{"id":470,"date":"2026-09-21T11:44:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T11:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greekmedicine.net\/blog\/?p=470"},"modified":"2026-09-21T11:47:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T11:47:04","slug":"why-the-huge-plethora-of-modern-diets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.greekmedicine.net\/blog\/traditional-medicine\/why-the-huge-plethora-of-modern-diets.html","title":{"rendered":"WHY THE HUGE PLETHORA OF MODERN DIETS?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article summarizes a bit of dietary history that transpired between the time I was in acupuncture school back in the 80s and today.\u00a0 In it, I give my theories as to why there are so many different diets today.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Introduction: A Dietary Tower of Babel<\/b><\/h4>\n
\n

In the Bible – it was in the Old Testament, I believe – there is the story of the Tower of Babel.\u00a0 As I understand it, it seems like a bunch of people got together and decided to focus their efforts on building a huge tower that would reach all the way up to heaven – to storm the gates of heaven, as it were.\u00a0 The way the Catholic nuns in my parochial elementary school told the story to me, to thwart their efforts, God created the bewildering variety of different languages spoken around the globe; consequently, with all these different languages being spoken, none of the workers on the great tower could understand each other, and mass confusion ensued.\u00a0 And so, the mammoth Tower of Babel project had to be abandoned.<\/p>\n

That’s kind of like how it has been with diets and dietary therapy in modern times, I feel.\u00a0 There is a huge world of difference between the prevailing wisdom of dietary therapy when I was in acupuncture school way back in the 80s and how things are these days, in the brave new millennium.\u00a0 Back then, the core of natural dietary healing wisdom centered around whole grains, with some of the most popular diets being things like the Japanese Macrobiotic Diet, with its emphasis on brown rice, or the diet developed by Nathan Pritikin, which centered around whole grains like whole wheat bread, rye bread, and the like.\u00a0 Then, as the new millennium drew near in the nineties, there was a massive seismic shift, and all hell started breaking loose.\u00a0 What the heck happened?<\/p>\n

The line of dietary reasoning behind the whole grain theory back then was pretty clear and easy to follow: The number one nutritional need of the body from moment to moment was the need for a steady, stable supply of caloric energy to sustain oneself throughout the day, and whole grains seemed to be that dietary energy source par excellence.\u00a0 Although other macronutrients, like proteins and fats, could also be burned for energy, the carbohydrate fuel provided by whole grains was the most stable, grounded and clean-burning; fats and proteins generated a lot more in the way of toxic residues when they were burned for energy, so why not center your diet around whole grains as the body’s main energy source?<\/p>\n

The whole whole grain thing back when I was in acupuncture school even seemed to border on a dietary religion, complete with its own Holy Trinity:\u00a0 Whole grains were nutritionally complete because they contained not just the fuel or starchy endosperm portion of the grain, but also the micronutrient-dense germ, which enabled the grain to sprout or germinate, and the bran, that protective skin that provided generous amounts of dietary fiber to keep that whole grain carbohydrate food moving through the GI tract.\u00a0 White bread and white flour was incomplete and nutritionally fractionated, as were all overly refined and processed foods; whole grains were wholesome and nutritionally complete.\u00a0 In other words, it was a complete, whole and harmonious dietary worldview that laid out the path to proper health maintenance and optimization for all people who did not suffer from special health disorders like diabetes or hypoglycemia.<\/p>\n

Even way back when I was studying herbal medicine by correspondence course, which led eventually to translating material on Chinese herbal medicine from Japanese to English, and finally to acupuncture school, the whole grains gospel was thoroughly drummed into me.\u00a0 My herbal medicine teacher wrote that every great world civilization that has endured for centuries, even millennia, was built on a diet centered on whole grains.\u00a0 Back in the seventies, when I was in Japan teaching English, we would pop into the Fuku-en, a macrobiotic restaurant in downtown Osaka, to eat a healthy lunch.\u00a0 And that lunch centered around a bowl of brown rice, seasoned with ground gomashio, or sesame salt, and side dishes like steamed or sauteed vegetables, a seaweed dish, and perhaps a side dish of deep fried vegetable tempura.\u00a0 A favorite delicacy of mine at the Fuku-en restaurant was Goma-Dofu, or tofu made from sesame tahini and agar gel.\u00a0 So this was the old dietary world I used to live in.<\/p>\n

But even way back in the eighties, there was trouble brewing.\u00a0 In the field of weight loss diets, people started discovering the amazing power of low carbohydrate diets to help them lose weight.\u00a0 Perhaps the best-known of these low carb diets was the Atkins Diet; I should know, because both my mother and my sister, who had weight issues, followed it.\u00a0 The problem with carbs, said Doctor Atkins, was that eating carbohydrate-rich foods raised one’s blood sugar, which led to insulin spikes and hyperinsulinism, which seemed to lock in obstinate weight gain that was difficult to shed.\u00a0 And for those prone to developing insulin resistance, down the high carb path lay metabolic syndrome, prediabetes, and finally full-blown diabetes.<\/p>\n

Then What the Heck Happened to Those Whole Grains?<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

When Nathan Pritikin had all his followers eating whole wheat bread, there was basically nothing wrong with the whole wheat that bread was made from; it was pretty much the same whole wheat that our ancestors ate.\u00a0 It was what happened to that whole wheat after <\/em>that that really threw a monkey wrench into things.\u00a0 Wheat started undergoing an intensive hybridization process, according to William Davis, MD., author of Wheat Belly.<\/u>\u00a0 Today’s wheat plants have a very short stalk, and it has been cross-bred to make it a much more concentrated source of gluten, which is the main protein found in whole wheat.\u00a0 In other words, there was nothing particularly wrong with gluten per se, but with this new hybridized wheat, wheat eaters were getting way too much of it.\u00a0 It all goes back to that old Greek health maxim of the Golden Mean:\u00a0 Everything in the proper measure and dosage, and nothing in excess.\u00a0 But all too often, this good advice is left unheeded in the materialistic modern world, with its unshakeable belief that if a little of something is good, more of it must always be better.\u00a0 There were also powerful economic incentives favoring the new intensively hybridized wheat for the growers of it; most obviously, with less of the plant’s bulk being consumed by the stalk, the yield ratios were higher.<\/p>\n

With all this overdosing on gluten happening, was it any wonder that so many people started developing allergies and sensitivities to the stuff?\u00a0 Back when I was in acupuncture school, gluten sensitivities and intolerances were relatively rare; the clinical name for it was Gluten Enteropathy or Non-Tropical Sprue.\u00a0 But then, as the eighties segued into the nineties, and then into the brave new millennium, gluten free became all the rage in the health food stores, and then in the regular supermarkets, even to the point where people automatically assumed that if it wasn’t gluten free, it wasn’t healthy.\u00a0 As if that monkey wrench weren’t enough, as the seventies transitioned into the eighties, genetically modified or GMO foods made their initial appearance.\u00a0 All of a sudden, Monsanto was flooding the market with its Bt Corn, with a gene from a bacteria, Bacillis Thuringensis, AKA Bt, spliced right into the corn’s genes.\u00a0 The reason this particular gene was spliced into the corn is that it acts as an endogenous pesticide, causing an insect’s guts to explode after eating it.\u00a0 Now just think for a minute – if the implanted Bt gene can cause an insect’s guts to explode, now don’t you think that same gene might be able to poke a few holes in your gut?\u00a0 The worst thing about all this innovative gene splicing was that it was done, apparently, without any consideration to the final eater or consumer of the food – the sole motive seems to have been only the increase in crop yields due to the elimination of insects and other pests.\u00a0 In a sane dietary world, the final consumer of the food should be given top consideration or priority.<\/p>\n

With all these holes getting poked into people’s guts, is it any wonder that Leaky Gut Syndrome became a hot new item in health food and dietary circles?\u00a0 This, in my view, put the whole gluten intolerance thing on steroids, so to speak.\u00a0 As I was taught in acupuncture school, one of the most important immunological barriers protecting the body was the gut lining, and if this crucial barrier was compromised, then fragments of incompletely digested food could slip right into the bloodstream directly from the gut, leading to the formation of immune antibodies to those food \/ protein fragments, and hence to bona fide immune system mediated food allergies.\u00a0 In Medical Astrology, this is one of the key things that the Virgo \/ Pisces Digestive – Immune Axis is all about.\u00a0 And so, this was like pouring gasoline on the fire when it came to the whole gluten sensitivity \/ allergy thing.\u00a0 And now, grains and gluten have become the new dietary arch-villain, and you have authors like Peter Osborne (no relation to me!) putting out bestselling books like No Grain, No Pain<\/u>.\u00a0 See how easily one of the world’s great comfort foods morphed into one of its premier dis-<\/em>comfort foods!<\/p>\n

My sister, a veteran of the Atkins Diet and a true apostle of the low carb diet and lifestyle, was the one who introduced me to the book Wheat Belly<\/u>; she pointed out to me the adverse effects of wheat and gluten on one’s moods and mental state.\u00a0 And I believe I tried testing out what she said the next time I loaded up on wheat and gluten.\u00a0 And yes, I did notice some tendency for a high gluten intake to make my moods and emotions a bit too heavy and melodramatic.\u00a0 Funny how wheat and bread, which had always been major feel good comfort foods for me, could easily head south into the blues if I overindulged.\u00a0 Perhaps those old Greek philosophers were right about the Golden Mean.\u00a0 The funny thing about me is that, while I have some minor problems with gluten, I have much worse reactions in the way of food allergies and intolerances to just about everything that is used as a gluten substitute these days – can’t do tapioca, millet, quinoa, and so on – so for better or worse, it seems, I’m stuck with wheat and gluten.\u00a0 My own personal theory is that it’s mainly a generational thing.\u00a0 Most of the people having great problems with gluten these days seem to be the younger folks – Gen-Xers and younger.\u00a0 Us older folks, us baby boomers, seem to be able to tolerate gluten, wheat and grains much better than the younger folks.\u00a0 My theory on this is that if your body, and your GI tract, reached full maturity at age 25 -27 or so before the aggressive hybridization of wheat and the introduction of genetically modified GMO foods, then you stand a much better chance of being OK with these foods than someone who had not yet reached full biological maturity after these crucial milestones happened.<\/p>\n

The Earth Element: The Center Must Hold<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Earth Element occupies the Center.\u00a0 Similarly, the Earth is that Center that holds all things to it by means of its strong gravitational pull.\u00a0 Each one of the Five Elements, the Wu Xing or “Five Goings” in Chinese Medicine embodies a different directional dynamic or mode of energy transformation, and with the Earth Element, it is assimilating and drawing things in to this gravitational Center.\u00a0 When you really think about it, this is the center or core of all life and good health, and the central means by which we digest and assimilate vital nutrients from the Earth to nourish and build our bodies.\u00a0 The Zang or solid organ associated with the Earth Element is the Spleen, or the Spleen \/ Pancreas, whereas the hollow or Fu organ associated with the Earth Element is the Stomach.\u00a0 And yes, these are indeed the principal organs of digestion and assimilation, especially in Chinese Medicine.\u00a0 The Earth Element’s associated color is yellow, which is symbolic of the Golden Grain of a bountiful harvest in ages past.\u00a0 And up through the 1970s, this harmony of the Center, and the Golden Grain of the Earth held true, and holistic nutrition was centered mainly around whole grains.<\/p>\n

In Indian Ayurvedic Medicine, the principal organs of digestion and assimilation are centered around the Manipura or Solar Plexus Chakra, the seat of the Fire Element and Agni, which is the digestive and metabolic Fire of the organism.\u00a0 And among the five Vayus, which are the Vital Airs or directional energies of the organism, Prana Vayu, which is the incoming air that fills and vitalizes the organism, and Apana Vayu, which is the descending eliminative vital current, are held together by Samana Vayu, which balances both intake and elimination while distilling vital nutrients from the food we eat; it is centered in the stomach, along with the Jathar Agni, which is the stomach’s digestive Fire.\u00a0 Here again, the foundational principle of all good digestion and assimilation is the same: The Center must hold.<\/p>\n

As long as Mother Earth and her natural environment remain whole and relatively unmolested, the natural physiological processes of digestion and assimilation can also proceed unmolested in harmony with Nature’s workings, but if the natural world or macrocosm gets out of kilter or its harmony is disturbed, disturbances will also arise in the digestive process.\u00a0 And these fundamental disturbances in the digestive process caused by disturbed or denatured food give rise to various and sundry digestive disturbances, and treating these disturbances or imbalances in the digestive tract is one of the main reasons why there are so many diets today.\u00a0 Among these various digestive disorders are acid reflux, hypoglycemia, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, chronic systemic candidiasis, and so on.\u00a0 With widespread degradation and disequilibrium in the natural environment, the Center isn’t holding anymore, and people are being scattered to the four winds in search of the diet, or that particular mix of foods and nutrients, that feels right for them, or makes them feel their best.\u00a0 And in the consultation work I do through this website, I have met a wide variety of clients who have come to a similarly wide variety of conclusions as to what holds the Center for them and makes them feel their best.\u00a0 What really centers you and makes you feel stable and grounded?\u00a0 For one client, the answer was a meat-centered diet.\u00a0 And although that may not have been my own particular dietary path, I have tried to remain open-minded and non-judgmental as I listened to his story.<\/p>\n

To Each His Own: The Dietary Odyssey<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Every August when I was in Romania, I would head to the ancestral home of my best friend Sam, who is the godfather of this website, in the foothills of the Carpathians.\u00a0 Since I have always loved music and have a good singing voice, Sam always had me bring my guitar and sing songs to help him celebrate his birthday.\u00a0 And one of his favorite songs for me to sing was “My Elusive Dreams”.\u00a0 I will quote a few lines below:<\/p>\n

From a corn farm in Nebraska, to a gold mine in Alaska…<\/em><\/p>\n

We didn’t find it there, so we moved on…<\/em><\/p>\n

I know you’re tired of following my elusive dreams and schemes…<\/em><\/p>\n

For they’re only fleeting things, my elusive dreams…<\/em><\/p>\n

In classical Greek mythology, these themes are echoed in The Odyssey, the epic saga telling the story of Odysseus’ circuitous wanderings on his long journey back home to Ithaca.\u00a0 Jesus said, “Seek and ye shall find”, but sometimes the seeking takes a while – or even a very long while before we truly feel that we have come back home.\u00a0 And so it is with dietary seeking:\u00a0 We may seek for a while until we find something that works, or seems to work, until it no longer works anymore.\u00a0 Then we must hit the road again and seek some more, until we find something that we feel to be a better and truer solution to our dietary dilemma.\u00a0 And along the way, there is the distinct possibility that the solutions keep changing because our bodies and their nutritional needs keep changing – or, as I have surmised in this blog posting, it could also be because the natural environment, and what man has made of it, from which we get our food has also changed.\u00a0 In dietary therapy, diets are broadly differentiated into therapeutic diets versus maintenance diets.\u00a0 Simply put, therapeutic diets are those that change or remedy a certain health disorder; in other words, they help you make your healing journey from point A to a desired destination, or point B.\u00a0 Maintenance diets are designed to stabilize the organism and its digestive and nutritional status once that desired destination is reached.<\/p>\n

This overarching theme of a long journey is a fairly universal one; many different world cultures have their respective epic tales of long journeys or migrations.\u00a0 This is because life itself can be seen as one long journey.\u00a0 In India, in the Hindu tradition, you have the Ramayana, <\/em>or the long epic tale of how King Rama journeyed to rescue his wife Sita.\u00a0 In the Chinese Buddhist tradition you have the chronicles of Son Wu Gong, <\/em>the Monkey King and his great journey to the West with the pilgrim and Buddhist monk Tripitaka; <\/em>when I was just a little boy in Taiwan, I would delight in these tall tales, which were also spiritual lessons or morality tales.\u00a0 And in astrology, long journeys and what one learns from them is the core theme of the Ninth House, which is also the house of philosophy and world view.\u00a0 Long journeys, and especially the Journey of Life, bring about many changes.\u00a0 Most obviously, our situations and circumstances change, but if we are self aware and look inwards, we will find that we ourselves have also changed.<\/p>\n

And so, on our dietary journey, we keep seeking and traveling onward until we find a dietary Center that holds.\u00a0 And then, at the end of our life, when we can no longer find that dietary Center that holds everything together, Soul and Body must part, and again we must move on…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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