first radio interview done

I just got off the phone with Stan Milam, a radio host from WCLO in Janesville Wisconsin. He interviewed me for 18 minutes on the air about "The Asian Diet". It was fun and I am very grateful to have the opportunity to spread the word about how adopting some of the principles of the diet can prevent disease and promote wellness. I will soon post a link to the podcast.

Today is Monday and I am at the Tiffani Kim Institute, performing acupuncture. I work half-days on Mondays. This afternoon my wife and I will take our daughter to the pediatrician. We are considering going to China this summer and want to discuss the health risks to a 6-month old. We don't want her to need too many vaccinations while she's still so young. The powers that be state that vaccines are effecive and safe, but I'm not so convinced. I worked in mental health for many years, and am very afraid of autism.

The CDC says they are safe and effective. The way they define "safe for vaccines is different that how they define "safe" for drugs. Drugs have to be compared to placebo, or no drug. Vaccines are compared to existing vaccines. So if we have an approved vaccine that is causing adverse effects in 16 out of 1000 people, and then the new one causes advers effects in 18 out of 1000, that difference is not statisically significant and then 18/1000 becomes the bar. As far as effective goes, there are a lot of people who still get the diseases for which they have been vaccinated. Now, I don't want to get all anti-vaccine here. It is a choice for the parents. Vaccines have saved lives. But I don't like the administration of multiple diseases at the same time, and I don't like vaccines being administered before they could be necessary. At birth, they want to give every child a hepatitis vaccine. My little girl would only be exposed to the Hep if my wife had it (which she does not), or through sexual contact or IV drug use. My newborn was not going to be engaging in these behaviours, so I think we can wait a few years for that. A generation before us, most people got the measles and did not die. It's not like the plague where no one can survive it.

There are some things that can kill babies, like menenigitis. So we are vaccinating for that. Not that you all need to know what we are choosing for our daughters medical care. This is a tangent- back on track. . .

I may be going to china to study some more this summer. Check out the newest reviews of my book on amazon. or go to theasiandiet.com and read more about the asian diet.

First Radio Interview coming up,.

So, there is more excitement to report. My publicist just called to tell me that I have been booked on a talk radio show on WCLO in Janesville, Wisconsin. This Monday, June 8th at 10 A.M. I don't know if they will have a podcast of it available after the show, (in case you are part of that small percentage of the world who do not live in Janesville).

My book is very down on dairy. So I imagine that is what they will want to talk about (being in the heart of dairy country). If I can get the US dairy council to try to discredit me, then I will know that my book has become successful. They can discredit me all they want, but you can't argue with 3000 years of tried-and-true culture. The Asians have far less dairy, and they have far less diet-related disease, and far less cancer.

Dairy turns to phlegm in an adult body. Phlegm can manifest in many different ways; one of which is as an abnormal growth such as a cyst, fibroid, or tumor. The Chinese understand these abnormal growths to be basically phlegmballs. They noticed more in the populations that had more dairy. So the lesson was learned that dairy is not best for adults. We can have it in moderation, but there has been a real concerted campaign to convince us that Milk is a healthy food; and it is not.

Dairy is appropriate for infants, or individuals who are emaciated. It is designed by nature to grow tissue (including fat). Most Americans are not looking to put on more mass, but are rather trying to lose or at least maintain their weight. It is best to eat a lot of vegetables, mostly cooked, simple grains, and a little of everything else.

The Asian Diet featured on AOL

An interview with me was just posted to AOL.com's "That's Fit" site. Check it out at http://www.thatsfit.com/2009/05/14/asian-diet-for-weight-loss

I am grateful to be very busy lately and have not had as much time to post. Everyone go to www.theasiandiet.com and www.acfom.com for more information about my book and practice.

I have my first book signing on Monday the 18th at The Book Stall in Winnetka, IL at 7pm. This will be after eight hours of teaching, so my voice may be a little fried. A bunch of people have RSVP'd that they are going to attend though, so I am happy.

Then in June I have a signing at the Border's books and music in Wilmette, and July has me at the Barnes and Noble in Old Orchard shopping center in Skokie, IL And then in August I am giving a lecture and book signing at the Evanston library in Evanston IL. I am looking for more groups to present to, so if you know of any, please let me know at jason@theasiandiet.com.

The Asian Diet, preface

This is the preface to my book, The Asian Diet: Simple secrets for eating right, losing weight, and being well. After you read it, please visit the website, www.theasiandiet.com Then you can visit my office website www.acfom.com which does not talk about diet, but is rather about acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.


Chapter one: Preface

Welcome to the book. I hope you enjoy it; and I hope you learn things that will help you for the rest of your life.

Have you ever noticed the shape of the average American compared to that of the average Asian? America is the most obese nation and the problem is growing rapidly. This trend is the result of poor diet and lifestyles. We are finally waking up to what the Asian cultures can teach us in terms of health care (acupuncture, herbology, tai chi); now it is time to learn what they have discovered about eating and living in balance.

The pieces of material that comprise this book are the combined lessons I try to impart to all of my patients. At the onset of treatment, I give them all a talk about adjusting their diet, lifestyle, and attitudes to improve their health, mood, and longevity. Many of my patients asked where they could get this information in a written form and I was not able to find it. So I wrote it this book.

About Me

I am an acupuncturist and herbalist. I trained in the states and completed advanced training and an internship in China. I am the President of the Illinois Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and have a private practice with my wife in Wilmette, Illinois. Many astute people have noticed that I am not Asian. What is a white guy doing in Oriental Medicine?

I earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and worked in psychiatric hospitals for several years before returning to school to study pre-med. As I was applying to med schools, I was dismayed at how unhappy the doctors with whom I worked were. I kept hearing "Don't go into medicine. Do anything else. The money is not there, the autonomy's not there, the respect's not there, and even the patient contact isn't there anymore. There's no good reason to be a doctor." The first 20 times I heard it, I shrugged it off. But I kept hearing it and it got to me. Then a nurse with whom I worked told me about the acupuncture program in town. I had been interested in Eastern philosophy since taking a course in high school, but never had considered Oriental Medicine as a career.

I read some books about OM and found the whole paradigm pretty suspect. I come from a family of physicians and was pre-med myself. I understand things like bacteria and viruses; the Chinese talk about things like "wind-cold invading the lung". It was all so foreign and different that I didn't know if I would ever believe in the system. I figured I could make a living at it because enough other people would believe. My skepticism was very short-lived, though, once I saw how effective this medicine is and how much sense the philosophy makes. Now I love what I do. I get to spend a lot of time with my patients, and I get to help them. In psychiatry, I worked pretty much with a chronic population where very few people ever improved. With Oriental Medicine, I am able to help almost all of my patients safely. Oriental Medicine is the acquired wisdom of thousands of years of experimentation, observation and documentation. They have learned a lot about what works and what doesn't. I am a grateful recipient of these lessons. Now I want to share this knowledge with everyone to help them take better care of themselves and live longer and happier lives.

I have presented this information to enough groups and patients to know that this system will be difficult for many people to work with at first. This book presents guidelines and suggestions; but it does not tell you what to do. You have to decide how to implement the suggestions and create your diet. The South Beach Diet was so successful partly because it told people exactly what to do. Many of us like being given a strict structure to follow . . .for a while. But after about 60 days we get tired of having no freedom and break from the prescribed regimen. So I am just planting seeds. How they germinate is up to you. And it is not an all-or-nothing proposition. If you have a bad day, don't give up; start again. We just want to be good on more days.

The opinions expressed in this book are just that – opinions. This book makes no claims of being definitive or authoritative. The principles are written as I understand them from my years of study of Oriental Medicine and Asian culture. The ideas come from many different authors, speakers, researchers, and teachers, folk teachings, and my own ideas of what makes sense. Other authors and disciplines may disagree with some or many of the tenets I will present in these pages. It is up to you, the reader, to decide whether or not this makes sense to you. As far as I know, the Chinese have been studying nutritional therapy longer than anyone else, so I tend to believe that they have figured some things out in the past 4,000 years. The principles are simple:

• Balance and Moderation
• Cooked foods are better than raw
• Vegetables are better than fruit
• White rice is better than brown, but a variety is best
• Diet should be mostly plant-based, with grains and a little of everything else
• Simple foods are better than processed food
• Dairy is not necessary and can be harmful
• Do not over-fill your stomach
• Don't stress too much
• Exercise every day, but not too much
• Keep a Wide perspective and don't sweat the small stuff

All of these will be explained in the book.

What this book is and what it is not.

This is not a weight loss book. This is about getting into balance by eating appropriately. Some of my patients do not need to lose weight but are still very much out of balance. If you have too much weight on you, that is itself an imbalance. By getting into balance, you will naturally shed the excess pounds and become more fit. But even those who do not need to lose weight still need this information. Eating right will prevent or correct all types of disease and disorders. Our daily diet choices are the most important and influential thing we can do to affect our daily, and long term, functioning.

Chinese Dietary Therapy is a highly developed science. There are people who spend their whole lives studying and practicing this. There are food cures for all types of ailments, but that is not what this book is about. If you want to learn how to address a certain ailment with diet therapy, please consult Chinese Nutrition Therapy by Joerg Kastner or Chinese System of Food Cures by Henry Lu (out of print). There is also a lot of information about the foods that we commonly eat and how terrible they are for us. There are many studies that could be cited, but that is not what this book is about either. This book presents the basic guidelines for eating right. Most of us could greatly benefit from these simple changes. If you want to learn what foods to eat to treat a particular disease, or if you want to know everything there is to know about a particular food, read "Healing with Whole Foods" by Paul Pitchford. To learn how we have been misinformed about diet and read all the studies on how harmful our standard food choices are, read "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell. To learn the basics of eating right and being well, however, read the book in your hands right now.

addressing controversies

It seems that I am stirring up some controversy with my assertions that A)Calories don't matter; and B)White rice is better than brown. This is good. I wanted to challenge the ideas that have been thrust upon us by the food industry scientists. These ideas are all explained fully in my book "The Asian Diet: simple secrets for eating right, losing weight, and being well. htp://www.theasiandiet.com . Let's start with A.

As I posted before, no one measures the calories that we excrete. Not all the food we put in our bodies is absorbed. Only that part which we absorb will turn into energy or become stared as fat; and that amount will vary from person to person. Just because a muffin gives off 200 calories of energy when set on fire (that's how they measure calories), that tells us very little about how many of those calories any particular person will absorb.

They used to think the same thing about vitamins. That the form didn't matter, it was just the amount. Now we understand that vitamins are absorbed differently depending on the form in which they are ingested. The same is true for calories. One the blogs, I see a lot of people assert (as they have been taught) that "A Calorie is a Calorie". This is not true and is an idea put forward by those who's products tend to give off less heat when set on fire (ergo assigned less caloric value). Calories from natural sources will be easier to absorb nutrients, deliver a more steady release of energy to the body, and will be eliminated more efficiently.

and for B. White rice is brown rice with a thick hull around it. It is kind of like eating a walnut and not taking off the shell. Of course, nature had to put some nutrients into making that shell, but those are not for us. They have a poor bio-aviliabilty and will slow the metabolism because they are more difficult to digest. White rice is the best, most hypo-allergenic, easily assimilated, and energetically neutral of the grains (all foods and herbs have properties- warming, cooling, moistening, drying, etc... white rice is completely neutral).

Brown rice was popularized in the macrobiotic movement which started with studies in Japan. Brown rice in Japan in partially milled, which is to say that they've knocked about 3/4 of the hull off. The stuff we get here is completely unshucked. So unless you're going to mill it yourself, it's a tall order for our digestive systems to process.

But what about the vitamins? You should get all the vitamins you need from the vegetables; and veggies should constitute the bulk of your diet. The Japanese armada was feeding its soldiers white rice and they started getting a disease called beriberi that comes from a lack of vitamin b12. They switched to brown rice and the beriberi went away. The thing is: That's all they were feeding the soldiers. B12 is found in virtually every fruit and vegetable. So as long as you are eating produce, you won't have to worry about beriberi.