integrator myself. What that means is I'm typically not threatened by orthodox approaches because I've learned how to carve my own niche and get things from different places to work for me. And maybe that's not for everybody, but that's OK - I respect orthodox approaches for what they are too...hopefully it goes both ways, but often people get threatened if you disagree with their 'system'. HOW COULD YOU DISAGREE WITH MY SYSTEM ITS PERFECT?!?!? Deep fear that they could be doing things wrong and have misplaced their trust, and you are the source of triggering that fear, so anger gets displaced onto the anger triggering object.

Just to be clear the book says in the subtitle "Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition". I think this makes it clear this book is not about TCM, and that its a fusion approach. I think any fusion approach characterizes cross cultural integration of a tradition or knowledge from somewhere else. And if you really think the concept of appropriation characterizes this book - think about how that concept applies to buddhism and its spread globally. It went from India to China. The Chinese made it their own. Did they culturally appropriate it from the Indians...or is that just the nature of the history of great ideas. And if they did, I really don't see what problems come from that? And if there are problems from that, I have a hard time understanding how one can think, even united, how all of humanity could plug a hole in the ocean. Best to ride the waves, than be swallowed by them.

[Song of the Dao]

daojones,

 

While I agree with almost all  of what you said, having lived and spoken with Pitchford for over a month I will tell you he felt he was practicing TCM and HWHF was not a fusion approach to him, but rather a translation of TCM. I mean he read my pulse when I was there and you do not get more TCM than that, and he used it to try to tell me what to eat.

 

But personally I thought he was a hack. Not that he was evil or bad, just a hack. He was very nice though and allowed me to stay at Heartwood for free including board.

[Master Logray]

I think the title sounds like approaching traditions from the position of commercialism.

[Song of the Dao]

Just now, Master Logray said:

I think the title sounds like approaching traditions from the position of commercialism.

 

Ha! I agree! His move to that shady pyramid scheme called the Institute of Integrative Nutrition reveals that as well.

[Taomeow]

11 hours ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

I should have been more clear. I did not mean to imply that Caucasians could not understand TCM.

 

I meant it might not be appropriate for Caucasians to be treated with TCM. It was developed and practiced on Asian people, and they have a different legacy and genetics.

 

Classical Chinese medicine does not  engage in genetic manipulations and modifications.  It addresses the human body, mind, and spirit, and is appropriate to use on any member of the species.

[Song of the Dao]

47 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Classical Chinese medicine does not  engage in genetic manipulations and modifications.  It addresses the human body, mind, and spirit, and is appropriate to use on any member of the species.

 

That's just silly and you need to understand more about genetics and human diversity before you say anymore.

Does the diet of Inuit person the same as someone from Sub Sharan Africa? Don't you think after eating those diets for a millennia that it might change their genetics. Should I tell an Inuit to stop eating seal blubber?

And don't you think that different genetics that metabolize all these TCM herbs might change how they work?

TCM, which has some valid points, was brought into the world before the understanding of genetics. To say it does not have shortcomings is dogmatic.

People smarter than us are looking at all this link between TCM and genetics
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095754816000132
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149388/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00535-8

[ilumairen]

5 minutes ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

That's just silly and you need to understand more about genetics and human diversity before you say anymore.
 

 

Even if the individual you are engaging in discussion with had no understanding of genetics or diversity, they would be welcome to share their views here.

 

Please refrain from making the issue personal, and focus any disagreement you may have on the subject, and not the person.

 

 

5 minutes ago, Song of the Dao said:

Does the diet of Inuit person the same as someone from Sub Sharan Africa? Don't you think after eating those diets for a millennia that it might change their genetics. Should I tell an Inuit to stop eating seal blubber?

And don't you think that different genetics that metabolize all these TCM herbs might change how they work?

TCM, which has some valid points, was brought into the world before the understanding of genetics. To say it does not have shortcomings is dogmatic.

People smarter than us are looking at all this link between TCM and genetics
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095754816000132
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149388/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00535-8

[Song of the Dao]

9 minutes ago, ilumairen said:

 

Even if the individual you are engaging in discussion with had no understanding of genetics or diversity, they would be welcome to share their views here.

 

Please refrain from making the issue personal, and focus any disagreement you may have on the subject, and not the person.

 

 

 

Definition of silly
1a : exhibiting or indicative of a lack of common sense or sound judgment

I said "That's just silly" not "you are silly" or "you are stupid". Does she attach herself to her words and ideas? So who is making it personal? If I said "that is just exhibiting or indicative of a lack of common sense or sound judgment" would it been any better? Two in the morning and three in the afternoon?

 

So cmon now, what she said was silly. If one shares their views, and they are silly, I can still love them like family and expand their views. And if they have no understanding of genetics maybe they should think about that before they respond. I say silly things all the time., and when I find out they are silly I laugh at myself. Now I am more careful and do not say silly things as often.

[Taomeow]

31 minutes ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

That's just silly and you need to understand more about genetics and human diversity before you say anymore.

Does the diet of Inuit person the same as someone from Sub Sharan Africa? Don't you think after eating those diets for a millennia that it might change their genetics. Should I tell an Inuit to stop eating seal blubber?

And don't you think that different genetics that metabolize all these TCM herbs might change how they work?

TCM, which has some valid points, was brought into the world before the understanding of genetics. To say it does not have shortcomings is dogmatic.

People smarter than us are looking at all this link between TCM and genetics
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095754816000132
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149388/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00535-8

 

You have disqualified yourself from further interactions for lack of interpersonal skills, indulging in meaningless rhetorical questions supposed to convey sarcasm but conveying, instead, a lack of ability to ask real questions and the resulting cognitive difficulties, as well as for making assumptions about what I do and don't understand without having the foggiest, and last but not least, for an overall rude trolling vibe in response to a patient and friendly tone giving you the benefit of the doubt instead of a boot for your ridiculous racist comments about genetic incompatibility of TCM with people of a different race. We're done here.    

 

Happy trails.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Taomeow

[Song of the Dao]

3 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

You have disqualified yourself from further interactions for lack of interpersonal skills, indulging in meaningless rhetorical questions supposed to convey sarcasm but conveying, instead, a lack of ability to ask real questions and the resulting cognitive difficulties, as well as for making assumptions about what I do and don't understand without having the foggiest, and last but not least, for an overall rude trolling vibe in response to a patient and friendly tone giving you the benefit of the doubt instead of a boot for your ridiculous racist comments about genetic incompatibility of TCM with people of a different race. We're done here.    

 

Happy trails.

 

Ha! Now I am a racist! For saying that people have different genetics!  Maybe you should call out the CBC for being racist as well! They found that the Nunavik Inuit genetically unique among present-day world populations. Racists!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavik-inuit-genetically-unique-1.5220437
 

No matter to you that I am Saami, you know a race that people are racist about? A race that was decimated by the racists?

 

You are as far from the Dao as one can get!  Your morals, so important to you! Am I good? Am I kind? Is that how you measure the Dao? Now THAT is silly!

Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is kindness.
When kindness is lost, there is justice.
When justice is lost, there ritual.
Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion.
Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao.
It is the beginning of folly.
 

[ilumairen]

13 minutes ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

Definition of silly
1a : exhibiting or indicative of a lack of common sense or sound judgment

I said "That's just silly" not "you are silly" or "you are stupid". Does she attach herself to her words and ideas? So who is making it personal? If I said "that is just exhibiting or indicative of a lack of common sense or sound judgment" would it been any better? Two in the morning and three in the afternoon?

 

So cmon now, what she said was silly. If one shares their views, and they are silly, I can still love them like family and expand their views. And if they have no understanding of genetics maybe they should think about that before they respond. I say silly things all the time., and when I find out they are silly I laugh at myself. Now I am more careful and do not say silly things as often.

This isn’t open for debate, and I have no issue with you calling something silly.

 

The issue is with this:

41 minutes ago, Song of the Dao said:

... you need to understand more about genetics and human diversity before you say anymore.
 

Please reacquaint yourself with the following:

 

 

 

[ilumairen]

And as this thread has quickly devolved into what could be called personal attacks, I am locking it for 24 hours - a brief cool down period.

 

When it reopens please discus the topic, and not each other.

[Master Logray]

On 6/22/2020 at 10:59 PM, Taomeow said:

your ridiculous racist comments about genetic incompatibility of TCM with people of a different race.
 

 

TCM has been around for few thousand years.  Naturally it adapts to the population which is a function of genetics, climate, live styles, food and culture.  And TCM is a very personalized system too.  When TCM meets an American of 300 lbs, eating western diet, having genes from Europe or Africa, how would it respond?   e.g. if the normal dose is 3 grams per medicine for a 120 lbs Chinese, how much dose is for an American?   Can the same herbs to be used, bearing in mind the patients may have been eating/doing something not in the eastern world, e.g. drinking cold tap water as in another thread.   All these questions are not answered. 

[liminal_luke]

22 hours ago, Master Logray said:

 

TCM has been around for few thousand years.  Naturally it adapts to the population which is a function of genetics, climate, live styles, food and culture.  And TCM is a very personalized system too.  When TCM meets an American of 300 lbs, eating western diet, having genes from Europe or Africa, how would it respond?   e.g. if the normal dose is 3 grams per medicine for a 120 lbs Chinese, how much dose is for an American?   Can the same herbs to be used, bearing in mind the patients may have been eating/doing something not in the eastern world, e.g. drinking cold tap water as in another thread.   All these questions are not answered. 

 

(My knowledge of TCM is very limited but I´ll add in my two cents and those more expert can correct me if necessary.)

 

How TCM is applied from person to person might change depending on the culture and health background of a person.  Indeed, this flexibility is one of the hallmarks of TCM.  In western medicine, people with the same disease, say depression, tend to be treated more or less the same -- give everyone Zoloft.  In TCM, two people with the same diagnosis may be treated very differently because the treatment is based on their individual constitutions.  For this reason, TCM can travel well from culture to culture -- it´s nothing if not individualized.

 

Herbs given may change from place to place.  Needle points poked may change.  What doesn´t change is the broad philosophical framework of TCM which is radically different from allopathic medicine.

[freeform]

1 hour ago, Master Logray said:

Naturally it adapts to the population which is a function of genetics, climate, live styles, food and culture.

 

It actually adapts to the individual - not to generalities like genetics...

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

 

(My knowledge of TCM is very limited but I´ll add in my two cents and those more expert can correct me if necessary.)

 

How TCM is applied from person to person might change depending on the culture and health background of a person.  Indeed, this flexibility is one of the hallmarks of TCM.  In western medicine, people with the same disease, say depression, tend to be treated more or less the same -- give everyone Zoloft.  In TCM, two people with the same diagnosis may be treated very differently because the treatment is based on their individual constitutions.  For this reason, TCM can travel well from culture to culture -- it´s nothing if not individualized.

 

Herbs given may change from place to place.  Needle points poked may change.  What doesn´t change is the broad philosophical framework of TCM which is radically different from allopathic medicine.

 

That's exactly right.  Classical Chinese medicine is always aimed at treating the individual, and not only that but the same individual differently at different times and under different circumstances in the course of even one illness.  TCM at its best comes close to this classical model, though it is already "tainted" with all the features of mass-produced anything, i.e. is constantly being moved toward addressing large groups while ignoring individual peculiarities, as all mass-produced products targeting the "average consumer" do.  It's true regardless of whether this "average" abstraction is Chinese, Caucasian or African.  The latest example -- the herbal formulas developed and officially adopted in China for the treatment of covid, which were, truth be told, the very first thing that turned things around in Wuhan and then was extended to the whole country. 

 

The strengths the TCM approach still retains come from classical Chinese medicine -- it's not one formula approved for use with covid, it's four different ones for the same patient: the first one for the initial presentation of the illness, which is changed to the second one if the patient is already in the full-blown disease stage, which is changed to the third one once things start turning around, which is changed to the fourth, for the convalescent to regain health rather than just get out of the woods.  The weakness of it -- it's still partially designed according to the extraneous (Western) paint-by-numbers guidelines, except instead of "one treatment fits all" it's "four different treatments fit all either in sequence or starting from wherever an individual's at."  This is at least four times better but still not the classical version which would ask for the classical healthcare model,  currently nonexistent.  (The classical model has been globally forced out of existence with extreme prejudice via hostile-takeover style aggressive investments yielding astronomical profits unprecedented in human history -- and very little health.)  Classical medicine (not only Chinese, just human medicine) was designed to be used by a doctor who knows each and every patient in the community under his/her care, often from childhood, with all their individual peculiarities, and adjusts the formulas accordingly -- sometimes on a daily basis if necessary, or on a weekly or monthly basis with a chronic complaint. 

 

 TCM  is an attempt to bridge the real thing and things that have nothing to do with it, like commercial viability, profitability, and the ambitious goal of gaining even tiny, marginal, condescending acceptance of at least a humble little part of it into the Western paradigm that rewards its unquestioning followers with such tempting riches and such ego-boosting prestige and recognition in the "Scientific Community ™ ® ."  It is greatly weakened by this approach, but it's still many times better to have access to this incredible system even in this mangled, politicized and mass-commercialized shape and form than to not have it at all.   

Edited June 24, 2020 by Taomeow

[Song of the Dao]

35 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

It actually adapts to the individual - not to generalities like genetics...

 

Genetics are individual.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5409705/

Edited June 24, 2020 by Song of the Dao
Added a link

[Song of the Dao]

9 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

Classical Chinese medicine is always aimed at treating the individual, and not only that but the same individual differently at different times and under different circumstances in the course of even one illness. 

 

How can you tell someone not to drink water while they are eating without knowing them or doing a detailed work up on them?

 

11 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

The latest example -- the herbal formulas developed and officially adopted in China for the treatment of covid, which were, truth be told, the very first thing that turned things around in Wuhan and then was extended to the whole country. 

 

What evidence do you have for that statement?

[Taomeow]

4 minutes ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

How can you tell someone not to drink water while they are eating without knowing them or doing a detailed work up on them?

 

 

What evidence do you have for that statement?

 

Change your overall tone of communication with me to a friendlier one and get your answers, rethink your "haha" under my post that is clearly not meant to be amusing, or get ignored, your choice.  

Edited June 24, 2020 by Taomeow