A TOOTH FROM THE TIGER'S MOUTH:
Diet & Health Maintenance

DIET

The great doctors of ancient China regarded exercise and diet as the highest forms of medicine because they had the potential to increase a person's vital energy and prevent disease from taking root in the body. Today most people would argue that a healthy, balanced diet is an important ingredient in maintaining health and vitality. But what is a healthy diet? Rather than having an answer to this question, we have too many answers.

For years, we were told that low fat diets were better for us. Now carbohydrates are the culprits and eating fat can actually prevent obesity, while carbohydrates simply make us hungrier. We are told to choose foods according to our blood type, or to eat more protein, or more foods containing omega 3 fatty acids. Some people say that foods in the nightshade family, like tomatoes, are terrible, while others point out that tomatoes can help prevent prostate disorders. Some experts warn against the evils of alcohol consumption. Others extol the health benefits of drinking a glass of wine or two a day. We are not supposed to eat too many dairy products like cheese, yet somehow it is okay for the French. We are told to be vegetarians, eat more fiber, drink less coffee (although it turns out coffee contains many anti-oxidants ), try fish oil, drink green tea, drink more water, take vitamin supplements. The list goes on and on. We know more about foods then we have ever known before yet we are more confused than ever about what to eat.

This absurd situation is the result of attempting to break whole foods down into their component parts, in order to understand how they work and, our tending to divide foods into good and bad categories. It is the nature of science to break things down into their component parts. Breaking foods down into their nutritional components has made it possible to understand diseases caused by nutritional deficiency. What this paradigm does not tell us is the amount of these nutrients needed for optimal health and performance. It is impossible to construct a diet by dividing food into nutritional packets, because these food components do not exist alone in nature. They are part of a whole. Isolating a chemical compound that prevents prostrate problems is not the same as eating a tomato, and may not work effectively. Science knows much that is useful, but it has yet to construct a pill that can replace eating whole foods. People who are sick or injured need to eat whole foods that are rich in nutrition in order to give their bodies the energy to heal.

Our tendency to moralize about foods and divide foods into good and bad categories also adds to our confusion and leads us into unhealthy eating habits. No food is a priori good or bad. It is always a question of how much that food is eaten and who is eating it, in addition to how it is balanced against other foods that are being consumed. No one particular diet is correct for everyone. A vegetarian diet that is perfect for one individual may be disastrous for another.

Red meat is viewed by many as being unhealthy, and certainly over-consumption of red meat can contribute health problems, yet our bodies need the concentrated energy and proteins that animal meat supplies. It is difficult to get these from other food sources. I have observed that many vegetarians need to eat constantly throughout the day to make up for the deficit that is created by their diet. Tofu is generally considered to be healthy. It is often argued that it is a primary protein source and staple of the Asian diet. However tofu and soy products actually form only a small part of the Asian diet and over-consumption of soy can cause a buildup of mucus and phlegm. There is also evidence that too much soy can lead to hormonal imbalances.

One should be wary of restrictive diets that eliminate entire food categories, such as starches and carbohydrates, or fats or proteins. Often all they accomplish is the creation of a nutritional imbalance. I have seen several people who went on no-fat diets quickly develop strange neurological symptoms. When they went back to eating some fat the symptoms disappeared. The body needs fat to protect our internal organs and build myelin, a fatty substance that forms a sheathe around nerve fibers. Without fat these structures cannot function properly.

It is tempting to want to divide foods into good or bad categories, because it makes the whole question of what to eat seem much simpler. We get the added benefit of feeling virtuous because we have exerted our will and avoided the "bad" foods. However this kind of thinking seems silly when we consider the diversity of foods eaten across the planet by healthy people. Moral judgments about food often cause people to cling to unhealthy eating habits that are not working for them. Obsessional judgments about food are usually much more damaging than the foods themselves. Chinese medicine recognizes that excessive worry, over-thinking and obsessing about food can actually interfere with and damage the body's ability to digest and assimilate food.

Athletic endeavors and recuperation from injury require proper nutrition. We all know how to eat properly, but we have forgotten how to trust our own instincts. Unless a scientific study or some diet or nutritional expert confirms the efficacy of a food we feel it might not be good for us. We have become separated from our common sense.

COMMON SENSE EATING

1. The basis of proper nutrition is whole natural foods that are as fresh as possible. It is not just a question of eating the right number of grams of protein or carbohydrates. What is important is the specific kind of proteins and carbohydrates we ingest, and how fresh and chemical free they are. The fresher and less processed the food, the more life force it contains. Avoid chemically processed foods and foods containing chemical additives and preservatives. They are harder for the body to break down and assimilate and usually provide less nutrition.

2. Eat a diverse and balanced diet. This is not as complicated as you may have been led to believe. The diet of healthy peasant people from almost any ethnic background is usually fairly balanced, supplying enough nutrients to do hard physical work on a daily basis. The ancient Chinese were a practical agrarian people. Look at the average Chinese meal. There are several dishes, often with small amounts of meat. There are vegetables and spices cooked with the meat and often side dishes of cooked vegetables, root vegetables, bean curd, nuts and pickled vegetables. There might be grains such as rice or millet, or noodles made from wheat, millet or rice. Often soups are served with the meal and in Northern China, where it is colder, the soups are thick and nourishing. Every culture seems to naturally solve the problem of combining and balancing foods, often by simply serving a wide variety of grains, legumes, soups, meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts and spices all within a single meal. Home cooked meals I had growing up as an Italian-American included many or all of these foods. Only in modern culture do we consider a coke, hamburger and fries a meal.

3. Include foods that tonify the Qi and blood. These are the foods that most nourish the body. The Chinese have studied foods for centuries. Lengthy treatises have been written about the healing properties of food and dietary do's and don'ts in relation a host of injuries and diseases. In Chinese medicine, the inherent medicinal properties of foods are analyzed in much the same way as are the properties of medicinal herbs. Foods that nourish Qi and blood are important staple foods found in the diets of many cultures. These foods are particularly important to have in your diet when recovering from an injury, because they provide damaged or overused tissues with the nutrients they need to heal. Foods that nourish Qi and blood tend to be nutritious foods such as meats and fish, root vegetables, leafy greens, nourishing grains, eggs, dairy products such as milk and butter, and some nuts and dried fruits. The list below is an not by any means exhaustive, but it will give you an example of the foods that are considered to tonify the Qi and the blood.

Small amounts of Sugar, Maple Syrup and Honey Small amounts of warming spices that aid digestion: Cardamom, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg.

4. Don't obsess about what you eat. Eat a variety of foods and enjoy them as much as possible. It is not always possible to eat perfectly all the time. The ability to eat a wide variety of foods allows us to better adapt to the outside world. Worrying too much about what you eat can actually interfere with digestion and assimilation.

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