Sore Throat

Yes soon it will be autumn again and then, there is winter.
Here is an easy way to cure a sore throat:

take a clean kitchen towel and fold it like in picture 1, put it in water and then in the deep freezer for at least 4 hours. Just before to go to bed, wrap the cold towel around your neck.
In the morning you will have a hot towel and all sore feelings are gone.
Did you visit my latest recipe yet?? Pumpkin chips, mmm yummy!

My Dehydrator

One of my tools that I use every week is my dehydrator. I use it to make natural MSG, seaweed  crackers, pumpkin chips and much much more. As it dries for a long time, it makes things till 3 levels more Yang on my Yin Yang scale.
If I would live on the country side, I would probably make a solar dehydrator, but with the bad quality of air in the big city, that is out of the question.

Diagnosis 1

A good diagnosis in very important to heal, and who is better placed than YOU to diagnose yourself?
A few months ago I went with a western guy to the traditional Chinese hospital in Chinatown. While driving his car, he could not stop talking (too Yin), and when we came into the doctors office, I saw that the doctor had diagnosed him before he sat down: she smiled at me, she looks at his tongue, his face, felt the pulses the Chinese way, but that was just to confirm her first diagnosis.
Just to say: when you know what to look for, diagnosis is not that difficult: you just have to find the right book for you (see below).
There are a lot of ways to diagnose ourselves:
our dreams, our thoughts, our behavior; our looks (tongue, eyes, face), our stool, our urine, the first 3 being mental, the latter being physical.
The first symptom that something goes wrong, comes in our dreams:
if we have scary dreams, we have a problem with the kidneys, if we have a lot of anger in our dreams we have a problem with the liver. If we ignore our dreams, the same symptoms will appear in out thoughts, and if we ignore those symptoms, it will show in our behavior; people who are anxious all the time have kidney problems, people who are angry easily have liver problems.
The same way you also can diagnose problems from every organ, it needs just a little bit of study and a lot of experience. I will write more about diagnose through looks, stool and urine next week.


Have a nice weekend everybody!!

Soy Products

In the beginning when you start to eat health food, you will have a tendency to "replace" your meat with soy products: don't do this!
The only soy products that are good for our body are fermented soy products:
miso(soy paste), tamari & soju (soy sauces), tempeh and natto.
Tofu is not fermented and should not be eaten on a regular basis: it is too Yin, and bad for your life essense. When I eat tofu, perhaps once every two months, I cook it first 30 minutes in soy sauce.
TVP (texturized vegetable protein) is not natural at all: it is made from defatted soy flour, a by-product of extracting soybean oil.

About 1000 B.C. some smart person in China discovered that a mold, when allowed to grow on soybeans, destroyed the toxins present and made the nutrients in the beans available to the body. This process became known as fermentation and led to the creation of the still popular foods tempeh, miso, and natto.
I will write more about all those products later, but please remember this: unfermented soybeans contain potent anti-nutrients.
In their natural form, soybeans contain phytochemicals with toxic effects on the human body. The three major anti-nutrients are phytates, enzyme inhibitors and goitrogens.
Tomorrow I will write about diagnosis.

Improve your Health

OK, now that we have established what Yin and Yang is, we gonna use those forces to harmonize our lives.
If you need personal advice, you always can contact me, the advice I give in this blog, is a general advice.
To make it easier I will give Yin and Yang grades, and for every recipe I give, I will put the grade of the dish in the recipe.
The closer to zero, the better. The most Yin you will find here are Yin -5, the most Yang will be Yang +5, not that Yin is negative or bad, and Yang is positive or good, it is just a grading system as any other.
Sugar is Yin -20 , so I never use sugar, honey is Yin -10, so you will not find honey in my recipes.
Yin -5 and Yang +5 dishes can be eaten, except by people recovering from an illness.
For people with cancer, I first advise you to see the macrobiotic counselor in your region, and stay for your food between Yin -2 and Yang +2. All will be more clear when we go along together on the path of health and happiness.
The first thing you should stop eating is processed food and restaurant food: as from now your food will be your medicine, and I am afraid that the "cook" of the McDonald's is not the best doctor, as he does not have your health in  mind when he prepare the  food.
Then we stop with refined food; no white flour, no white rice, no sugar.
If this runs well, we stop first with pork, eggs and dairy as this gives us the most mucus.
Then we stop with all meat and chicken, be sure I will give you some real healthy alternatives, like vegan nuggets, vegan meatloaf, vegan cheese, vegan burgers, all things you can make yourself at home, and that is the only guarantee for healthy food .

Ok next blog wil be about soy products, cu tomorrow

Yin Yang 2

To put it more graphic, please check this image:

You should always eat from Yang to Yin, not only in your day, but also in your meal.

In your day: the breakfast should be the most yang meal, whole cereals and cooked vegetables, a miso soup is ideal, of a Thai rice soup is also a valid alternative.

No fruits before 18.00. Do not drink during just before or just after your meals, as this dilute the digestive juices, and when you drink, you have the tendency to swallow, and not to chew.

Chewing is very, very important.

On above picture you should see that eating closer to the point of Balance is better, surely in the beginning of your diet, or when you are in bad health: the closer you stay to the point of Balance, the faster you will get healthy

Yin and Yang

First we will fine tune our compass.
Yin : slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, or tranquil; and is associated with water, earth, the moon, femininity and nighttime.

Yang : fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, or aggressive; and is associated with fire, sky, the sun, masculinity and daytime.

Yang food : most animal food, miso, tamari, salt

Yin food : vegetables (tomatoes are very Yin, carrots are closer to the Balance)

Yang preparation: pickling, baking

Yin preparation : steaming, cooking

So we can harmonize Yin food by a Yang preparation, and Yang food by a Yin preparation.

Yin and Yang must be seen as relative tendencies and not as absolute values..