[juxtaposezen]

Thanks Manymoons!!! Your thoughtful response was appreciated and your explanation of the existing ambiguity was very helpful.

Of course I am still confused.

You said:

“Those of us that adhere to these principles must do so by integrating what information is available from many sources”

I guess that information is the part that I lack as of yet. I am reading voraciously however but it will take time. Sometimes I feel like a leech coming on a forum and asking nubile questions before doing my homework. But life is homework I guess and I am not trying to be lazy. Sometimes people who care can provide far more than books!

So anyway, the information that does exist is the part that is confusing. What is it?

I will make my question way more concrete although very hypothetical.

Lets say I read 3 things somewhere:

1. “whole grain brown rice is very very yang!”
2. “whole grain brown rice is very very yin!”
3. “whole grain brown rice is very very balanced!”

When I read this I have several questions.

1. What EXACTLY do you base this on?
2. Who do I believe?
3. How can I quantify this yin and yang?

The thing that made me think this was reading something that said that food (a) was slightly more yang than food (b). I forget what foods they where exactly and it may have been yin not yang but you get my point. Lets ay it was a watermelon and honeydew. If some “expert” can say one is slightly more yin or yang than the other then HOW DO THEY KNOW THIS? The word slightly implies some type of objective criteria!!!

Intuition is always based on some fact at the root. One food may for example cause diarrhea and another causes constipation. Well some may call that intuition. I call it fact. Those conditions have biological substrates.

Can anyone yet see what I am confused about? There must be some objective correlate by which to judge these properties. It is clearly not acidy or alkalinity because both exist in yin and yang. So what then is it? If two experts are agreeing then what are they agreeing on exactly?

Sorry to ask such newbie questions before studying myself. I am trying and I am getting there.

Thanks for the help!

Namaste!!