Ray Peat's essay "Cancer: disorder and energy" begins with the following quote from Kurt Goldstein: "Life is a condition alternating between excitation, destruction and unbalance, and reorganization, equilibrium and rest." Mae Won Ho describes the living state as quantum coherence. Coherence is a state balanced between the poles of order and chaos, yin and yang, moving back and forth between the two like a wave. Much can be said about this wave-like nature of life and connection to sound. I think all of existence can be described as sound waves, as yin and yang. Yin is order, crystallization, morphic resonance. Yang is chaos, creativity, the divine spark.
In his writing and ideas, Peat clearly demonstrated that he was aware of the need for this duality. However when it came to his practical dietary recommendations, I think he fell short of realizing what most people need to maintain a balance between Yin and Yang. For me, the Peat approach to diet and lifestyle leaned far into the territory of too much Yin. Some examples of what I mean:
The high vitamin-A plus high calcium lead to calcification of tissues (yin).
The foods and supplements were anti-inflammatory (yin), but work by suppressing liver detoxification (yang). There is an emotional component to this as well since I think processing toxins in the liver is linked to processing negative emotions like anger, and suppressing detox is related to bottling up of toxic emotions.
Thing like coffee and thyroid supplements artificially work to balance the excess yin but deplete the body's own yang.
The excess avoidance of all kinds of stress (for example hunger, exercise, cold, cortisol, estrogen) is really an avoidance of yang and can lead to a stagnation and lack of creativity and productivity. I believe Peat meant this as a counterweight to an overly stressed culture where people have too much of these things but for me and I think others following his suggestions took it too far in the other direction.
Perhaps others more well versed in the traditional Chinese medicine classifications of things as yin and yang promoting can add to this since my take here is more broad and metaphysical.
In his writing and ideas, Peat clearly demonstrated that he was aware of the need for this duality. However when it came to his practical dietary recommendations, I think he fell short of realizing what most people need to maintain a balance between Yin and Yang. For me, the Peat approach to diet and lifestyle leaned far into the territory of too much Yin. Some examples of what I mean:
The high vitamin-A plus high calcium lead to calcification of tissues (yin).
The foods and supplements were anti-inflammatory (yin), but work by suppressing liver detoxification (yang). There is an emotional component to this as well since I think processing toxins in the liver is linked to processing negative emotions like anger, and suppressing detox is related to bottling up of toxic emotions.
Thing like coffee and thyroid supplements artificially work to balance the excess yin but deplete the body's own yang.
The excess avoidance of all kinds of stress (for example hunger, exercise, cold, cortisol, estrogen) is really an avoidance of yang and can lead to a stagnation and lack of creativity and productivity. I believe Peat meant this as a counterweight to an overly stressed culture where people have too much of these things but for me and I think others following his suggestions took it too far in the other direction.
Perhaps others more well versed in the traditional Chinese medicine classifications of things as yin and yang promoting can add to this since my take here is more broad and metaphysical.
