306: Lorraine Clissold Reveals 15 Secrets Behind The Chinese Food Culture

Written on November 15, 2009

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Hello and welcome back to The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore! Today Jimmy shares his conversation with Lorraine Clissold, who, despite being British by birth, is a food media personality in China. This interview looks at length into the “secrets” that form the basis of Clissold’s new book Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories: 15 Secrets from a 3,000-Year-Old Food Culture.

She does a good job of communicating an uncritical interpretation of traditional Chinese dietary culture, but Clissold doesn’t seem to have a firm grounding in food science. Still, taken for what it is, this is a fascinating look at the eating habits of a different culture. Particularly so since the Chinese have historically been a fit people until the Western diet began making inroads there. One area where Lorraine agrees with many of our regular guests is in the importance of natural, unprocessed foods and the dangers of chemical additives and preservatives.

Be sure to listen in for some interesting discussion of the Yin and Yang of food temperatures, the role of grains, vegetables, and meat in the Chinese diet, why salad may be BAD for you, and much, MUCH more!

LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE 306
- Sign up for Jimmy’s Global TeleClass “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Even Through The Holidays And Beyond” coming Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 9PM ET
- Lorraine Clissold bio - Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories: 15 Secrets from a 3,000-Year-Old Food Culture
- ChineseDontCountCalories.com

http://www.180kitchen.wordpress.com Matt Stone

Those are some pretty lame explanations if you ask me. I couldn’t make it through the whole podcast. She lost me at “blandness causes us to keep eating,” which I will file under my long list of “dumbest things I’ve ever heard.”

The Chinese can eat all the carbohydrates they want because they are not insulin resistant. They are not insulin resistant because they have healthy metabolisms. They have healthy metabolisms because they:

a) don’t diet
b) eat a low-fructose diet
c) are relatively well-nourished from a micronutrient standpoint
d) aren’t sleep deprived

The whole mystery is not an ounce more complicated than that. Insulin resistance is causally unrelated to carbohydrate consumption. I assure you of that.
pjnoir

Matt- you really are clueless- why do you even care? You are so friggin perfect and every thing you do. Your four pts are no different than what anyone else advocates on any of the low carb sites you post and bash on. Low carb is not a diet like weight watchers or jenny graig, etc. It is a DIET of guidelines that diabetics and folks with insulin resisident metabolism need to follow- there is a difference. If Insulin resistance is the problem and it is for most people following this site or jens 101, than carbs is the problem. Only a troll like yourself would think otherwise.
Glen

I didn’t find her arguments convincing to be honest. There might be something to be whole idea of balance but there didn’t seem to be any science behind many of the things she was saying.
http://www.180kitchen.wordpress.com Matt Stone

Pjnoir –

Ever try to cure your insulin resistance instead of having a fatalistic “poor me” attitude? Why do you need to identify with this diseased metabolic state so much? Was your own mother’s breast milk poisoning you? Was it some big mistake that it was mostly liquid carbohydrate going down your infant throat and causing insulin and blood glucose to rise?

If I am so friggin perfect, then why are you not curious about how you can achieve what I have achieved? Take your basal body temperature and you’ll see that it is low. Bring that up to normal and you will be cured (unless you’ve done irreperable harm to your beta cells). It is impossible to become a type 2 diabetic with a healthy metabolism, which is why Broda Barnes and Mark Starr together had a total of 0 patients develop the disease under their treatment.
http://www.180kitchen.wordpress.com Matt Stone

P.S. to Jimmy. Thanks a lot for having the courage to post an article about healthy people eating a high-carbohdyrate, high-calorie diet. It takes a huge amount of confidence to do such a thing. It really does. Only through going into the realms in which uncomfortable contradictions lie can we really start to paint a portrait of where this insulin resistance comes from, why so many of us have it, and how can we rid it from our society.

I don’t go to the trouble of visiting sites like this to prove my rightness or exalt myself – and certainly not to pester or pick fights. I do it because it’s precisely this kind of challenge that helps us all to progress, and begin to have a more sophisticated viewpoint of the whole diet-disease connection. I would be nowhere if it wasn’t for having others attack my views, theories, and beliefs. Keep up the good work – and by good work I mean intellectual pursuit and hunt for the pieces of the puzzle that put the whole mystery together.

THANKS Matt!

–Jimmy
pjnoir

Stone- I see you don’t understand sarcasm. I have fixed my insulin resisdence- and it didn’t come from eating a lot of carbs. Because I have improved by IR, I can enjoy more carbs in my diet but… being diabetic I had NO choice but to repair it with Low Carbs, not your way. I see your [posts on several sights and it is the same crap and attack.
vicky

I found the show interesting and informative. I think the Chinese have a lot of wisdom when it comes to health and the body that many of us could benefit from. Thanks for the show Jimmy!
Kim

sorry, but i’ve been to china many times and lived there for more than a year and i tell you, the chinese are not that slim. most of them are just skinny fat. the chinese don’t count calories because they don’t give a sh* about what they eat, that’s why you see them at KFC at 8 a.m. eating burgers, fries & giving ice cream to their kids. if you go to a restaurant in china almost all of the dishes are drenched in cheap vegetable oil. most of the foreigners who come to china gain weight. the situation on the countryside may be better, but the reason for that is they just don’t have the money to eat as much as richer people.
this book seems to be just another fad diet not based on reality. the traditional chinese diet is as healthy as any other diet based on real food, no magic.
Taiwan Gal

I’ve been living in Taiwan for 7 years, and I agree that the Chinese are incredibly creative when they cook with vegetables. They also have some age-old wisdom with their traditional chinese medicine. Case in point: I tried Western medicine for five years to have a child. Then I tried Chinese meds (drinking a bitter herbal concoction) and was pregnant in less than a year.

I also admire the Chinese for not overindulging in sweets. Most of them don’t have ovens, so they don’t bake. If they do have a treat, it’s usually a small piece, and they will probably share it with someone else.

That said, I think the younger generation is going to deal with a LOT more health problems because Western food is all over the place now, and like a former poster mentioned, Chinese love KFC, McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants. I don’t see the younger generation caring too much about what they eat…it’s amazing how often they guzzle those “bubble teas”. (as we call them in the West) Sugary drinks are everywhere.

I think it’s only a matter of time until the Chinese “good genes” disappear completely. Yes, many of them ARE skinny fat. And very few of the girls have any muscle at all. They might be thin, but they’re not necessarily healthy.

Thanks for interviewing Lorraine, Jimmy! Because I am living in Asia at the moment, I found it quite interesting. And I happen to like sea cucumber, by the way!
vicky

Well like with anything there are those that adhere to healthful dietary advice and healthful living in general and those that don’t. Usually the younger generations are obsessed with junk foods. We see that everywhere, but I’m sure there are many Chinese people that choose to hold to a more healthful diet.

When it comes to Chinese medicine and actual Chinese food (not the greasy Americanized stuff we eat here) those things really are healthy and beneficial. I don’t think it has anything to do with magic. It’s just a different way of looking at health and food than we do in the west.
http://martinpanorama.com Martin

Matt Stone? The creator of South Park?
Rosemarie

I for one thoroughly enjoyed the interview. Of course I’ve always loved the taste of chinese food. While listening to Ms. Clissold about her passion for chinese food and their approach to eating, I got the impression that this lady would finally distill the secrets of preparing tasty and common chinese cooking to a simple uncomplicated procedure. I immediately got the book and was NOT disappointed. Sprinkled among delightful anectodes of her life among the Chinese, were the simple instructions and explanations of how to cook the dishes I love but never quite could get the hang of.

Thank you Jimmy for bringing such diverse people to us. I have learned so much from your interviews. And as you already know, i’m not a strict low-carber – only lower carb for blood sugar control – since I have no weight or other health problems. I just enjoy listening to the many different approaches to eating and choose what works for me.

It’s my pleasure, Rosemarie! I enjoy sharing them with my faithful listeners.

–Jimmy