Medicinal Meals: You are what you eat.

Most people put thought into the things that they eat. If they had a choice they would consume a meal that they find especially tasty over one that is merely nutritious; they would take fruit directly from a tree over the under-ripe Safeway brands; and they would choose the things that are said to make them live longer, healthier lives over the foods that they believe are‘ bad’ for the body. All of this thought goes into what we eat, and yet I have never considered food to be a type of medicine until I began reading Farquhar’s article on “Medicinal Meals”.

On first examination of the title “Medicinal Meals” I immediately pictured a meal substitute in the form of a pill (as seen above), because the words medicine, pills, and drugs are nearly synonymous in my vocabulary. I assumed that the article would describe the biomedically induced tendency to pop pills at the slightest discomfort, as well as the American fad of replacing sit-down meals with on-the-go, condensed snack bars and energy drinks. While Farquhar’s article does address these ideas, it does so in an indirect fashion by examining the contrasting holistic view of Chinese medicine. Many cultures have long believed that a balanced diet is the first and most important step to a healthy body and preventative treatment of illness. Our culture’s restrictive idea of medicine in pill form is unusual in this respect. But even by western standards of medicine it is actually quite easy to compare food to the pills that we consume. Both enact a change in our bodies to fight illness; indeed the change that food enacts on our bodies is more immediate and noticeable than that of drugs. Even televised ads for eating certain foods in order to effect change in our lives could be seen as self-prescriptions, but these links between drugs and food are not solidified in western culture.

While the west draws a fine line between the things that we eat for their energetic value (to stave of starvation) and the things that we eat to cure pain (drugs), Chinese culture embraces the similarities. To find a cookbook in a Chinese bookstore one can look either in the cookbook section or in the health care section (Farguhar 2002:51). What has western medicine done so differently to make us give very little credit to the curative properties of our food? To put it simply, western medicine is anatomically based in muscles and microorganisms, while Chinese medicine “cares little about anatomy…as a functional medicine that reads the manifestations of physiological and pathological changes without resorting to models of fixed structural relations” (Ibid. 64). The Chinese holistic view looks to the balances of the body’s elements rather than its physiological malfunctions. And it is for this reason that the west gives the idea of the taste of our medicines much less thought than in Chinese herbal treatment.

Of course I am not referring to the literal taste of medicine, (bad tasting things are known worldwide to be given as medicine) but rather the five flavors of pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. These flavors are not simply syrups that we can pour on our food, and do not merely correspond to the reactions of our taste buds. They have fundamental characteristics which make up the basis of a Chinese pharmacy. The story goes that “Shen Nong, the sage king and mythical founder of herbal medicine ‘tasted one hundred herbs’ and on the basis of this experience produced the first material medica text.” (Ibid. 63). The flavors that Shen Nong categorized for future treatment were not just for the asthetics of food but could induce lasting changes and responses in the body.

This method of invoking change in the body explains why Chinese medicine did not first turn to the anatomy of the body for answers. Without dissection or diagrams, the symptoms described by the patient could be treated by balances of flavors in a medicinal brew. In turn, preventative care was not as complicated as a nutritional food pyramid, but rather a day to day process of balancing the flavors of food in daily life. In China the concept of ‘you are what you eat’ is more than just a slogan to scare obese people away from fatty cheeseburgers. It is a process ingrained so deeply that even when something goes wrong in the body, a strong brew built off of individual diet and symptoms restores balance to bodily systems.

The idea of individualized medicine is not foreign to western culture. Indeed everyone would love to be given a miracle pill, or ‘silver bullet’ to put their ailing bodies back on the right track. This is not to say that the practice of biomedicine is changing to lean in a more holistic direction. Rather, researchers in the field of genetics are beginning to think that they could tailor drugs to match our DNA, our individual genetic makeup. Is this a modern version of Shen Nong’s ancient traditions? Not in the slightest. But the idea of new individualized medicine combined with the fears that the non-scientists of the west still hold against genetic modification (as illustrated in Chapter 5 of Chen’s Food, Medicine, and the Quest for Good Health) may be enough to create a niche for Chinese medicine. The west has recently seen fads in yoga and acupuncture, as well as the development of a naturopathic clinic. Especially in light of the recent obesity scare, it is possible that the next stage in our acceptance of other forms of healing may be to embrace the saying ‘you are what you eat’. We may consider the effects of our food beyond an image of physical fitness and perfection, leading to a change in what we require from the medical profession.

Works Cited

Chen, Nancy, 2009. Food, Medicine, and the Quest for Good Health. New York: Columbia University Press. Pp. 12-52, 79-107.

Farquhar, Judith, 2002. Medicinal Meals. IN Appetites: Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China. Durham: Duke University Press. Pp. 47-77.

Images:
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"From both a will to believe and an actual belief"

Image from http://www.smart-kit.com/s1763/the-spinning-girl/

When one first views the above ‘spinning’ dancer she is moving in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. The trick is that you can make her turn the other way. The first time you do this it will probably be by accident, by looking slightly away or by watching her feet. But with practice you can do it on purpose, with the only power of your mind. Is it magic? No. It is simply a trick of the brain. The above image is an optical illusion. It is a mostly two-dimensional image of a dancer’s silhouette and the moving appearance of the pixels encourages our brains to form a rotating three-dimensional model. There is not enough information given in the pixels for a fully rotating dancer, so our brain can choose which way to fill in the missing details. Some sites claim that this rotating dancer is to be used as a method of deciding if a person has a dominant right or left-brain. Regardless of the truth in that statement, the dancer silhouette lets us see how easy it is to trick the organs that we rely on the most. Traditionally, we feel that we must see something to believe it, but it is obviously quite simple to trick the eyes, and thus the body that believes in them.

Obscure though it may seem, this image was the first thing that came to mind after reading the discussions on magic, spas, and “quacks” in the June 30th readings by Tom O’Dell and Jean M. Langford. The combination of the dancer’s physically fit form with the illusion of motion and three dimensions connected the two papers nicely. In short, both authors (and O’Dell in the most literal sense) are asking, “But is it really Magic?”(O’Dell 2005:31) The layout of these papers is a step-by-step process of determining if a pulse reader has mystical powers or if spas are actually places that ‘recharge’ our batteries. Are these places of healing and wellness mostly based on illusion?

Before we judge too quickly there are important references in Langford’s piece that allude to the practice of illusion our own western methods of healing. Medical anthropologists agree that “it might be said that science’s most dazzling show is its illusion of objectivity” (Langford 1999: 31) While we attach meaning and necessity to stethoscopes and hanging sterile drapes around the operating tables, these practices just as easily serve to objectify the surgical area for the doctors. While we do not see practicing physicians avidly advertising their services (in general), it is this very practice that helps us determine that their skills are legitimate. We are given the illusion of scientific objectivity to increase our faith in the practice of healing, and ultimately the success of the medical practice.

That being said, O’Dell’s comments about the marketing world of spas prove that not all healing practices are above such advertisement. His section on magical representations details the amazing similarities between two very differently themed spas. Regardless of their origins in Swedish and Japanese arts, both spas sport brochures on calming massages that restrain you from joining the bustling world, and pictures of serene people taking time out to rejuvenate themselves, largely alone (O’Dell 2005:25-6). People come to take time out of their busy, stressful lives and be welcomed into the calming arms of a soothing massage and spiritual cleansing. “Spas draw heavily upon the imagery of the well of eternal youth arguably one of humanity’s oldest fantasies” (Ibid. 32) especially in their use of baths and special oils and scrubs, used to cleanse and invigorate the body and soul. But are these treatments magical? It depends on your definition. If magic is a result of an action that you believed would inexplicably yet inevitably bring about that result, then yes, the spas could be defined as magic. “In the cases where patrons do leave the spa feeling better, magic has been worked. It is a magic that stems from both a will to believe and an actual belief.” (Ibid. 32) For magic to be worked, the patrons must participate in a societal belief that the magic can be worked.

Langford’s critique of Dr. Mistry eventually comes to this same conclusion, though by a very different path. He researches the claims of Dr. Mistry’s false healing practices, and indeed encounters multiple discrepancies. He discovers that the chemical makeup of shilajit is not consistent between healing practices; in fact, the kind that Langford tests is made of sugar (Langford 1999:29). The images that I personally found online featuring this material were equally varied, depicting dark gritty material resembling anything from obsidian to volcanic rock. In addition, Langford discovered that Dr. Mistry mimics an image not only of the certification practices of Ayruveda, much to the dismay of the of said healing practice, but also of the ‘folk’ method of divining illness from pulse. These claims support the idea that what he does is “quackery”, as his many colleagues predicted. Langford, however, remained unconvinced long enough to find out some of the reasons behind Dr. Mistry’s questionable practices. The doctor uses his patient’s testimonials, his framed certifications, and his pulse readings to inspire in his patients a sense of faith. Dr. Mistry himself admitted, “80 percent of illness is psychological…pulse reading sparks the faith that fires the healing process” (Ibid. 40). He claims not to be magical, but to inspire faith in the healing that he provides. Dr. Mistry’s practice itself shows that a strong belief in a method can be at least half of the battle towards wellness.

The senses can be fooled just as the silhouetted dancer can be made to spin both ways. These papers have come to show me that everyone has, and needs, a little ‘magic’ in their lives, whether they call it by that name or not. The objective illusion of science has recently helped reassure me in my own trip to an institution of healing. Panicked thoughts of death and disaster were soothed by calming brochures and forms that listed my common symptoms, reassuring me that everything would soon be taken care of by capable, educated people. Applying this idea to the marketing of spas and Ayruveda practices for purely monetary gain may be unethical, but the mimicry of inspiring faith in a possible cure for pain seems to be necessary for a wide range of effective healing methods. This is something that may be easily open to criticism by the ‘well’, but for a frightened patient or an overstressed businessperson, a trick of the mind can inspire irreplaceable reassurance, and ultimate recovery.

Works Cited

Jean M. Langford, 1999. "Medical Mimesis: Healing Signs of a Cosmopolitan 'Quack'." American Ethnologist 26(1):24-46.

Tom O'Dell, 2005. "Meditation, Magic and Spiritual Regeneration: Spas and the Mass Production of Serenity." IN Orvar Lofgren and Robert Willim, eds. Magic, Culture and the New Economy. Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers. Pp. 19-36.

Images from:
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