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

[Song of the Dao]

Just now, Taomeow said:

 

Change your tone to a friendlier one and get your answers, or get ignored, your choice.  

 

They were honest questions.

[Piyadasi]

Did not read the whole thread, don't care to.

 

All I can add is that some people who I think know what they are talking about quite a bit would recommend Henry Lu's Chinese System of Natural Cures instead, as a better, still accessible book on Chinese Medicine.

Everyone can take that as they wish of course.

[Taomeow]

26 minutes ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

They were honest questions.

 

OK, get the benefit of the doubt.  (But please don't betray my trust.) 

 

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

 

I did not tell anyone not to drink water while they are eating.  I responded to the question regarding the rationale for this recommendation that was not originally made by me.  I corroborated that recommendation by explaining the reasoning behind it that I am familiar with, in particular from the work of Henry C. Lu, a highly respected TCM author, translator of The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine into English and a trusted friend on a bookshelf for many years.  Hope this clarifies the matter.  

 

No one is under any obligation to follow "generic" advice when individualized one is available.  But nothing but generic advice can be shared online unless you are a practitioner of telemedicine.  Which I'm not, so I never tell anyone what they, personally, should do.  I just tell the generic audience about the generic information I come across, or occasionally personal experience -- what I, personally, gained or lost from believing or not believing this or that source of information. 

My acupuncturist told me not to drink coffee before a visit, e.g..  If I never pursued the issue further, I would be acting on blind faith.  That's not my modus operandi, so I asked him why exactly.  His answer: because you drink strong black coffee and it paints the coating on the tongue a different color, so I have trouble making tongue diagnostics, color of the tongue coating is diagnostically important but I can't tell whether yours is yellowish because it's a diagnostically significant sign or because you just had a cup of your strong coffee right before the visit and tinted it yellow.  I laughed and promised him to do as he says.  

 

"What evidence do you have for that statement?"

 

You can start here:  https://redwingbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/WeChat-post-formulas-Jan.-29-1.pdf

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Taomeow

[doc benway]

On 6/21/2020 at 9:26 PM, 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.  

 

The Web That Has No Weaver is a wonderful book!

[Taomeow]

1 minute ago, steve said:

 

The Web That Has No Weaver is a wonderful book!

 

Yes, it was my first intro to Chinese medicine some 20 years ago, and I still consider it a must read for a beginner who wants to get the right idea from the start.   

 

Of course its second part that deals with things like pulse diagnostics is for general idea purposes only -- back then I felt ambitious enough to start asking everyone I came into contact with to let me take their pulses (much to everyone's amusement and probably to the detriment of my reputation as someone sane ), and then tried to compare what I perceived with what the book explained in words and graphs.  While this exercise I practiced for perhaps a year taught me much, the main lesson was, nah, without in-person instruction and ongoing clinical exposure you can't make heads or tails of it.  Too freakin' complex.  So I've been learning many other methods to make heads or tails of what I observe (in self and others) but left this one to the practitioners (many of whom, sadly, suck at it too.  This is a skill which in the classical setting they used to work on for at least 15 and often up to 30 years on average, starting as young apprentices, before using it diagnostically as practitioners...)   

[freeform]

1 hour ago, Song of the Dao said:

Genetics are individual.

Genetics are one aspect of an individual.

[Song of the Dao]

54 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

I did not tell anyone not to drink water while they are eating

 

In your post:

 

"The idea is that you dilute your digestive juices if you drink water with your meals.  Also you tend to underchew your food and just wash it down with water.  Both will impair proper digestion and absorption of nutrients.  Cold water is the worst, in Chinese medicine it is considered to be the surest way to put out your "digestive fire" and render you unable to "cook" the food you're eating."

 

and

 

"If thirsty, you quench your thirst before starting your meal.  If the meal was drying, you might drink water sometime after you finished."

 

and

 

"To my knowledge, no mammal drinks water while eating.

 

'A good side' -- not aware of it.  Perhaps if you're more dehydrated than undernourished.  And even in this case it might be better to drink enough water first, eat later."

What is the implication there? That is is beneficial or harmful to drink water while eating? While not "telling them" you told them. But you did tell them when you said; "If thirsty, you quench your thirst before starting your meal."

"But nothing but generic advice can be shared online unless you are a practitioner of telemedicine."  you said. Serious question, do you think what you said was generic advice? That "If thirsty, you quench your thirst before starting your meal."

I will leave your intentions for others to decide.

The PDF is not evidence it help stop the spread of COVID19 in Wuhan, it only outlines treatment protocols. I was asking for evidence. Even the Chinese practioners of TCM in China are not as certain as you:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076500/beijing-pushes-traditional-chinese-medicine-coronavirus

Quote

 

Lao Lixing, former director of the school of Chinese medicine at the University of Hong Kong, acknowledged that these figures could not be taken at face value.

 

“We do not have statistics as evidence to show which of those should be credited to Chinese medicine,” said Lao, now president of the Virginia University of Integrative Medicine in the US.

 

But he added that there was no evidence that there was a downside to using it.

 

“Given the lack of statistics of such, at the very least, we have not heard of cases that have got worse after being treated with Chinese medicine, or evidence showing its conflicting with Western medical treatment. So why stop using it especially at a time when any kind of effective treatment is much needed?” Lao said.

 

I am not at all being negative towards TCM, I have used it in the past and still incorporate it in my life. But in my opinion  your claims do more damage to TCM.

Most people here will think I am being petty, but there is something deeper happening which I will explore in a separate post.

[zerostao]

2 hours ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

Genetics are individual.

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

You didnt just overturn your previous argument, did you ?

One of our more famous members always reserved his right to change his mind. It signifies growth sometimes.

[Song of the Dao]

24 minutes ago, zerostao said:

You didnt just overturn your previous argument, did you ?

One of our more famous members always reserved his right to change his mind. It signifies growth sometimes.

 

Huh? How?

[Creation]

Someone I trust recently mentioned Healing With Whole Foods is OK but contains errors and biases, and recommended the red edition of Henry Lu’s "Chinese Natural Cures" instead.