Basics About Nutrition, Diet, Cooking, Supplements and Eating Well

[Crippler]

I have seen members of the forum ask questions that tell me they know little to nothing about nutrition, eating well, or even how to cook. So I have decided to post some resources to help them out and I encourage other members to contribute so we can have a thread loaded with great resources on the subject.

Weston Price:
Website --- https://www.westonaprice.org/
Book --- Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

Weston Price was a dentist whom spent a decade traveling the world studying what different cultures and societies ate and how it related to their health and well being. When anyone asks me anything related to nutrition I always refer them to his organization and his writings first.

Sally Fallon:
Website -- https://nourishingtraditions.com/
Books --- Nourishing Traditions, Nourishing Fats, Nourishing Broth, and more

Sallon Fallon has written several cookbooks and nutrition related books based upon Weston Price's principles of eating well. Her material is loaded with great info.

The Worlds Healthies Foods
http://www.whfoods.org/foodstoc.php

A Website about what they consider the worlds healthiest foods. They have detailed info about the foods and nutrient data as well.

Joel Wallach:
Book -- Dead Doctors Don't Lie
Speech -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCs9qMkPYzg

Joel exposing many of the lies promoted by doctors and the medical community and tells how all diseases are simply related to people not getting enough of the 90 essential nutrients.

Ancestral Supplements
website --- https://www.ancestralsupplements.com/

 

[Head Guardian Blitzkreig]

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WAP gets a lot right. The only thing I think that is shaky is the holistic understanding between foods. Therefore, you should consult Ayurveda/TCM or other holistic systems to determine the properties of specific foods and what you need to alter for your constitution.

Some people need to focus on some foods vs others for their health conditions, but this wouldn't mean an entire condemnation of a food group, rather an adjustment of proportions. For example, eggs are great for the blood and the jing, they are very nourishing, but they are likewise healthy and can create phlegm in the body, so they would be contraindicated for someone experiencing related conditions.

Unfortunately, modern life leaves us little time for making foods. In the past, we retained enough of our productivity/capital from our labor to "afford" a member of the household to tend to chores and cooking full time. You just have to do your best. Sometimes 1 or 2 good meals is all you have time to create per day, and this is certainly better than nothing. Putting in the effort to reduce significant detractors from your diet (junk foods/candy) will go a longer way and take less time than trying to perfect "normal" foods that you also consume, for example.

 

[Eric13]

TCM has its place, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. There was a post here on TCM with diet advice, but it was too vague. With diet, it’s too individual. Lifestyle, is such a huge factor when it comes to deciding what your optimal nutrition needs are, as well as other factors. General advice is fine, but really that’s all it is. Fine.

If people want advice, they should speak to someone educated and explain their situation and their individual needs. Then something can be advised for them and plan can be made.

Also I’ve read WAP’s work and it differs greatly from the current organization that bares his name now. So those researching him, be careful not to confuse. Sally Fallon, who leads his organization now, has her own philosophy.

 

[Head Guardian Blitzkreig]

TCM has its place, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. There was a post here on TCM with diet advice, but it was too vague. With diet, it’s too individual. Lifestyle, is such a huge factor when it comes to deciding what your optimal nutrition needs are, as well as other factors.

The reason I like TCM is because the philosophy allows one to understand the energetic effects of the foods they eat. You can then look at your own constitution and modulate the general advice to get a customized dietary plan.

For example, someone who is yin deficient with heat symptoms and dry skin would not want to eat spicy foods like curry, as this would promote a loss of body fluids. Curry is eaten by people in climates who are exposed to lots of dampness, therefore they need these foods to stay balanced.

On the flip side, someone who is larger/fatter and has a slow, earth element-like body, would need spicy/heating foods to expel excess dampness and promote activity and circulation of their body.

As far as specific nutrients goes, TCM promotes inclusion of all sorts of whole foods. I cannot imagine someone becoming vitamin deficient if they were eating exactly as directed from their practitioner. With whole foods, you have to make some sort of major mistake or exclusion of entire foods groups to walk away deficient.

My point though is that I agree diet is very individual-based, but I think TCM is one of the better methods for identifying and addressing individual concerns. Below, I included a simply representation of what I described above.

 

[Eric13]

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I understand. I don’t dislike TCM, I love the fact that there are spiritual considerations taken in diet, that the main stream science misses, but at the same time, again I find some of the examples not that accurate. India has a high consumption of curries. They have a dry climate through large parts of the year, sometimes severely so. As well, in America, in the south, our dessert regions are dry. They also happen to be the regions with some of the spiciest foods. (Latin American cuisine). A lot of the dairy claims I’m suspicious of as well.

Here’s the deal with TCM, as the acronym stands for, it is medicine. That’s where it’s usefulness lies. It’s useful when someone isn’t well and needs to correct things in their body through diet. Of course you have situations with people who have gravely unhealthy diets, and they really need a lifestyle adjustment, not just diet, so I’m not talking of these folks, but rather just anyone else who might have some health problems. The reason I say this is, many of the claims of certain foods, for most people the effects are subtle or even negligible, but they can cause people to begin avoiding foods or overeating things when it isn’t necessary to do that to be healthy. There can even be a projection of extreme behavior and over strictness with diet that again, isn’t necessary. Maybe in elder age this may be more important, but most people can eat as they like in a generally thoughtful way, get some exercise and they’ll be healthy.

On the other hand, if one does find themselves unhealthy TCM can come in handy, as through the analysis of symptoms can find weak points in a person that can be corrected through careful design of the diet.

I think some of the TCM claims, when applied more broadly, seem like pseudoscience. Almost like placebo pills working cause you think it’s a real pill. I’ve been obsessed with nutrition for over 10 years. A lot of the stuff I see, just doesn’t hold up with reality when applying just general diet advice. It’s effectiveness lies primarily with helping people with illness get better, not as general diet advice. That’s my opinion.

 

[Centralforce666]

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India has a high consumption of curries. They have a dry climate through large parts of the year, sometimes severely so. As well, in America, in the south, our dessert regions are dry. They also happen to be the regions with some of the spiciest foods. (Latin American cuisine). A lot of the dairy claims I’m suspicious of as well.

Here’s the deal with TCM, as the acronym stands for, it is medicine. That’s where it’s usefulness lies.

India is also a very humid place, with heavy rain for half of the year, particularly in the South.

This induces dampness and the high consumption of spiced foods helps to sweat out the dampness. There is also a lot of heavy creams and milks in Indian Cuisine and the spices *attempt* to balance these things.

TCM is actually built on traditional Chinese culture with respect to diet and the idea that food and lifestyle as medicine are more useful than treating disease is one that;s not immediately apparent to people looking at it as often TCM is used as a last resort when everything else has already been tried and the disease is often significant by this stage.

The herbal and dietary theories are applicable to every individual and every food known to man and the theory accounts for every possible disease state and constitutional state of being.

There is a principle in Chinese Medicine that two patients may have the same structural or functional disease (ie breast cancer) in the same location and yet be treated completely differently to each other based on the syndrome differentiation.

Western Medicine is now acknowledging this with cancer treatment research showing that the same tumours in the same locations have specific and differentiable genetic sub-types and that each sub type requires a different chemotherapy agent to eliminate it.

Food for though..

 

[hailourtruegod]

I recommend looking into local bee pollen. It's considered officially a medicine in several countries like Germany. Not just that but a great supplement as well. From what I read it's possible to live off of it with only having to get Vitamin D some other way since it has everything else in it. I'll try to make a post with more information on it (there's a lot) when I have the time.

 

[winragefilled666]

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Regarding Chinese Medicine, if you don't mind me asking a few questions.

Does Chinese Medicine herbal theraby help to eliminate toxic metals and help correct mineral deficiencies, or are additional methods needed for this? I assume that by improving the function of the organs there must be some benefit but is it sufficent? Examples being aluminium, mercury etc. toxicity but also magnesium deficiency, copper imbalance and the like.

What importance do you assign to purity of the herbs? The planet seems to be widely polluted and China, where most herbs come from even more so. Some of the herbs in the West are somewhat tested, some are tested really thouroughly for toxic things. In China and elsewhere there isn't much regulation, I think. Is the quality of the herbs an issue, and can the polluted herbs do more harm than good?

Last question, I found an author that claims that people today are more yin today because of things like radiation, electromagnetic emissions - see here https://drlwilson.com/articles/ACUPUNCTURE.HTM , under the heading Yin toxins. He claims this makes the TCM methods that were created in the past work less reliably now. What do you think of this? The author is likely wrong but I would still like your opinion on this.

 

[winragefilled666]

I cannot tell if you were trying to quote only Centralforce, however I will give my opinion:

Thank you for the response, it is definitely appreciated. I like the notion of TCM and other healing modalities being vehicles that allow us to proceed with our meditations smoothly and without interuptions.

 

[winragefilled666]

I cannot tell if you were trying to quote only Centralforce, however I will give my opinion:

Looking at your reply again, I noticed you strugled with liver stagnation. Could you share how you managed to prevent its reocurence after stopping the herbs? I know exercise/movement and emotional stability are needed for this but I would appreciate learning about the amount you think/find is needed.

Also, do you know any source with information about the TCM diet that is not biased against meat? The bias generally seems weaker than in modern Ajurveda but is still there in the sources I have looked at.

 

[winragefilled666]

Thanks for taking the time sharing you experience, it is very helpfull, even though I think my case of stagnation is more related to stress, emotinal distress and sedentary lifestyle, despite a good diet and basic hatha yoga daily.

Thanks for warning me about the website, I am aware though (should have included a warning myself :| ) and only focus on the information about minerals, vitamins etc. which seems to be generally helpfull and he does not push the weird stuff there as much. The author is also weird about many other topics and one article in particular https://drlwilson.com/articles/DEVELOPMENT.WOMEN.htm makes me wonder about his sanity, lol. For the yin classifications, he also uses wrong ones (macrobiotics), so the classification itself is not that important.

I read some of the book Healing with whole foods from Paul Pitchford, which is somewhat negative about meat but in fact he was probably mainly critical of the american processed "meat" when I think about it. I am actually somewhat knowledgeable on the topic, only wanted to refresh some, so you do not have to search for any links.

If I can have one more question, I have been using a pressure cooker (Instant Pot) for cooking vegetables. Do you think this method of cooking is suitable for long term use? My concern is if it would create heat, since the food is cooked under pressure but I assume this is an useless concern if I make sure not to overcook the food?

 

[Head Guardian Blitzkreig]

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Sorry, I forgot to respond earlier. Certain constitutions can be more prone to stagnation than others. If this is the case with you, then you would need to focus more on this.

That article is definitely pretty weird lol.

Yeah, big difference between processed meat and normal meat. Normal meat is basically pasture-raised, organic, grass-fed. Any deviation from that will start to have some sort of health effect. Meat gets a bad rap because their is more toxicity resulting from the animal's awful life combined with them being fed toxic food, compared to plant's that only deal with pesticides and fertilizer. Those pesticides and fertilizers that the plant deals with are then transferred to the animal, which is why the animal products come out more toxic, in general.

Pressuring cooking will make the food pretty yang-like, but also still moistening. If suffer from heat or lots of dampness, then I would do something else, such as baking or steaming. Overall though, the food choice has a lot of impact, and even if you are pressure-cooking the veggies, they will still be yin compared to meat.

You can read a brief description of the cooking methods here.