Chinese System Of Food Cures: Prevention & Remedies

"When you buy this book, you will rush to your nearest apothecary and order a home version of a mortar and pestle to grind most of these cures. They sound as credible as the "blood type" recipe/lifestyle books of the past 10 years or so. Unfortunately there's no mention of crawdaddys.

If you buy this book used, you won't regret it. It is jam packed. None of the ailments seem dangerous or anti-conservationist, so if you have a hankerin' for rhino horns, fergit it!"
~ Written on 2005-08-29

"The good:

1) some really useful information
2) simply written explanation of hot warm cool cold principals of food and who is suited best by which temperatures. He even has a chart.

The bad:

1) There are a few chapters broken down according to whether the item is an herb, vegetable, fruit, grain, etc. There doesn't appear to be any logical or alphabetical order of the items within each chapter.

2) For each item listed, there is a food property description for what it remedies (for instance, asthma). Under the initial list of remedies the author proceeds to list basic recipes of combined ingredients for specific ailments. These may or may not be listed under the original heading.

3) If you look up an ailment in the index, you might find 3 entries referencing the ailment, when in fact there are probably 10 or so. They're just tucked away in one of the recipes.

4) Sometimes, he'll list a recipe, without indicating its use

5) no botanical names are given so you can't be sure if the yam he mentions is actually a yam or yucca.

6) he'll reference a clinical trial without specifics (quantity of solution and how it was taken, for how long, what improvement was seen, etc.)

I really wanted to like this book, and I still try to refer to it as he has some really good remedies in here. However, I really can't recommend a book where I have to write in entries into the index so that I can find some miraculous solution a week from now.

His other book, "Chinese Herbs With Common Foods: Recipes for Health and Healing" received a better review, but only one person has reviewed it so far.

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~ Written on 2004-07-23

"The good: this book has only 192 pages yet it has hundreds of food cures. it has chinese-medicine profiles of a large number of food items.the cures are really effective i have tried some my self. it has an effective cure for Hypoglycemia(low blood sugar) using an extremly common fruit everyday. I tried it with excellent results , I feel like superman!. it presents scientific experemints , citizen reports , medical knowledge , and personal experience and research.

Also: This book gives a valuable working knowledge of chinese food effects and cures which is a major part pf chinese medicine.
Food interaction is the first protocol of chinese medicine.So with this book you'll know a practical home based healing system with out needing to go to China or learn Chinese or going anyware because by just ordering this great book you'll learn alot of important info that will show its importance for a very long time in that you will constantly be referring to it.

Remark:generally speaking , practitioners of an alternative medicine practice are more knowledgable of natural cures than MDs who research the field.

The bad: of course this book cannot cover all known foods, you will find some common foods missing and this book has a large number of asian foods that arent common in some countries. some organization problems , sometimes the index does not show all possible cures , maybe there was a computer error in the printing , meaning that you might find a cure for a certain disease that wasen't listed under a food name.

The Bottom line: buy this book now , try its remedies before you go to a hospital."
~ Written on 2001-05-18

"I bought this book after a friend recommended it. The cures really do work. A friend of mine often gets headaches and he is immune to any type of medicine including OTC pain relievers. I gave him a remedy from this book and his headache was gone in 20 minutes! So far all of the cures we have tried worked. Unfortuneately some of the items required are either very difficult to find or non-existant in the US. We went into Chinatown in San Francisco looking for black sugar and all we received were very weird stares."
~ Written on 2001-05-18

"A Chinese herbal designed for modern English speaking audiences. This book covers the Chinese philosophy of balance and motion, Yin and Yang. It is organized by food group, with the medicinals alphabetized by common English name within each food group section. A very useful book for natural healing and practice."
~ Written on 2001-02-24