MINDFUL NUTRITION
HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF A WHOLE FOODS DIET
LENI HURLEY
OPTIMAL HEALTH
FOLLOWING TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE AND VITAL WESTERN FOODS
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Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 Leni Hurley
All rights reserved.
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Disclaimer
The information in this book is not intended as - nor implied to be - a substitute for professional medical advice.
In consulting this book, you - not the author of this book - assume full responsibility for choosing to use the information in it.
You should recognize that the information presented in this book has the following limitations, in comparison to being examined by your own physician:
* You can have a conversation with your physician.
* Your physician can assess your full symptomatic pattern and perform physical examinations and necessary tests.
When in doubt, seek the advice of a qualified physician or nutritionist before undertaking any nutritional or lifestyle steps discussed in this book.
If there is a disagreement between the information presented in this book and your personal physician, it is more likely that your own doctor is correct. He or she has the benefit of knowing you and your medical problems personally.
Leni Hurley, September 2011.
Visit http://www.createspace.com/3673030 to order print copies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank Betteke Visserman, TCM practitioner and lecturer of nutritional therapy at the Qing Bai Institute for Chinese Medicine, in Amersfoort, The Netherlands who gave me permission to use some of her recipes. I am grateful to Paul Pitchford, TCM practitioner and author who kindly gave me permission to use some of the text from his highly respected book Healing with Whole Foods. I also wish to thank Flora van Bockhove, my first teacher of TCM Nutrition at the CNGO Institute for Chinese Medicine in Tilburg, The Netherlands.
My thanks also go to Sue Spaull, food writer, who proofread my original recipes. Kerry Eielson, author and editor, who edited the first edition of this book. Last, but not least, I want to thank my partner Jim Stada, and my son Ronan Hurley, for their unstinting support. In addition, I thank my daughter Cita Crefeld, whose passionate ideas around breast-feeding have alerted me to facts that I would otherwise have overlooked!
PREFACE
How well does your digestive system function? This is the first question asked in traditional Chinese nutritional therapy. In the West, we do not ask this question. We look at aspects of foods and decide whether they are - or are not - good for us. It is only half the picture. This book aims to provide you with the other half. It will show you that a weak digestive system is unable to fully assimilate the nutrients in foods - no matter how healthy these foods may be in themselves. A digestive deficiency causes ill health. This book aims to prevent ill-health. It helps you make the right food choices for the different seasons, age groups and states of health. In parts of the world such as China, knowledge about the disease preventing nature of our food pattern has been preserved, expanded and built upon from prehistoric times to the present. This is why I like to use the insights of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) on nutrition. Due to its long history, it is very systematic and detailed. It addresses both body and soul, and it places the digestive ability centre-stage.
In this second edition of my book Mindful Nutrition (previous title Back to Basics with TCM), I have placed nutrition for Mother and Child central. Nurturing mothers, infants and children from the initial pregnancy wish, through conception, pregnancy and the first seven years of life, is crucial to the development of a strong digestive system that sets the stage for optimal health and maturation into the reproductive years and beyond. Good habits start early!
Alternative Western nutrition movements, meanwhile, though still in their infancy when compared to Chinese nutrition, are making a powerful contribution through the emphasis on small-scale, free-range, local and organically produced whole, vital foods. This ‘alternative’ approach to foods is a reaction to the development of a technology-based food industry that derives its products from large-scale, chemically manipulated inorganic farming practices and laboratory-created foods and food ingredients that tickle our taste buds and fill an empty stomach but fail to nourish the deeper layers of the body and soul. Indeed, many legally approved food additives in industrial foods are extremely toxic. Their widespread use is creating serious degeneration in the population at large. This book was written for people who want to go beyond industrial foods; it aims to help people make the most of a whole foods diet. Therefore, I do not address the issue of manipulated and industrial foods and their effects. However, I list some relevant books and links on this topic in Appendix 6: Resources.
The quality of the foods we take in is absolutely central to our well-being. I hope this book will either help you on your way through the whole foods landscape of our day, or else that it may prove to be a worthwhile addition to your existing library on this subject.
Leni Hurley, 2011.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE: How TCM Nutrition Works, Overview
Introduction: Towards A Long, Healthy And Happy Life
The TCM Principles Of Digestion
The Stomach And Spleen-Pancreas
Foods That Weaken The Spleen-Pancreas
Lifestyle Factors That Weaken The Spleen-Pancreas.
The Link Between The Spleen-Pancreas And The Kidneys
Yang Deficiency - Internal Cold
PART THREE: Sex And Age Related Nutrition
PART FOUR: Self-Help & Trouble Shooting
LATE SPRING, SUMMER, EARLY AUTUMN
LATE AUTUMN, WINTER, EARLY SPRING
BREAKFAST, RICE, BEANS & BARLEY WATER
APPENDIX 1: The Thermal Nature of Foods
APPENDIX 3: The Four Directions of Foods
APPENDIX 4: Tips for Cold, Flu, Sore Throat
APPENDIX 5: Hay Box Construction
PART ONE
HOW TCM NUTRITION WORKS, OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION: Towards A Long, Healthy and Happy Life
In the best tradition of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), payments to a doctor stopped as soon as his or her patients became ill. In other words, a doctor’s role was to prevent illness and maintain good health, not just treat symptoms once they became apparent. The illness of a patient in the fullness of his or her life was seen as a failure, especially on the part of the physician.
Today, the top priority of a TCM health practitioner still is to help his patients lead a balanced lifestyle conductive to a long, healthy and happy life. That lifestyle is inherently holistic, with an eye to nutritional and mental health needs as well as biological. The TCM doctor accepts that physical and emotional health (body and soul) are intertwined, and the state of one impacts the other. Excessive or chronic negative emotions can and do transform into physical illness, and vice versa. On the other hand, a balanced lifestyle and proper diet maintain physical as well as emotional health and well being.
In TCM is the recognition, long ignored in our Western view of longevity, that a long life is only a blessing if it is also a healthy and happy one. Furthermore, TCM recognizes that good health need not depend on numerous medical interventions, and it need not cost the earth. It is much easier to prevent ill health than to cure it.
Diagram 1: The Emotions and Their Related Organs
“Qi and the Mind/Body Connection”
The importance of emotions
According to TCM, all phenomena in the universe consist of different forms of energy or Qi, be they dense and material, or diffuse and immaterial. Emotions are forms of energy. Unresolved emotions represent blocked energy that can lead to the accumulation and/or depletion of energy in specific parts of the body. This accumulation/depletion and imbalance obstructs the physical body and causes physical ill-health and disease.
Specific negative and unresolved emotions affect correlating organ-systems in our body. Excessive worry, brooding and over-thinking (mental activity) knot the energy in the stomach, thus affecting primarily the digestive function. Clear thinking and good concentration are signs of a healthy stomach and spleen-pancreas. Chronic fear lodges in and affects primarily the kidneys and their related functions; long-term sadness, melancholy and depression affect the lungs. Excessive joy or agitation and stress act primarily on the heart. Anger, frustration, irritation and rage affect primarily the liver and its related functions, and through them the heart. In fact, all long-term negative emotions eventually affect the heart. Because the Chinese liver is closely related to menstruation, pregnancy, breast-feeding and the menopause, anything that undermines the liver/gallbladder (and that includes stress) is particularly intrusive to women’s health.
The good news is that positive emotions and states of mind can give their correlating organ system a boost, and so can proper nutrition.
The importance of food
In TCM, the daily diet is part of a system of preventative health where everything is geared toward balance and optimal function. Food is seen as preventative medicine, to be taken for its curative properties before pills. Diet is regarded as our best defense against disease.
This very important, very basic building block to optimal health has largely been lost in contemporary Western culture where the role of food, our very life source, has been reduced to quick fixes and fun snacks, and where the importance of a good, simple meal has been relegated to last. We have fallen en masse for a system that allows us to spend liberally on unnatural, chemical, industrially-prepared, highly refined, and overly rich foods, and to spend equally liberally on the medication required afterwards to cover up our resulting imbalances and their symptoms.
We live in an environment in which useful nutritional information is blocked by powerful corporations if they won’t profit from the insights gained in independent scientific research. Take the issue around milk: It is a highly nutritious food and, because it is so nutritious, in excess it is linked to many of the diseases with which we are so familiar - breast cancer in women, prostrate cancer in men, osteoporosis in both women and men. The misinformation on this and other subjects has wormed its way into the very hearts of our institutions. The formulation of the food pyramid in many countries is made with the “cooperation” of representatives from the agricultural and food industries. If you think that Western nutritional research is unbiased, think again.
The politics of nutritional research in our western society do not favor public health. Nutritional research in the West is young, fickle, subject to huge and established economic interests; its views and interpretations change radically every few years. This leaves us in a quagmire of information and misinformation that is less than inspiring. We need a firm basis on which to ground the health of ourselves and our families.
To that end, we might look at TCM nutrition. Going back some 3000 years and rooted in the natural world, it has a long track record. It is tried, safe and sound. It can help us to get back to basics.
Here and now, our first step is to restore the importance of healthy, wholesome foods at every meal. Once that is in place, we can use specific foods toward treating specific health problems. For example, those who have bloating (fluid retention in the stomach or abdomen) will learn to use more warming and drying foods and cooking methods. The same applies to those who are perpetually cold or suffer from cold hands and feet.
Simple? For most people today, it is extremely difficult to avoid overconsumption and to stick to a basic, life-enhancing diet. Where we are not misled, we are uninformed; the public at large knows next too nothing about the health benefits of a whole foods diet. We live in a time of oversupply and lack of time. There is no happy medium in our access to food. Many cookbooks and culinary programs, to which we turn to learn about food, focus on foods that are far too rich for regular consumption. On the other end of the spectrum, supermarkets and restaurants emphasize convenience foods that are actually made with chemicals. Our budgets allow for continual grazing and our daily schedules don’t leave enough time to shop for and prepare wholesome meals.
With the fast pace of everyday lives, the last thing people need to stress about is food. That’s not the point. It’s time to be nurtured by food again. It’s time to focus on eating the right quantity of a greater variety of vital whole foods, on getting exercise and fresh air, on pursuing social and spiritual well-being, and on the freedom to live in harmony with our talents and interests. It may sound like a lot, but once we strive to improve the quality of one area of life, the other pieces of this health puzzle fall into place. And in traditional Chinese medicine, the best place to start is food.
Our “Food Pattern”: A Union of Nutrition and Lifestyle
Here’s the good news: Despite the obstacles, with good information and the right intention, a healthy diet is easy to achieve. We know in general what is healthy and what is unhealthy. A basic and varied diet of vital, local, seasonal vegetables and whole grains with some fruit, nuts and seeds, dairy products, meat, fish and cold-pressed oils is good for us. In addition, eating less is good for us: small, simple meals served on small plates, and eaten at our leisure, at regular intervals. This is all good for us. The excessive consumption of refined sugars, oils and fats, highly salted foods and snacks, meats, dairy, additives, luxury foods and drinks, and huge meals are not good for us. But what we eat is not the only essential ingredient in healthy nutrition. Our “food lifestyle” or “food pattern” can also impact our health, in other words, how food fits into our lives, how we prepare our food and under what circumstances we consume it..
The first step to eating for optimal health is to buy and/or grow your own foods and to prepare your own meals. It’s the only way to know what’s going into them and how your meals are cooked. Once in place, good food habits give us instantaneous clues as to the effects of foods on our health and well-being. How do you feel after a meal? Many people admit to not feeling all that well most of the time. With vital, whole foods we can feel vibrant and healthy for most of the time. That’s the difference. Pay attention to the effects of foods and cooking methods on your unique system. Using traditional Chinese medicine as a tool, we will lend an eye to: appropriate foods, appropriate portions; how to maintain nutritional and physical balance through changing seasons and climatic conditions; what foods best suit different age-groups and sexes; and, in some instances, how to tailor our diet to address specific health problems.
In tandem, we need to practice mindfulness. To return to a healthy, instinctive relation ship with food initially requires a degree of self-discipline that can come only through awareness. This is why this book starts with a review of emotional stability and spiritual strength. Knowledge about the effects of foods on us is not enough. We need to find the wherewithal to resist temptation, to resist the commercial food industry and its advertising campaigns. We need to learn to stand up for ourselves and stick to what is right for us. We need to grow in self-responsibility - that is the first challenge. In TCM-terms, we need to learn to discern and follow our own path in life, our own Tao, one that will serve rather than undermine our families and ourselves.
This book aims to achieve two things: to provide an insight into the traditional Chinese rules for healthy nutrition, and to help guide you towards a balanced, health-nurturing food pat tern. In the process, I hope to provide some emotional and spiritual tools to help you deal with stress and to withstand the commercial pressures of the food industry. Ultimately, a healthy food pattern alone will not lead to optimal health. Our emotions, our spiritual sense of self, and our overall lifestyle are part of the optimal health equation.
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“The first step in treating disease is dietary therapy. When this fails, a doctor should try other therapies.” Sun Si Miao (Famous physician from the Tang Dynasty, AD 618-907)
Let us begin at the beginning. Best TCM practice starts from the patient’s diet. No matter what other treatments are given, diet is the pivot. If the diet is not adjusted, most medicinal interventions, including traditional Chinese tools such as acupuncture, massage and herbal treatments can become short-term solutions that fail to address the underlying problem. A permanent cure often involves a change in diet and, more often than not, lifestyle.
In addition, acupuncture - the most widely known TCM therapy - is not always appropriate for the health problems discussed in this book. Many health problems currently seen in the West are deficiency problems, particularly of Qi and blood. You could say they are due to ‘undernourishment’, malnutrition paradoxically caused by overconsumption, usually in combination with a hectic, unbalanced lifestyle. Acupuncture moves, balances or disperses Qi; it does not ‘add to’ or ‘supplement’ Qi. If you try to move, balance or disperse something that is not there (or that is there insufficiently), you may do more harm than good. Before acupuncture is used, therefore, the body needs to be strengthened through dietary and sometimes herbal intervention, in combination with lifestyle changes. These then pave the way for acupuncture treatment if, indeed, it is needed. If this preparatory stage is ignored, we become ‘maintenance patients’ who return every so many months for a tune-up that does not address the root cause.
At the root of many minor and major health complaints is an inappropriate lifestyle, including inadequate diet and exercise, emotional problems and stress. To some extent it is true that “we are what we eat”: Our symptoms and our food-pattern are usually inextricably linked. You could also say that “we are what we think or feel”. Our symptoms and our mentality are also connected. So, even if someone’s diet is ideal, that person’s mindset and reaction to stress can still cause disease.
Many of us are chronically stressed. Everything we do, we do under stress. We are in overdrive. When we continue to live in ways that create health problems in the first place, our symptoms will return no matter how many medical treatments we undergo. Moreover, minor problems will progress to more serious ones. Recurrent minor or major health problems are a sign that a change is due. They are a signal to take charge.
It isn’t the therapist or teacher that knows you better than anyone else - you do! The doctor does not heal you - you do!
When our symptoms do not respond to treatments, we need to look at our way of being in the world, how we react to life, how we function mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Making the right choices depends, after all, on how we function mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If the western lifestyle and diet are the cause of the many health problems now present in Western cultures, then dietary and lifestyle intervention must be part of the overall treatment plan. We need to learn to co-operate with, rather than to depend on, the doctor of our choice. We ourselves must learn to identify and eradicate the root of our health problems. We need to learn to own our illness.
For example, an asthma patient with a ten-year history of chronic bronchitis makes the connection that her illness started as pneumonia contracted when her father was dying. Ten years later, she’s still not able to take a deep breath without coughing, or make it for two weeks without getting a respiratory infection. What does this tell us about her disease? The link between the lungs and sadness is apparent here; the root of her disease was grief. Once this was accepted and digested, with a variety of additional treatments, the asthma went away. This requires a degree of self-awareness and self-responsibility that belongs, rightly, to the adult stage of life.
What constitutes adulthood? TCM divides life into three evolutionary stages, called the biological, the cultural and the individual evolution.
The biological evolution begins at the moment of conception and ends at the end of the first year of life. It mirrors the accelerated evolution of the universe from the Big Bang, through life in the water, to the human being. The biological evolution is identical for all people on earth. All human babies, whether conceived and born in China or in France, go through the same develop mental processes throughout pregnancy and the first year of life.
Prenatal Jing
Any discussion of the biological evolution must look at the moment of conception. To a great extent, we are what we are due to that which is passed on to us by our parents at the moment of conception. TCM calls it our ‘prenatal Jing’. This Jing is thought to be a fluid substance that translates into ‘basic essence’ or ‘basic reserves’. What we are born with must last us a lifetime. It is our ‘root’. It is stored in the kidney and when it is used up, we die. All of TCM nutrition is geared to preserving our prenatal Jing through a healthy diet in combination with a balanced lifestyle.
Jing and the Kidneys
According to TCM, our Jing or basic reserves are stored in our kidneys. This highlights the Chinese Kidneys as probably the most important organ system in our body. Whenever I speak of the ‘kidneys’, I refer to the Chinese concept of this entire organ network. In condensed form, the Chinese Kidneys are said to dominate the reproductive functions, physical growth and development. They produce bone marrow and assist in the production of blood. They form brain tissue and the skeleton.
It is said that Kidney-Jing transforms into original energy, called Yuan Qi. Yuan Qi is the catalyst of all bodily processes. Nothing happens in the body without Yuan Qi. Without Yuan Qi, life is not possible.
Pre and postnatal Jing
Jing consists of two parts: pre and postnatal Jing. Before birth, there is only prenatal Jing. Once an infant is born and begins to breathe and feed, postnatal Jing is added. So, we have the prenatal aspect of Jing, formed by the Jing of our parents; it represents our Constitution. We consume it over a lifetime. Then there is postnatal Jing, which is produced on a daily basis; it represents our Condition.
Prenatal Jing is comparable to what we in the West call our genetic information or DNA. It determines who and what we are. Since we receive this prenatal Jing from our parents at the moment of conception, both parents should ideally be in optimal health at that time in their lives. The quality of Jing is the foundation for the prenatal development of the body. Postpartum, it influences physical growth and reproductive strength. It also determines whether our eyes are brown or blue and so on, how strong we will be and how long we will live. It influences our development throughout life, what our strengths and weaknesses are, and what tendencies we have. We may, for example, have an aptitude for chess, or a predisposition for a specific illness - each of us has such aptitudes and predispositions. However, an aptitude for chess will not translate itself into good chess playing for someone who has not been exposed to the game. Likewise, a predisposition to a specific illness may not materialize unless it is triggered by our lifestyle, by age or by major traumatic events.
Figure 1: Kidney Jing
Jing, stored in the Kidneys transforms to Kidney-Qi = Yuan Qi
Yuan Qi is the catalyst to all bodily processes
Factors that weaken our Jing: Continual partying with late nights, alcohol, and drugs, chronic overwork, an inferior diet, an overactive sex life, extreme stress, and extensive fasting.
It is said that half of our prenatal Jing is consumed by the time we’re forty. Our postnatal Jing is produced and consumed every twenty-four hours. (Food and air contribute to the production of postnatal Jing; poor food and poor air quality, of course, contribute to a weakened production of postnatal Jing.) The art is to produce enough high-quality postnatal Jing on a daily basis to top up on our prenatal Jing. When we are able to do this, we need not draw unnecessarily on our basic reserves. Our basic reserves need to last us a lifetime. We want to nurture them. When age or infirmity slows us down, we produce less and less postnatal Jing and thus we are less able to top up on our reserves. In addition, our prenatal Jing has diminished considerably. This combination of diminishing pre and postnatal Jing gives the typical symptoms of aging.
When an inferior diet and lifestyle consumes those basic reserves and weaken our constitution, we age or ‘degenerate’ earlier than we were programmed to do. Health problems pertaining to the older age groups manifest themselves at a younger age. In that case, our Jing may be halved at the age of 30 or even 20. This is what is meant with ‘premature degeneration’, we experience health problems pertaining to older age-groups.
Even when ‘programmed’ to live long and healthy, an indifferent lifestyle can shorten one’s life span. Being host to a multitude of health problems can make life very miserable indeed, even a short one.
The cultural and individual evolutions
Back to the three evolutionary phases of life, the second phase, or the ‘cultural evolution’ begins in the second year of life, and if all goes well, ends in adulthood. In our age, this stage could be compared to the evolution from primitive man to computer man. The place and situation into which you are born makes all the difference in the world! People born in China, grow up to be distinctly Chinese; those born in the UK become English. Family, school and social circle, also imprint pat terns that form us for life.
The ‘individual evolution’ is the third and final stage of personal evolution. It is the stage of self-responsibility, of adulthood. The individual evolution starts when we stop blaming others (or the weather!) for our problems and start to recognize our talents and limitations. We develop inner horizons, our self-awareness and self-responsibility. These motivate and guide us on our path through life. When there are no major traumatic events, no war and famine to impede normal development, self-responsible people direct and shape their mature self. It is in this stage of development that one acquires the tools to navigate the nutritional and lifestyle landscape of our times.
Self-responsibility
The individual evolution engenders the motivation and self-responsibility required to change aspects of our life that interfere with our health and happiness. When we intervene at a personal level, we find that many things no longer simply ‘happen’ to us. In terms of our well being, we
no longer expect others - be it our doctor, the food supplements industry or the pharmacological industry - to prevent ill health or to fix our health problems. As long as we, as individuals, are un able to recognize and adjust the underlying causes of our health problems, nothing will change. We continue to suffer from an ever-growing array of symptoms. According to this philosophy, it is the absence of self-awareness, of reflection and self-motivation that brings many people to the doctor. Without self-awareness, we are unable to come to grips with our lives. We are unfamiliar with our own impediments, our boundaries and our talents.
When we are unfamiliar with our own mind, with the way we think, how we process our emotions and what our instinctive impulses are, we are unable to ‘parent’ ourselves. We are unable to say ‘no’ when necessary and to ‘go for it’ when appropriate. Sooner or later, we find ourselves stuck in a downward spiral which we follow, year after year. In the end, we find ourselves in a doc tor’s office presenting what are often depreciatingly called ‘psychosomatic’ problems. These problems can’t be fixed. Every ‘cure’ is by approximation only, dealing with one of the many symptoms we suffer and often creating new symptoms in the process.
Confucius said that the individual must learn a lot in order to become fully human. Taoism says that men need to follow their own evolution.
Both say that happiness and fulfillment lie in the process of becoming fully human.
Lao Tze, founder of Taoism, said that we become fully human when we follow Our Path, or Tao. This is a path of attentive awareness. It is a life-long, self-nurturing process, enabling us to live in harmony with the universal laws of nature.
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Ancient people the world over noted the complimentary opposites of day and night, summer and winter, man and woman; in China they called this cyclic duality yin and yang. These things are what they are in reference to one another only. One can not understand night, without knowing that night is ‘night’ because there is also ‘day’. Yin and yang contain the seed of the opposing force inside them. Night carries the potential of day, winter the potential of summer.
Yin and yang are said to be two closely intertwined opposites that bring one another forth. The Chinese characters for yin and yang denote the shady and sunny side of a hill. Yin applies to the darker, cooler side of the hill, to more tranquil and mysterious aspects of life, to the moon, to new life and all that is feminine. Yin is passive and still. It is dominated by right-brain thinking. Yang denotes the sunny side of the hill. In contrast to Yin, it is sunny and energetic, more explicit. Yang denotes the active, enterprising male principle and left-brain activity. In terms of our body organs, yin stands for the organ itself, its structure, the blood and other fluids it contains. Yang represents its function.
In health, yin and yang are indiscernible. When we become ill, the two separate to a greater or lesser degree. This gives rise to specific ‘yin’ or ‘yang symptoms’. The prime cause of illness may lie in too much heat (yang), which diminishes or ‘consumes’ moisture (yin). Or there may be too little heat, whereby the balance tips over to an apparent excess of cold (yin). These imbalances manifest themselves as symptoms. All TCM therapies, including nutrition, aim to preserve the balance between yin and yang, or, if that fails, to re-establish it.
Table 1: Yin-Yang Characteristics
Yin < > Yang
descending (water, moisture) < > ascending (heat)
cool, cold < > warm, hot
interior < > exterior
chronic < > acute
cold hands, feet; chilled sensation < > hot, overly warm sensation
pale face < > red face
clear, frequent urination < > dark, infrequent urination
pale tongue, white coating < > red tongue, yellow coating
under-function (hypo function) < > over-function (hyper function)
low blood pressure (hypotension) < > high blood pressure (hypertension)
depression < > agitation, stress
plant foods < > animal foods
fruit < > spices
milk < > coffee
wheat < > oats
steamed foods < > grilled foods
* People with yin symptoms need more warming, yang foods.
* People with yang symptoms need more cooling, yin foods
* Often, we have both yin and yang symptoms
The Western World: An imbalanced yang culture
Yin and yang characteristics can describe people, their constitution and condition, and their culture. Eastern thought, from which Taoism emerged, is based on a more intuitive, thoughtful, mythical, circular way of thinking. It is based on observation of natural processes. These processes describe, not only the way nature functions, but also how we are tied into, and need to live in harmony with the universal laws of nature. This gives a natural, healthy and helpful balance. The linear focus of our Western culture relies on more yang, male tendencies and tends to be active, analytical, competitive and energetic. We are not concerned with how we tie in to the laws of nature and how we need to abide by them.
Our western focus is on the future and its reward for present efforts. Happiness is never “now”; it’s after work, after shopping, on the weekend (after housework and shopping), on holidays, or once we have retired. We do not value this moment, tend not to listen to our intuition or recognize the subtle signs our body gives us. We are too busy to be aware of our territory, its boundaries and limitations, how far we can go, what we can handle. When we are tired, we look at our watch and say: “it is only nine o’clock, too early to go to bed”. When we crave nourishment we open the fridge and eat the first thing that catches our eye - usually not what we really need. In a world where we equate money with happiness, we can’t imagine being happy with less money and more time. Instead, we prefer to go on and on and on, till we drop, or burn out! In our culture, the yin-yang balance has tipped over to the yang side. Here, the daily routine becomes the daily grind, without the possibility of escape!
The analytic focus of our Yang culture can also be found in our drive to break things down to their smallest constituents, illustrating, in the process, how far removed we are from nature. In terms of foods, we speak of carbohydrates instead of plant-based food. We speak of proteins instead of animal products. We refer to the minerals, vitamins, fibers and fats contained in a product. When we suffer from leg cramps, we might know from our health food literature that we need calcium and magnesium. From there it is a small step to the shop to find a food supplement that contains both. Why do we assume we should get what we need from a pill, even if it is a vitamin and therefore, somehow “natural”? We may need some supplementation, but only when we have found and removed the cause of the imbalance. When the cause is dietary, our diet needs to be adapted before, or in tandem with, supplementation.
Towards a yin-yang balance
In the more yin way of thinking, intuition, feeling and basic logic are predominant: if I am tired, I need to rest. If I am hungry, I need nourishment. If it is cold I need warm clothes. If I want to be happy and fulfilled, this should be in each waking moment, in everything I do and think. Yin thought contains the spark of life, the seed for imaginary change. It focuses on the moment, on the inner experience, on intuition, mindfulness and feeling. In the West, we now increasingly aspire to achieve a balance in right and left brain thought and behavior. That balance between the physiological, the emotional and the mental, between body, mind and spirit, is inherent to all branches of TCM. Our culture’s lack of balance is both a cause and a result of stress in our lives - a vicious cycle, perhaps, but one that we can break free from.
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Chronic Stress
Inherent in the absence of self-observation and self-knowledge is habitual or chronic stress. Chronic stress operates on the instinctive level. Stressful moments, be they big or infinitely small, trigger an instinctive freeze-, fight or flight response. Our biology is still hard-wired to live in the conditions of prehistoric man battling all kinds of dangers. Our survival was based largely on our ability either to run very fast, freeze and become invisible, or fight very hard in the face of danger - each required a surge of adrenaline in the body to power through. The problem with this reaction today is that much less physical stresses trigger the same response, yet without a physical outlet, that adrenaline is not spent, it accumulates in the body. One way to counter the fight-, freeze-, and flight response is to breath deeply. This stops the surge of adrenaline in the body. Instead, all too often, we do the opposite: we hold our breath. This tightens internally and blocks the free circulation of energy and blood throughout the body. TCM then speaks of a “Qi Stagnation”. As we know from earlier in the book, blocked Qi creates physical imbalances.
If this reaction is automatic, and stress is inherent in our life, what are we to do? Use common sense, use your mind. Slow down and ask yourself, am I in a life or death situation? When we are aware of our own reaction to stress, we can learn to channel our response or neutralize the stress into a more positive way of being in the world - after a stressful day at work, rather than head home for a few hours of watching television, going for a long walk or a run will use up excess adrenaline; deep-breathing meditation can stop its production and soothe our oversaturated systems. The first step is simply to stop and take stock. What does your body need?
If we fail to channel our instinctive stress response, this reaction and the stress behind it become habitual and produce an accumulation of stress residues. TCM calls this the accumulation of pathogenic Qi. In the West, we call it chronic stress. Chronic or habitual stress creates a ‘strain’ that nestles, among other places, in our muscles. In the long run, this causes aches and pains, particularly in the neck, shoulders, and lower back. Strain also affects our breathing - we habitually hold our breath! It becomes shallow and it stagnates in the chest. This affects our liver and causes a Liver Qi stagnation. (We return to this in later chapters.) Suffice it to say here that a Liver Qi Stagnation has cumulative effects both on our emotional state and on our physical health. It can lead to a range of minor and major health problems. A long-term, unresolved Liver Qi Stagnation also causes behavioral addictions such as addictions to things as diverse as reading, watching TV, playing computer games, smoking, overeating, etc Ten years into this groove, we visit the doctor with psychosomatic complaints. Most people visiting the surgery belong in this category.
Chronic Disease and Stress
When people come down with a debilitating chronic disease, stress begins to build and accumulate and this stress often turns chronic. This state of high stress arousal aggravates the disease. In order to break the stress cycle, people need to engage in stress reduction mindfulness meditation techniques. In the case of ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, Ashok Gupta, a well-known researcher and therapist in the field of CFS/ME developed a powerful, interactive de-stressing program that you can use in your own home. In addition, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine Emeritus of the Stress Reduction Clinic of the University of Massachusetts Medical School published many stress-reduction books and guided meditation CDs for home use. For details, see Appendix 6: Resources.
Slowing down
Mindfulness combats chronic stress simply by slowing us down. Habitual stress tends to make ‘runners’ out of us. We do not walk, we race. We talk in a fast, breathless sort of way. We race our fingers over the keyboard! We hurry down the road in our cars. Slowing down means literally that: talking and moving more slowly. Try it sometime. You will notice that you were racing before. And, when you walk and talk more slowly, you notice how different that feels. Notice your breath: very shallow perhaps! The outcome of slowing down, then, is the beginning of an attentive attitude towards your self. This leads to self-awareness, reflection and increased self-knowledge.
Becoming calm
For most of us, being calm implies: going slower. Once you begin to appreciate the value of slowing down, you may want to take one or two walks a week, in a natural setting, away from the clutter and noise of urban environments. Walking alone, or in silence with others, at a leisurely pace, listening to nature around you or to the rain pattering on your umbrella creates space in your head and has a calming effect. Often, your mind will wander back to the daily pre-occupations and irritations. If that happens, remind yourself that you are walking and that you will attend to any pressing issues at another time. This brings you back into the moment and it too has a calming and liberating effect. The idea is that you learn to recall and recreate this calm and apply it to your everyday life. You can help yourself by breathing in deeply and slowly counseling yourself to go SLOW.
A calm state of mind clears the slates and makes you receptive to the signals given by your body and mind. As you pay attention, you will become aware of your habitual thought patterns and of the issues that surface and resurface in your mind. You observe and become aware of your habitual reactions, both to external events, to others and, most important, to your own imaginings. You will learn to see whether you freeze, fight or flee in response to stresses including your own thoughts. If you are, initially, unable to slow down around the clock (and it can take years to learn to slow down around the clock), you might achieve ‘slow days’ or ‘slow moments’
Tools to mindfulness
No matter what you do, or where you are, it is always helpful to stay in the moment. Whether you are walking, climbing the stairs, working at your computer, or in meetings, remind yourself, over and over, of the activity or task at hand. Remind yourself that you are washing the dishes and, as Thich Nhat Hanh says is in book The Miracle of Mindfulness, that is all that you want to do right now. Breathe deeply and think SLOW! Note your response: Relief? Relaxation? Fatigue? Do not attach emotions to these new sensations. Let them wash over you and continue to wash the dishes, mindful of the dish you are washing.
Always bring your mind back to the here and now. This allows you to break the vicious cycle of obsessive thinking and habitual emotional or stress patterns, bringing ease and relaxation - not in the weekend, not on the couch in the evening, but right in the here and now. If you feel that you HAVE TO remember things, write them down and decide to think about them at a time set by you, then let them go. Better yet, decide that you need not remember all these thoughts or ideas at all! Stand up for yourself! It, whatever that is, does not all have to be done in the here and now, if ever. What needs to be done is that you savor life, now, in this moment. You are important! You need to stay sane and healthy, relaxed and strong! Above all, you need to avoid the accumulation of pathogenic Qi, or chronic stress.
Meditative exercise includes disciplines such as sitting or walking, silent meditation, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Yoga and deep relaxation visualizations. If you engage in a daily or weekly session of any of these meditative disciplines, you create a set time in the day or week that is exclusively for you. This can be extremely helpful for very busy people. In this time, you practice deep breathing, observing yourself, calming yourself down and letting go of stress and tension anywhere in your body. You then try to apply these skills to your daily life. If you need help, you could try the 8-week guided mindfulness meditation and stress reduction Book and CD program created by Jon Kabat-Zinn, see Appendix 6: Resources. In addition, you might consider a yearly contemplative period in one of the many retreat or personal growth centers. Deep relaxation, visualization, meditation, Tai Chi, Yoga and regular retreats help unknot muscles that have been tightening over long periods of time. And they help unknot or ‘clear’ the mind.
Mindful nutrition
Mindfulness can guide you through the pitfalls of modern nutrition and lifestyle. When you reach for that snack or desert, you observe that instinctive impulse without identifying with it. In other words, you do not become the impulse; instead you observe it from a distance. This calm and distance gives you space to reconsider. If you do decide to allow yourself that snack, you may become aware that you had rather not taken it - it might not taste so well after all, or too many of them rob you of your vitality. Note that occasional snacks and snacking, partying and feasting, are not harmful in themselves - quite the contrary. Actually, strictures of any kind cause an immediate Liver Qi Stagnation (stress)! The occasional treat makes life more enjoyable and it relieves tensions. But snacks and parties are the exception, not the norm. (Philosophically, Lao Tze, founder of Taoism, advises us to be soft and flexible like water, not hard and rigid like rock. Over time, water has the power to dissolve even the hardest rocks.) Mindfulness is a life-long lifestyle process. You will not achieve the ability to stay within your limits right away, nor do you want to. As you explore and define your territory, you may not maintain the motivation to stay within your boundaries in the first year, nor the second, nor the third. It may take years before you notice real change. Don’t get discouraged if you fall back on old ways. You have the skills in house to begin again. This road, your life’s journey, your Tao, every single day - these are all that matter!
THE ABC RULE
Slowing down, mindfulness and regular times of contemplative withdrawal shed light on our instinctive responses and thought patterns. Once we are aware of them, we can change and work towards positive change.
In the best tradition of TCM, Chinese doctors addressed this psychological aspect of optimal health. Remember that, traditionally, payments stopped when patients fell ill. It was advantageous to the doctor, therefore, to encourage mindfulness. The best doctors did this through a comprehensive self-help program. The first rule in this self-help program was what has been called the ABC rule, namely: (self ) awareness, breathing, and concentration (meditation). The ABC-rule is in line with the premise that prevention is easier, cheaper, more enjoyable, and healthier, than the cure! Dietary or lifestyle change is a result of self-responsibility. Once we are able to participate in our own healing process, we can say that there is a possibility of resolving the root cause of disease. The ‘patient’ becomes a ‘client’. Clients are mature individuals. They cooperate with their doctor in resolving their health problems. They have achieved the individual evolution.
ON REFLECTION
This holistic approach to sickness and health places the responsibility squarely with the individual. To us, in the West, this is almost an insult. What? I’m ill - which is bad enough - and now you tell me that it is my fault as well? Well, in a word: Yes. But when you are responsible for the cause of a problem, you become responsible for a solution. It is empowering to accept responsibility.
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Taoist philosophy groups everything in the universe in a system of five energetic phases often called ‘elements’. This model of the five elements is an extension of the concept of yin and yang. It aims to interpret and order the world and, in doing so, it relates everything in the universe and on earth to five basic energetic phases, namely Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. These five phases are in continuous, dynamic interaction, informing one another, bringing one another forth, and balancing one another out.
The organs of our body are grouped according to these five elements. When I speak of an ‘organ’, I refer to an ‘organ network’ including the organs themselves, their functions and their channels. Each element contains two paired organs, the main yin organ and its yang subsidiary. The yin organs always get first mention. Thus, the Earth Element contains both the spleen-pancreas (yin) and the stomach, which is its yang subsidiary. The lungs and large intestines belong to the Metal Element, the kidneys and bladder to the Water Element, the liver and gallbladder to the Wood Element, and the heart and small intestine to the Fire Element.
Each organ network nourishes or generates the next network, keeps other organ networks in check and, when things go wrong, attack or undermine other organ networks. They do so in several cycles, amongst which the nourishing/generating cycle, and the restraining/controlling cycle. These indicate healthy processes. In disease, other cycles come into play. The controlling cycle, for example, can become too strong and can turn ‘overwhelming’. An element can react to such an overwhelming cycle and rebel. Organ networks can become too strong or weak. If they become weak, for example, they weaken the next organ network, drain the previous one and loose the ability to control/restrain their partner network. Thus, disease in one organ network gradually spreads through, and weakens the entire system.
Diagram 2: The Five Elements, Their Cycles and Organ Networks
WOOD
In health: strong tendons/ligaments, good eyesight, vigorous, creative, flexible.
In sickness: eye and muscular problems (tendons, joints), cramps, irritation, anger, frustration, rigidity, apathy, digestive problems, insomnia, menstruation problems, itchy skin problems, headaches (side of head or entire head).
Remedies: leisurely walking out of doors in natural settings, meditative disciplines and slowing down, a focus on exercising patience, rest your eyes (less TV and computer, these moving images drain your liver via the eyes), increase your sporting activities, particularly sporting that moves the upper body such as tennis, lighten up your food pattern, less oils and fats, more chlorophyll-rich greens, try micro-algae, look at herbal therapy.
FIRE
In health: joy and enthusiasm, guided by your emotions, good circulation, strong heart, healthy veins, clear speech.
In sickness: irregular heart beat, excessive transpiration (also at night), fear, manic behavior, cold hands and/or feet, high blood pressure, problems of the small intestine.
Remedies: meditation, sporting, food, herbs.
EARTH
In health: balanced, steady and stable, relaxed, good social life, good concentration, appropriate body weight, good coordination.
In sickness: fatigue, bleeding, for example of the gums, piles, hemorrhages, changing moods, constant worrying and fretting, poor concentration, digestive problems, bloating, varicose veins, menstruation problems, abdominal pains, headaches (forehead or whole head), diabetes, edema.
Remedies: strengthen the digestive Qi through dietary intervention, improve your coordination and balance through Tai Chi/Qi Gong/Yoga/walking/sporting/endurance sports, spiritual/meditative exercises to work on loving yourself.
METAL
In health: clear thinking, insight and oversight, able to evaluate situations and people on their merits, right choices, clear skin, strong lungs.
In sickness: melancholy, problems with the large intestine, lung problems such as asthma, bronchitis, lung emphysema, skin problems, regular colds.
Remedies: breathing exercises and outdoor activities to strengthen the lungs, improve your diet for the same reason (reduce intake of dairy and pay attention to damp and phlegm caused by wrong food habits), meditative/spiritual practices that help you study the value of life.
WATER
In health: strong bones and teeth, strong willpower and courage, strong intuition, good hearing, drive and perseverance.
In sickness: back problems, fear, cold feet, digestive problems, menstrual problems, impotence, infertility, weakness of body and mind, fatigue.
Remedies: strengthen the kidneys through diet, food supplements that strengthen the kidneys and silent meditation, improve your physical strength through walking and floor yoga, relaxation and visualization, rest, herbal therapies.
Note:
Throughout the rest of this book the following should be read as follows:
Pulses = legumes, dried beans
Aduki beans = adzuki beans
Aubergine = eggplant
Courgette = zucchini
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THE TCM PRINCIPLES OF DIGESTION
“To retain body balance and harmony we need to follow a proper diet.” Sun Si Miao, Recipes Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold.
In terms of TCM-nutrition, it is important to understand that the daily diet strengthens the stomach and spleen-pancreas in order to produce high quality postnatal Jing (Qi and blood), so as to preserve our prenatal Jing (our root or basic reserves) and to protect us from degeneration and disease.
Here in the West, we look at the specific properties of foods to determine whether the product as a whole is good or bad for us. For example, if a product contains lots of vitamin C, we generally agree that it is good for us, irrespective of any other, possible harmful effects, and irrespective of the place it takes in our overall diet. In the West, once a food is said to be healthy, it is thought to be universally healthy. In addition, once a food or food supplement is thought to be healthy, we consume it in large quantities on the premise that ‘more is better’.
The Food Pattern
In TCM, our food pattern, not individual foods, is seen as preventative medicine towards optimal health and against unnecessary disease.
When we eat a diet based on whole foods, we aim to consume natural (i.e. not processed) organic whole foods. We eat the greens, skins and hearts in conjunction with what we generally see as the food itself. Think of carrots and their greens, pumpkins and their skins, and chicory and their hearts. Parts of foods compliment one another. Positive and negative properties reinforce and balance each other out. The vegetables and fruits are fresh and locally produced and in season; this provides compatibility with our own condition and it promotes nutritional vitality. Remember that foods that grow in damp climates help against damp problems, foods that grow in cold climates help against cold problems, etc. This is what makes foods compatible with where we live. Freshness and nutritional vitality protect us from, among other things, the food supplements industry. If the foods we consume are of high quality, there is no reason why we should reach for vitamins in jars, or even bottles of juice. Because many fruits and vegetables begin to lose their nutrients within a few hours of being picked, and because their nutritive content is often at its maximum when they ripen on the plant, foods that ripen during transport for days from a farm in one part of the world to a supermarket in another aren’t as nutritionally rich as foods picked from a local farm and sold at a local food market. Better still, of course, are foods grown in one’s own garden.
A healthy food pattern is also founded on variety. Too much or too little of any one food, no matter how healthy it is, causes imbalances.
Food and the Eater
The most important factor in optimal health is the strength of our digestive system. If the stomach and spleen-pancreas are strong and function well, the essences or nutrients in foods are optimally assimilated and there will be good health. I discuss this most important factor in the next chapter: The Stomach and Spleen-Pancreas.
Western nutrition is analytic, it looks at the properties of foods. TCM looks at the interaction or, if you like, the symbiosis between whole foods and the eater. Irrespective of the strength of the digestive system, foods affects us in different ways. Some foods moisten us and cool us down; other foods warm us and potentially dry us out. Foods can be laxative or they can cause contraction. They interact with one another, enhancing, neutralizing or lessening any beneficial or harmful aspects of foods. The same food, moreover, affects us differently in summer than in winter, when we are old or young, healthy or ill. Different people have different requirements: women in the reproductive age group need a different dietary focus from males in the same age group. People with sedentary lifestyles need a different focus from physically active workers. People who work indoors need a different focus from those who work out of doors. Children under seven and the elderly require a different focus from people in the ‘robust’ age groups (see The Seven Stages of Life).