June 2011

We just got back from a two day workshop with Paul Pitchford, author of Healing with Whole Foods. It was very interesting, if not daunting. His book is a huge one, full of information about Chinese medicine and using diet to heal diseases.

The big news was that parasites are a huge part of most people’s health problems. It seems that most of us are harboring an imbalance in our intestinal flora such as candida overgrowth, or some of us have picked up microbes at some point in our lives that have been sitting in us all this time and creating problems of various sorts such as allergies, skin problems, obesity, and so on. Some folks who have been in the far East get parasites there which can still be around, and some of us are getting exposed to inappropriate microorganisms by our household pets. That was especially hard for me to hear.

At the course we got new information about how to treat these situations with herbs and diet. And we are ready to help everyone that we think is ready for this.

The dietary changes are often fairly simple, to my way of thinking, but I am sure many of my clients would find them a bit daunting. Therefore, I’ll be posting ideas and recipes on this blog ongoingly. Most of what needs to be changed is increasing the variety and amount of fresh vegetables in the diet. And incorporating the use of SPROUTS. So we will be talking about sprouting. Additionally, the use of micro-algae such as chlorella, spirulina, and blue-green will be suggested. However, the choice of which alga to use depends a lot on the condition and constitution of the person.

Paul was pretty firm in his ideas, having treated people nutritionally for 30 years or so. He believes that a raw foods diet is great in the short run, but that it ends up making people very weak over time. It is also full of nuts and their butters, which are very fatty.

He also thinks that the vegan diet is not a good one for people unless they are meditators or very quiet and still a lot. He thinks that most people need some animal protein if they are going to be out in the modern world. But, of course, he recommends limited amounts and types of animal protein. You guessed it, free range, organic, grass fed is best. And properly combined small amounts. That means 2-3 oz combines with vegetables at a meal. Never combined with starch at a meal, due to the differences in digestive enzymes required for meat and starch.

Paul bases most of his recommendations on anthropological studies of primitive people, combined with the principles of Asian medicine. He says that the evidence is that for 60 million years man was hunter gatherer. That means mostly veges, berries, and meat. Also small amounts of grains later in history.

He also recommends the under-eating approach that has gotten some press in the past couple of years. That means eating less than you’d like. It has shown to lead to longer life and less disease in many cases.

And of course, no sugar or sweeteners of any kind for most of us. No refined foods at all. Nothing prepared or packaged, except frozen veges. So that means we have to COOK.

I’ll be posting suggestions about how to cook ahead for the week so we are not in trouble by not having things ready. I’ll also point out ways that we can use things like pressure cookers and slow cookers to make life easier.

There are many cookbooks out there that feature this type of cooking. Most of the healthy recipe books, even those from places like weight watchers, are focusing on exactly this type of recipe nowadays.

So, stay tuned and I’ll be letting you all know more about these ideas very soon.

 

More Later.