Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition (Paperback)

As an organic integration of Chinese healing practice and western nutrition, this book provides one of the most systematic and comprehensive discussions of the relationship between food and health. Basically, there are three aspects I find most helpful about this book. First, the large scope it covers: from raw food to cooked food, from herbs to animal product, from water to minerals, from food combination to the art of chewing...the book explores these topics in an unhurried, sensible, and lucid manner. The analysis on each of the major foods near the end of the book is useful for the reader to select meal ingredients that can best help improve his/her health. Second, I like the "middle path" approach the author takes, without going to extremes with either his theory or practice. For instance, the author himself practises vegetarianism, as shown by some parts of the book, but he also acknowleges the effectiveness of meat in treating certain deficiencies. Third, I like its flexibility in tuning into each reader's different individual need and condition. For instance, raw vegetables and fruits may help the person who has "heat" signs, but may be too cooling for the person who feels cold constantly, especially in the colder season. So each person can use this book to fit his/her individual needs.

Because of my interest in food, health, and nutrition, I have read widely in these fields. But more often than not, I encounter books that take a narrow-minded, absolute, almost fanatic approach that makes you wonder what they are really selling. Paul Pitchford's book, however, impresses me as honest, intelligent advices given by a trusted friend, who has a full grasp of the eastern (mostly Chinese) food healing art, and discusses it from the perspective of western nutrition.

I only wish my copy of this book were a hard-cover so it probably could better withstand my frequent consulting (for almost three years).

For example, night sweats could be caused by a yang excess or a yin deficiency. The treatments for both are almost opposite. Knowing the difference is very difficult unless you have some knowledge of Chinese medicine or are seen by a practioner. I, for example am both yin and yang deficient, and eliminating the building foods, as Pitchford recommends for excesses, wasn't helping me and could have had devastating conquences. Pitchford seems to sway towards this diet, recommending a liver cleanse as the first step toward balancing most problems.

He is also a devout vegan, which he explains at the beginning of the book. And it is this diet he is pushing, while in traditional Chinese medicine, such a diet is not recommended because it can lead to deficencies. Animal products are both recommended to eat and in herbal formulas. His dietary suggestions are a bit extreme as well, like don't give kids nut butters. What is life without nut butters? A kids gotta live! If it wasn't for some of the condiments Pitchford says to avoid, my kid would never eat. But my kid wouldn't touch an obvious vegtable if he was starving all day.

Buy this book if you want to know about whole foods, but be aware of this bias. And if you need treatment, go to a practitioner, certainly before you follow any of Pitchford's recommendations. I did go to a practitioner and knew what my issues were (all deficient, as post-pardom mothers usually are) and did a gall bladder cleanse from this book with amazing results (as horrible as it is to drink a cup of lemon juice and olive oil). There is certainly alot of good information here, but I completetly disagree with the need for a vegan diet, especially concerning children. Pitchford himself says it isn't really possible to get B12 adequately from this kind of diet, so how can it be the most natural diet for humans?