This is a marvellous collection of Taoist perspectives on why eating grains is very, very bad. The whole history of this subject is fascinating and obscure, but basically rummages around in the early period of recorded Chinese history, pitting the Confucianists – cherishers of law and order, hierarchy, doing the right thing and following orders, not to mention believers that being a grain-eater is the mark of a Civilised Man – against the Taoists – who gave us kung fu, flying, yin-yang theory and the Tao Te Ching, not to mention the belief that grain-eaters are condemning themselves to stupidity and early death.
I know where my allegiance lies…
The old-time-Taoists were the original anti-civ renegades. Left in their hands, the whole structured society thing’d fall apart, which is just as they’d like it. Read this post with half an eye on Derrick Jensen and the wider anarcho-primitivist critique of civilisation and you might find yourself wondering just why we eat so much grain-derived food these days.
Taoist Diet: Bigu – “Avoiding Grains”.
My favourite quote from the site is this:
Therefore, by giving up starches one can become immune to weapons, exorcize demons, neutralize poisons, and cure illnesses. On entering a mountain, he can render savage beasts harmless. When he crosses streams, no harm will be done to him by dragons.
Disclosure: I’m four months in to a non-grain diet. I call it the Barbarian diet, because I’m not particularly interested in being paleolithic. As you probably know, I study Chinese Medicine, so I’m interested in food as medicine. I check my pulses, watch my tongue and so on. I’m keeping an eye on things – so far, so good. I feel great. I think there’s space for introducing a few herbs to balance out the increased fat content. It’s a journey. But, the longer I go without eating grains (and keeping the carbs generally very low) the more I’m convinced that we’ve taken yet another seriously weird turn in relying so heavily on them for sustenance. More and more, they strike me as the food of a land that has exceeded its carrying capacity, food that keeps the body alive enough to work, but little more. Food, in fact, for a subjugated population who exist largely as a work-force to keep the machinery of Civilisation ticking along… But, then, I’m not well-known for my balanced opinions.
Grains? Food of the oppressor! No, thanks.
Now I’m confused. Just a few days ago I did a tiny research on this very subject (taoist diet) just a few days ago. And all I got from different sources is “taoist diet is mostly based on grains”. And idea where the differences come from?
[Maybe it's dragon propaganda! They want their prey harmless so they hacked the Internet and now try to convince people to eat grains and then cross streams!]
You’re probably right about the dragons. There’s nothing they like more than stirring up trouble in the world of nutrition, after all.
Another theory might be that some sources equate a modern Chinese Medicine ‘healthy diet’ with a Taoist diet, assuming that what’s good from a Chinese Medicine perspective is straight from the Taoist source. Which couldn’t be further from the truth, of course, as what we have today is as much subject to the prevailing orthodoxy of the last 2,000 years as all the rest (ie it’s a mash-up at best, or Confucianist or neo-Confucianist propaganda at worst.)
And then of course, there’s Taoists and there’s Taoists and there’s even more Taoists. Wherever you go, schisms and -isms and competing schools and subtle or major rifts of doctrine. Good luck.
Ah yes, this is something I’ve studied a lot, too.
I gave up grains entirely there for a while, but have since found a nice spot of (what I like to think is…) balance. Grains are certainly Neolithic man and not Paleolithic. And there’s lots of evidence out there–though a lot of it is correlated and not necessarily causal–that grains led to shorter stature in humans, smaller pelvic inlet (making childbirth considerably more painful for women), and shorter lifespan. Have you studied the Paleo diet at all? There’s lots of good articles at http://www.marksdailyapple.com
Personally, I think not eating grains *is* more ideal, just like I think the raw food diet is most ideal. I’ve followed both for great lengths of time. With the Paleo diet, I felt great – I felt energized without grains. My blood sugar levels stayed consistent throughout the day (making me verrryyy calm) instead of peak and valley-ing. What i found difficult (around here) was finding grass-fed meats. I think where some folks on the Paleo diet go awry is in eating lots and lots of conventional grain-fed meats. Sure, Paleolithic hunter-gatherers consumed lots of meats but they were wild meats full of lovely forage, not soy and corn.
On the raw food diet, I never experienced allergies (something I suffer with tremendously here in the Ohio River Valley of America where everything just settles on top of our heads!) and my skin changed! I’ve always had the tough freckled skin of a blonde Nord and it actually glowed for a while like those luscious olive-skinned lassies. *laughs*
Alas! I am currently following neither of these diets. What I found was that I became too obsessive over food. I enjoy the cozy factor that comes with lots of foods. A hot cup of tea just isn’t a hot cup of tea without a pastry of some sort. I like sprouted bread and it’s easy to carry along in my pack when I go on long walks and don’t want to stop long enough to make a fire.
I guess what I follow now is just a whole foods “method” of eating (which *does* eliminate a lot of pastries from my diet). I try to eat good meats and organic veggies most of all. But, I won’t talk myself out of enjoying a piece of beet cake or blueberry-lemon cake made with almond and coconut flour when I want ;]
Apologies for typing so much, I actually have a lot more to say on the topic, but as usual – I’m at the library and the hour glass on the screen down there is quick running out! I saw you linked to Anarcho-primitivism up there! Great! I’m thinking and writing on it at home right now, so maybe when I finally get internet at home (hopefully next week) and dump my thoughts on it, you’ll want to engage in discussion?
Take care~
I look forward to that discussion, Tiffany.
I’m no out-and-out paleo freak, don’t get me wrong. What’s good is good and life is too short and sweet to spend time abstaining for the sake of abstaining, for sure!
Much of my feeling about grains is philosophical, in the sense of what it does to land to be put over to grain production (although the same might be said of almost any aspect of industrial agriculture) and what it does to a people to become farmers of land rather than roamers on it. I also like how I feel, not eating grains, oh yes – sharp-witted and wilder, but not rough-edged – but we’ll see where it ends up.
Good luck with your internet – I’m waiting for that post…
Wow, I didn’t realize the grain vs no grain debate has been going on for thousands of years. I am on the no grain side as well.
Hmmm. Although I walk alongside on the overuse of grains and especially highly processed carbs as the bulk of one’s eating, I verge off on the currently very popular ‘paleo’ or if you prefer the more glorious ‘barbarian’ and no carb diet… I’m with Tiffany on the middle path. Food obsessiveness and extremes in themselves I feel do not nourish us. Balance and attentiveness. Also let’s not forget the fact that the higher up the food chain we eat, the less sustainable we are. If everyone goes paleo, and already we way overeat our animal compatriates, there is a serious planetary price to pay…but we all walk the path that we find truest and good luck to you Tom as you wander the protein forest
;)
There’s a lot to reply to in there and much that I agree with already, but some I have to clarify.
Agreed, food obsessiveness and extremes do not nourish us, but there are ways of approaching food that honour dietary awareness without being obsessive and there are positions to take whose extremity is arguable. If the current fad (the last few thousand years) is for high carbohydrate consumption, where is the extreme? In the fad, or in the re-balancing? One person’s middle way is another’s fundamentalism.
Attentiveness is what my approach is all about. As I think I mentioned, I take my pulses and watch my tongue, because I’m a student of Chinese Medicine – I am fascinated by diet and the culture of eating, but my fascination is that of attentiveness, not neurosis.
The ‘if everyone went paleo…’ argument seems to me to be the wrong argument to be having. It presupposes that there is a morally ‘correct’ way of acting in the current madness of our situation, by which everyone would be acting the same and doing the right thing. The facts of our situation are that there are far too many people on the planet for them to live in a sane manner. If everyone went paleo, or vegan, or raw food, or forest-garden-supplied, there still isn’t a way out of the mess. None of our approaches are sustainable when multiplied by the sheer volume of humanity as it is today. Hard fact. For the record, though, my ideal, my morally perfect situation?
I don’t see it happening in my lifetime, do you? But perhaps my great-grandchildren’s descendants might know something of it, after the collapse of things. Sustainability in these times is a precarious notion full of assumptions and illusions.
As for the protein forest – this is one of the biggest hurdles: getting enough fat without eating too much protein. Time is teaching me how much I need to eat, and it varies a lot.
But the bottom line is that whatever foods you eat, it’s good food that matters and I’m sure we both feel the same about that. I agree with you in much of what you say, just not some of your assumptions about my approach. Enjoy your way, whatever it is, and thanks for the thoughtful comment :)
Thanks Tom, humble apologies for any assumptions made. From being a blog reader I am most sure that you are taking the path with seriousness and attentiveness and humour… And I am in complete agreement with the fundamental issue of our ridiculous overwhelming hungry population, and sit around the same cooking fire in that ideal world. I do still stand, though, with the thought that where we are now, in this crazy out-of -balance world, eating lower down the food chain is the gentlest and kindest approach to all the sentient life forms involved, the staggering planet herself included of course…
Ad so we all walk on, shouldering our own ideas and carrying them with us, making our way as best we can.
A pleasure to have your response, thanks.
A most gracious response to my reply, Rosie :) We shall have to disagree over the gentlest and kindest approach, for now – this is a huge subject in itself – but to argue further would, as Milarepa says, lead only to weeping and laughter. Safety from dragons is surely always the highest priority, whether paleo, barbarian, vegan or omnivore (even for dragon-eaters.)
Ps it was a great post actually. I most enjoyed reading it…we may all need to be safe from dragons when crossing streams soon…
“Also let’s not forget the fact that the higher up the food chain we eat, the less sustainable we are. If everyone goes paleo, and already we way overeat our animal compatriates, there is a serious planetary price to pay”
I would like to challenge this tremendously flawed statement, an argument that has been brought up again and again against the paleonutritional and other primitivistic philosophies and is fundamentally a programmed reaction, code written in the social mind by the lobbying efforts of vegan ideologues, GMOs merchants and human livestock shepperds.
The position in the food chain of the human specie is not determined by economic factors but by millions of years of evolution. And we are not, digestively and behaviorally, primary eaters. What is or what is not sustainable, in our current socioeconomic system, is rarely determined by real biophysical parameters but by the constraints to human ingenuity that the monetary system creates. So, taking into account how factory farmed meat and dairy products are produced, then yes, a high meat consumption is non sustainable and an ecological disaster. But the real cause of the destructive force of current meat production is non other that grain agriculture, as that is what factory farmed livestock is unnaturally fed. Obviously, eating grains in the form of animals is dozens of times less energetically efficient than eating the grains themselves. What is to say, the destructive force of grain agriculture is multiplied dozens of times. So the paradigm remains, a grain based socioeconomic system.
The reasons for the existence of grain based concentrated animal feeding operations are exclusively economical reasons in a system whose economical rules are dictated for the interest of the few.
But there is life beyond businness as usual. The alternative to industrial meat is not a grain based diet. The alternative is a properly done meat production within the realms of ecologically established pasture ecosystems.
There are zillions of acres of unproductive land in the world that could become balanced pasture ecosystems where meat could be an ecological surplus to harvest. The integrated model of pluriculture family (insert here any small human community) farm where a GRASS-fed animal production is ecologically linked and cycled with an organic horticultural production is proven to be way more efficient, way healthier and “sustainable”. Combine this permaculture-like way of relating to the land with the application of the not yet exploited (again for economic reasons) of the real potential of modern technology and you can provide with such an abundance of real food that we can not even imagine.
Problem is, this model allows for human freedom and prevents accumulation of power.
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Thank you Huaquin for the challenge. It is always good to have a civil discussion with someone sitting across the fence from ourselves. One thing no doubt all of us hovering around this fruitful and nourishing blog agree on is the disastrous state of current food and eating culture in our society. So there we unite. Your ideal of community based grass fed permaculture like animal production does indeed sound sustainable. Maybe even only 100 years ago we could have veered down a different path and ended up in that paddock. However I believe our population far exceeds that possibility now. And I hold less than no hope that ‘the real potential of modern technology’ has the magic wand to save us…
Oh and if there are zillions of acres of ‘unproductive land’ I do sincerely hope that they remain that way!
All best on your journey,
Rosie
Just wondering what’s on the Barbarian diet menu–dairy? And what’s off it–legumes?
Do you know the work of Paul Jaminet? “Perfect Health Diet”: a website and recently published book. It’s basically paleo, but with his contribution of the concept of “safe starches”. All grains are shunned, with the exception of white rice–which is considered relatively “benign”. Potatoes are also in the safe starch category.
I’m guessing that we’re all improvising at this point; perhaps others will do well on sourdough rye or soaked oatmeal.
Another obvious point to realize is that any reference to grain in Jesus’ time was a reference to an actual grain, in whole form or made into bread (that also wouldn’t resemble the stuff you get at the store!). Certainly, grains in Jesus’ time would not have been made into donuts, pretzels, chips, snack foods, cookies, etc.
I’m in the no grain camp…For many and most of the above stated reasons. I feel great I teach 15 Taiji and Qigong classes a week and I have tons of energy. I do eat some very small amounts of meat and because I don’t want to be a “food Nazi” I am a “social grain eater”…. sometimes it is just easier to eat the (damn) sandwich then explain why you do bigu…
Living on fruit, veggies and occasional meat, I love beans and lentils for protein not so paleo but more sustainable and certainly cheaper, I am in the best shape of my life. I have lost over 75 lbs since becoming Taoist almost 14 years ago.
Ps I also enjoy quinoa which is NOT a grain but a seed.
Cheers all!
Is potatoe a permissible food?
It depends who you ask. Or what your body says about it.
I generally avoid them, on the grounds that the modern potato is a massive carb hit and little more. Sweet potatoes are another kettle of tubers entirely and I enjoy them (in moderation, of course) both baked and in soups and so on.
If you’re going to eat potatoes, eat good ones – there are some funky old and local varieties that I’m sure have a lot more going for them than the generic supermarket spud…
And, to be honest, I change the rules all the time. If the situation dictates, I’ll enjoy a potato with the best of them. Be flexible, yet clear. Enjoy life. And potatoes when the Tao speaks.