I see obese people every day. Of course, obese Asians are typically smaller than obese Westerners, due to smaller frames, but there are still plenty of them. Most men over 40 have the bulbous abdominal obesity that you often see with carb junkies.

And if you eat in a middle-class or budget restaurant, EVERYTHING is based on rice or noodles, with a side of meat. Vegetables are extremely rare. When I go out, I try to order the dishes with the most meat, and order a side of veggies (they are usually served steamed or sauteed). Occasionally, the waitress is unaware of the fact that they even serve veggies by themselves. One time at a ‘cha chan teng’ (HK style western cafe), a waitress displayed a shocking look on her face when we asked for vegetables! She couldn’t believe that we didn’t just want to order huge piles of fried noodles or rice!

I’m sorry, but if you think HK (and China) people do not eat large amounts of rice, you have a skewed perspective, perhaps based on only going to fancy expensive restaurants where they serve dozens of tiny dishes. Go to a normal, every-day restaurant, and you will see people eating piles (literally, piled onto their plates) of fried rice, fried noodles, or huge bowls of noodles in soup.

A belated welcome to Hong Kong, Drs Eades!

Although Dr Eades says he didn’t see many obese Hong Kong people, I can say that over the twenty-some years I have lived here the numbers of overweight have really risen. Back in the 1980s it was rare to see an obese people. But nowadays it’s very common. And we have tourists coming from the Mainland who are also very obese.

And Dr Eades is correct about rice eating. It isn’t eaten as much – or in such large quantites – as people might think. If eaten, it is in a quite small bowl that fits in a cupped hand. But folks do like their noodles and wonton.

Glad you enjoyed the food!

“Your phrase …seems to imply that there’s some easily measurable physical or chemical correlate of yin-yang. Is that assumption correct? If so, it offers a lot of hope for integrating Chinese medicine with western.”

Not correct. This way of categorizing foods (hot-warm-neutral-cool-cold) occurs, to my knowledge, in all “primitive” cultures, and is far from an exact science. Some Chinese researchers have suggested that pro-oxidation equals yang, and anti-oxidation equals yin, but this does not pan out correctly.

We determine a food’s thermal effect by direct experience…that is, when you eat it, do you feel warmer or cooler or no change; and, how does it feel to the tongue/mouth?

In some cases, we can find in the food (e.g. cayenne) some compound(s) that exert the thermal effect (e.g. capsaicin), in others (e.g. lamb), to my knowledge, we have not identified any single chemical that makes it heating. In all cases we are actually dealing with the effect of the whole food, not just one component. I think most people can “intuitively” sense that e.g. watermelon is cold, based on experience that eating watermelon feels really satisfying when the body feels hot. This is where Chinese science, medicine and nutrition differ from the reductionistic trend of Western sciences. Chinese thought focuses on the direct sensory experience and the context of the experience for information, whereas Western medicine tries to isolate a single chemical responsible for an action.

Regarding cinnamon and ginger, they exemplify why we have difficulty identifying direct correlations between yin-yang and western categories like “antioxidant.” Since oxidation resembles burning, you might think an antioxidant “quenches fire” so would be classified as yin. But in direct experience cinnamon and ginger feel hot, generate circulation, etc, so Chinese science classifies them as hot. Again, Chinese science deals with wholes (ginger), not parts (e.g. only the antioxidant capacity).

I don’t know of any book accessible to the layman that deals with these nutrition topics with any attempt to integrate them with Western science. The Dao of Chinese Medicine: Understanding an Ancient Healing Art by Donald Edward Kendall does discuss the scientific basis of Chinese medicine but is really suited only to practitioners.

I do have a blog; clicking on my name takes you to it.

Don

Not that you are going to see this post.. But cats are OBLIGATE carnivores, so your instincts there were spot-on. The reason that carbohydrates are included in cat (and dog) foods is that they are cheap. Period. It has long been known that dogs can survive very well, thank you very much, on meat, providing it includes some organ meat as well as hair, bones and the ‘rest oft he story’.

All dogs will much grass and it is largely to help them with transit through the digestion process. They don’t have the enzymes necessary (cats? Even worse!) to break down any sort of cellulose laden vegetable, so when they feed cats/dogs these things they are only salving their own idea of what is ‘good for you’.

I’ve been long scared of feeding ‘bones’, but there are a lot of folks who feed raw chicken wings as a staple part of their dog’s (cats) diet with kidney/heart/liver thrown in for whatever sort of benefit they have.

Remember that these animals evolved to eat most of the animal they have killed. Wolves do take down large elk and other large animals, but for a lot of the year many wolves subsist on a diet of only small ‘vermin’, such as mice. Bite. Swallow . The fur doesn’t digest either, but it winds itself into the bones so that the intestines are safely transited – we have coyote scat in our (long winding) entry to the ranch every few days, and it is full of hair, primarily rabbit, little bone shards are also cast, but wrapped firmly in the hair.

Long story, but a particular gripe of mine, given my love of dogs (and SOME cats). But whatever can be said of dog’s diet, is triply true of cats. All that carbohydrate in their foods cannot be a good thing, because it is readily digestable they do absorb it, but to ill effects if you ask me.

My dogs have been eating ‘low carb’ for over 25 years, and I rarely see anything other than old age creep up on them… My vet used to be a skeptic, but he has changed his tune the last 10 years or so given my dogs and several of his other client’s dogs as well.

Oh one more thing: My dogs do NOT have ‘doggie odor’, ever. Their coats are sleek and clean, and they are quite healthy with only the usual damage from living in rough country and rocketing around after game and frisbees!

Cheers, Dr. Mike – hope your trip was fun and not too exhausting. Sorry this was so off topic, but as I said, it is MY hot button… If WE evolved to eat ‘low carb’, what in the world are we doing feeding our pet carnivores junk carbs?

Wallflower

On another note I have come to experience an intresting experiment.My friend’s persian cat was getting fat and lazy. She didnt know what to do about it. I asked her what she was feeding the cat. She showed me the dry food she was feeding her. The first few ingredients were corn meal, soy and chicken by product whtever that means. But most of the ingredients were grains. Where do you see cats eating corn and brown rice in nature? But my friend was insistant that it was all healthy for her sicne she was liking it so much. I suggested that she started feeding the cat some canned food and primarily meat only as its supposed to be. She did and in a few weeks the cat is more playful and energetic and seems to be getting less lazy. Shocking! Damn, even cats are addicted to carbs which are not natural to them! Those eveil carbs!

“Of commonly consumed foods, only chicken, turkey, and ham have warm thermal natures, and lamb gets classified as hot in Chinese medical nutrition textbooks.”

I meant “of commonly consumed animal foods.”

Don

I want to add that the common Chinese person’s understanding of Chinese medical concepts probably is about as good as the common American’s understanding of Western medical concepts, i.e. not so good and without critical thinking. Also, most Chinese physicians, like most Western physicians, just believe what they are taught so there is a lot of crud spouted in Chinese medicine just as in Western medicine.

For example, the typical Cantonese might view all meat as yang (heating, drying), but a well educated Chinese medicine practitioner knows that Chinese nutritionists have determined that beef, duck, goose, beef liver, and pork all have a neutral thermal effect (neither too heating nor cooling), not hot, and every single one of those also nourishes the yin (i.e., has a moistening effect). So based on these concepts, you can eat all the beef and pork you like and never get overheated and too dry (the meaning of “too yang”).

Eggs and most dairy products (milk, cheese, cream) have a neutral thermal effect, and all nourish the fluids. Eggs are considered so good for nourishing yin (the moistening, cooling and material stuff of the body) that they are ingredients in the strongest of the herbal formulas Chinese herbalists use for nourishing yin (basically, for countering malnutrition). Butter is considered warm, and yogurt cool.

Most fish also have a neutral thermal effect, and shellfish have cooling effects.

Of commonly consumed foods, only chicken, turkey, and ham have warm thermal natures, and lamb gets classified as hot in Chinese medical nutrition textbooks.

In contrast, cayenne, garlic, black pepper, chili, mustard, cinnamon, and ginger are all considered hot, and many other herbs (such as cumin, clove, rosemary, parsley, basil, bay, fennel, and caraway) are all classified as hot. And not one of these has the property of nourishing the yin (matter and moisture) of the body. So according to Chinese medical concepts, there are more extremely yang plant foods than extremely yang animal foods, and these are the ones that can cause imbalance and to avoid if you’re concerned with getting “too yang.”

Again, this illustrates how the typical Cantonese has only a rudimentary and error-ridden understanding of Chinese medical nutrition concepts.

Don

I hold a Master of Science in Oriental medicine, an acupuncture license in Arizona (#562, look it up online if you like) and NCCAOM certification in Oriental medicine including herbal medicine. If balancing yin and yang is your concern, on a low carb diet you have meat (yang) and non-starchy vegetables (yin) — you don’t have to throw in the filler foods to “balance” heating and cooling types of foods.

Personally, I’ve never seen anyone overheated from eating a meat-based diet, but I’ve seen plenty of people with blood and yang deficiency from vegetarian or low meat diets. I don’t think you can get “too yang” (i.e. overheated, too dry, too active) by eating a meat-based diet.

The Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Book of Internal Medicine), thought to originate around 300 B.C.E., contains the following passage:

“In ancient times, people lived simply. They hunted, fished, and were with nature all day. When the weather cooled, they became active to fend off the cold. When the weather heated up in summer, they retreated to cool places. Internally, their emotions were calm and peaceful, and they were without excessive desires. Externally, they did not have the stress of today. They lived without greed and desire, close to nature. They maintained jing shen nei suo, or inner peace and concentration of mind and spirit. This prevented pathogens from invading. Therefore they did not need herbs to treat their internal state, nor did they need acupuncture to treat the exterior. When they did contract disease they simply guided properly the emotions and spirit and redirected the energy flow, using the method of zhu yuo to heal the condition.”

So it is clear that Chinese Physicians have long known a) that their ancestors were hunters (notice that they didn’t mention gathering plants), and b) that those ancestors were healthier than the agricultural Chinese. A highly developed medical system like Chinese medicine only arises in a population that has lots of unhealthy people.

Further, if you go back into Taoist roots of Chinese medicine, you find that the Taoists very well understood that agriculture caused a decline in health (as well as liberty). Early Taoists clearly taught that eating grains fed “grain worms” that destroyed health. Early Taoism taught “bi gu” — avoid grains. [Read Taoist Body by Kristofer Schipper, an ordained Taoist priest.]

Regarding diabetes, it has a very long history in China, and Chinese physicians knew long ago to treat it with carbohydrate restriction. Diabetes was identified by urine analysis at least as early as 700 CE in China, whereas it was not identified by European physicians until 1660 CE. [See Temple R. (1986) The Genius of China: 3,000 years of science, discovery, and invention. London: Prion Books Ltd.]

In his book Old and New Tried and Tested Prescriptions (circa 700 C.E.), Chinese physician Chen Ch’uan provides the first written description of three forms of diabetes and notes that the urine of diabetics contains sugar. Li Hsuan correctly explained that cereal foods supply “precursors of sweetness” while cakes and sweetmeats “all very soon turn to sweetness.” The famed physician Sun Ssu-Mo in about 655 wrote his book A Thousand Golden Remedies, in which he stated that to cure diabetic conditions, “three things must be renounced, wine, sex, and eating salted, starchy cereal products; if this regimen can be observed, cure may follow without drugs.” [See Temple R. (1986) The Genius of China: 3,000 years of science, discovery, and invention. London: Prion Books Ltd.]

BTW, Sun Ssu-Mo also enjoys fame for having lived 101 years (581-682 CE)—he qualifies as one of the longest lived of famous Chinese physicians, despite having lived in the sixth century.

So diabetes has been a major health problem in China for at least 1300 years, and famous Chinese physicians knew how to cure it by cutting the sugar and starch, including cereals. Unfortunately most of this knowledge has been ignored in “mainstream” Chinese medicine for a long time, especially since it got “standardized” under Mao Tze Tung’s iron hand.

Don