What is internal damp?

[Veronica01]

I have seen a few references around here that eating cold juicy foods can cause damp and something about acupuncturists determining some raw foodists have damp. What does that mean and how would you know if you have it? It's pretty generic to put through google and I didn't really find anything.

[kaybee]

probably someone else can help you more than me so you dont have to wade through google, but the terminology i think comes from chinese medicine. maybe google "TCM" and "internal damp" or "chinese medicine" and internal damp. my old acupuncturist said i had low chi, which i think is related to this, and disagreed with my vegan diet and told me whatever i did, DO NOT DO THE RAW FOODS THING.... ugh. (obviously i didnt listen)

[Veronica01]

yeah i found a kind of article that said to warm ALL foods, even fruits in a pan and crock potting helps as it predigests the food for you.... why you should eat anything that had to be predigested or its hard on your body, i don't know...

i know a lot of chinese people are "healthy" and they do cook a lot of their food, but they are usually low fat and low meat eaters as well, so that could just be relatively healthy compared to americans... but why raw food is the worst thing a human can do, i have no idea... what did people do before crock pots? they didn't die obviously or we wouldn't be here right.

I find it funny that acupunturists and herbalists would be against natural raw food eating..
I wonder if doing reiki and being a raw foodist would make a difference at all, like if i did it regularly and then went to an acupunturist, i wonder what my chi would be and if they could tell i was raw... hmm

[JennaBoBenna]

I find it funny that acupunturists and herbalists would be against natural raw food eating..

me too! every single animal in the animal kingdom eats raw food and they aren't dying because the food is "cold"! they live just fine!

[Lavendula]

I was really looking at all this last year when, after 8-9 months on at least 80-100 % raw, I was having severe internal and extremity coldness. So much so I felt like I had been opened up and packed in ice from my chest down to the groin area. Thyroid? yep. too much kale?, yep. adrenal fatigue? yep. I just about went over the edge, felt like I was dead already. Too much raw, or not the right raw approach, maybe and yes. I was using all the warming herbs,roots spices,etc., even drinking hot tea, I had the internal icy feeling. TCM does say no to the all raw diet, because it causes a yang chi deficiency( digestive fire). The TCM DR. I saw, on the other hand, said it was a dry heat condition and that raw was okay, and gave me a bunch of Chinese Herbs. Well, he did not give them to me. I saw him one more time,and had acupuncture. But by then I was going in circles, and did not have the energy to do all of what I was doing before. We had some huge changes in our life, and I could not do the dehydrating, juicing, etc. I have recently been reading two of Dr. Gabriel Cousen's books and he looks at more of an Holistic-Ayurvedic approach. The importance of eating according to your own metabolic and physiological needs. One size diet does not fit all, raw or otherwise. This holistic approach is so important to understand. I can't even begin to really comment, other than ,that we have a responsibility to ourselves and others to do the raw diet with our eyes open, and learn all we can about the right approach to a raw diet.

[Veronica01]

Thanks for sharing. That is interesting, but I still have no idea what the right approach would be for me to have the right inner balance of yang and chi. I find that fascinating.

[green jeanie]

100% RAW FOOD ACUPUNCTURIST/HERBALIST here

(bastyr grad, trained in china, 12 years experience etc etc etc)


i have a lot to say about this and of course not any time to say it as i am in the office right now :)


much of what is taught in acupuncture schools across the country on this topic comes from literally one sentence in a book over 3,000 years old. Clearly, translation and context can often be overlooked and simplified. IMO this advice for warming / dry foods is in the context of exhaustion of the digestive system.....these are MEDICAL texts after all. The prescription that would follow would be for well cooked foods that are often blended and therefore very easy to digest..........ahem.....similar to green smoothies and juice ;)

one may also stop and consider that 3,000 years ago bacteria and food born pathogens were an entirely different thing....ever wonder what a 3,000 year old refrigerator looks like....??
to this day in china all water HAS TO be boiled to be consumed....ever wonder how a culture becomes the conoisseur of tea?

there is an epidemic of hepatitis and they use human feces on vegetables...so, yes i think cooking the hepatitis out of your breakfast is a good suggestion for long life


on the flip side: where were the oil spills, gas leaks and pesticides....do you ever wonder how you would be respond to raw food if you hadn't been exposed to a single mcdonalds birthday party or easter bunny???
would you need to detox if you had been eating whole organic food everyday forever?? wouldn't you warm up your food if you lived outside in the winter or choose ginger roots instead of watermelon ??

have you ever seen an obese asian person????

makes you think the standards/needs may be a little different
The concept of damp/cold really does refer specifically however to sugary fruits and as we all know too much simple sugar is NOT HEALTHY and must be balanced with greens and other foods. However, again, these texts are specifically advising on no cold/damp for people with pathology and disease in their spleen/pancreas function. aka diabetes aka the no diabetes RAW protocols of gabriel cousens which exclude all sugary fruit for up to 3-6 months!

what i observe in this topic is that there is a glitch in thinking in both the acupuncturist world and in the raw food world. And yes as posted above, certain diets are more appropriate for specific people and individual health concerns

Now I know as post modern /industrialist /techies we are never satisfied with ANYTHING and tend to have sentimental value for "ancient tradition" or be looking for the "next best thing"

but unfortunately, we have to think

andfortunately, we live at a time when we are blessed with abundance of information, resources and choice

xooxxo gj

[RawKnitster]

David Wolfe writes that in Chinese oriental medicine the yin-yang balance of "cold" raw foods may be balanced with hot Sun energy.

He suggests Sun gazing, looking directly at the Sun AT DUSK AND DAWN ONLY for 30 seconds, then increase gradually as one acclimates.

Also getting sunlight directly on the skin. As much skin as possible. Sunlight increases the body's internal "fire".

I'm not saying to do that, I'm just reading it from his book "The Sunfood Diet Success System".

[RawKnitster]

100% RAW FOOD ACUPUNCTURIST/HERBALIST here

(bastyr grad, trained in china, 12 years experience etc etc etc)





GJ, your a wealth of good information. It's so nice to have you on the board. :)

[Veronica01]

Thanks for the info on that. I would be more than grateful to hear any other information you have green jeanie (time permitting)! I appreciate you taking time from your job to comment.

[green jeanie]

ok i edited in some new stuff to the rant :D

[kaybee]

wow green jeanie--you are a bastyr grad!?.... the naturopaths i saw there in the clinic were great, and they helped me alot and didnt tell me what i HAD to do with my diet, but they seemed a bit reticent about me being mostly raw.... thats cool that you have managed to integrate it all. the acupuncturist i saw years ago that warned me against raw even though i didnt even know what it was at the time, was also a bastyr grad....my impression is that TCM isnt very raw-friendly. granted, I havent figured out how to best make raw "work" for me...i still dont feel great alot of the time, my digestion and health still is not great, but cooked doesnt make me feel good either, so...and thats what i told them at bastyr. they really wanted me to consider adding animal products back in though, which i made clear i wasnt willing to do...they told me that i could get healthier by following their other recommendations and supplements (that were not in opposition to my ethics/beliefs), but that i would probably reach a point where my health would level-out and still not be optimum and that i might want to consider adding back animal products at that point in order to really get optimum health (which i cannot do, regardless of whether it would/could make me healthier, as my first and foremost reason for going and being vegan is compassion for animals)...
anyway, good to know some have managed to integrate TCM and raw vegan...

kaybee