Healing Vegitarian Paleo Salad

This salad is an unusual mix with a really delicious taste, and only takes 15-20 minutes to prepare.

THIS RECIPE IS VEGETARIAN, PALEO Diet Friendly Options, GLUTEN-FREE, and HEALTHY in a CHINESE MEDICINE sense. IT CAN NOURISH SPLEEN QI, NOURISH YIN and mildly CLEAR HEAT. Combines cooked and raw, eaten Warm.

I created this recipe with a friend who was post-surgery recovery in mind, to aid warding off potential infections. Both Hyssop and Mint have heat clearing functions. Hyssop has historical use dating back to the Bible, where it is often referred to in ceremonial cleaning and cleansing people of infections diseases.

INGREDIENTS:

1 can chick peas

1 purple sweet potato

1 regular sweet potato

~1/4 cup pecan nuts

~1/8 cup pistachio nuts, un-shelled.

4 tomatoes

sprig of fresh hyssop

sprig of fresh mint

Pepper or lemon pepper

METHOD: 

1) Cut up one large sweet potato (or two small sweet potatoes, I like to use half white/purple one and half the regular orange sweet potato), boil in pot on the stove until soft - 10 - 15 minutes.

2) Prepare the salad dressing

• Finely chop one sprig of fresh Hyssop and 1 large sprig of fresh mint.
• Add a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil (about 30-50ml)
• Add a large handful of pecan nuts and 2 teaspoons of un-shelled pistachio nuts
• Grind some pepper or lemon-pepper into the salad dressing mix.

3) Cut up tomatoes, and any additional variation ingredients

4) Combine Tomatoes (and any additions) with 1 can of chick peas (drained) in a large, heat proof bowl.

5) once cooked potatoes are soft (but not mushy) remove from heat, strain water from them set aside in strainer ready to add at the very end.

6) Pour salad dressing mixture over the ingredients, stirring thoroughly,  then add potatoes and stir the mixture around carefully to ensure all combined but potatoes don't go mushy.

VARIATION INGREDIENTS:

1/2 Purple onion - Moves Qi (chee or energy) for Liver Qi Stagnation

PALEO DIET OPTION - Remove Chick Peas and increase cooked Vegitables, adding variety from Purple carrot, carrot or pumpkin. Baby Spinach leaves can be added just before serving.

You're a Peach

In Chinese herbal medicine, the kernel of peaches are used as a herb, but it's fruit also has medicinal properties. While the kernels must be used by a trained herbalist as they contain poison, which is controlled by their preparation methods, the fruit is quite easily accessible and safe to use.

Peaches are coming into season in summer, soon you'll find all kinds of delicious juicy peaches around you in your local fruit and veg store.

The nature of the peach is sweet and warm, which means it's nourishing to the digestive system (Spleen-Stomach in CM) and it's moisturizing nature makes it great fruit for habitual constipation sufferers.

A recipe for high blood pressure is eating one or two fresh peaches (without stone or skin) daily.

Green (unripe) peach can be used as well:

To make the "Dried Green Peach"  simply dry unripe green peaches, with stone removed, in the sun.

The dried green peach can then be used for other recipes:

1) High Blood Pressure: Simmer 30g of dried green peach in water, drinking the liquid as you would tea.

2) For seminal emissions or spontaneous night sweating: Stir-fry 30g of dried green peach until almost scorched, then add 30g of Chinese Dates and water. Steam to cook and eat in the evening before sleep.

Hope you have fun with peaches this summer!

Sugar Free September - tips for success

Before I even heard of #sugarfreeseptember, 4 weeks ago I went sugar free as part of returning to the Paleo diet. Depending on your health concerns, weight loss needs you can cut out just refined sugar through to anything of the overly sweet nature including things like honey.

Going sugar free can be tough in the first few days, but rest assured your body will thank you. After a week you shouldn't feel any where near as much craving for sugar, but many people return to it because of boredom, or lack of suitable alternatives.

In Chinese medicine, the sweet flavour easily overwhelmes the Spleen energy - the core of our body's energy-making machine. A small amount of sweet helps the Spleen - in the form of sweet vegitables or moderate amounts of grains the body can best benefit from the sweet flavour.

While Chinese medicine advocates cooked over raw foods, the following raw nutty recipie is definatley better than a chocolate bar or cupcake.

I love recipies that are quick to prepare, so over the next month, I'll share my personal favourites for your successful sugar-free September:

Tasty Nut Bars 

Your food processer or blender will become your best buddy in the kitchen, I like to keep a big box of a variety of nuts (all are good except cashews and peanuts), dried fruits and seeds (like sesame seeds, pepitas etc).

When you don't have time for reading recipies, just get a whole bunch of nuts and seeds and blend them down. Using a ratio of around 4:1, (nuts to dried fruit), add your favourite dired fruits to the blender. I like figs, seedless prunes, and a few apricots. If your not too concerned with loosing weight you can add a dash of some sugar-free sweet alternative like Dark Aglave Syrup, 100% pure Maple syrup or honey. when the mixture begins to "ball up" in the food processor then it's a good consistency.

For less sweet flavour, melt a few spoons of coconut oil and add that instead of the syrup options above.

Next, line a metal tin or plastic container with greeseproof paper and press the mixture into the tin, flattening it out.

For variety, each time you make the nut bars you can change up the kinds of nuts you use, or add some carob powder, cacao powder or cocoa powder.

Another option is to roll the mix into little balls and then roll in dried coconut.

Pop your nut bar into the fridge, after about an hour it's ready to cut up and eat.

Having these nut bars or balls in the fridge is a great sugar free snack alternative to chocolates and lollies. It's particularly handy in the first week of cutting out sugar when the cravings and habits are harder to break.  I like to cut mine up and put into zippy bags to take with me so I'm not tempted at work or on the run.

Good luck on your health journey this month with Sugar Free September!

Hangover Cures ...Chinese Medicine Style

Hangovers in Chinese medicine usually relate to a pattern of disharmony of toxic heat, food stagnation or a combination of dampness and heat. Basically Alcohol is heating and over-ingestion causes a toxic build up of heat. This heat stagnates and can lead to disturbance of the Spleen function. 

There are some classical mentions of foods which prevent or treat drunkenness & hangovers in Chinese medical literature...



Watermelon - Eating watermellon (flesh and/or also skin) whilst having a few beers might be a novel concept, but by trading your nuts for watermelon you can have a much better chance of waking up feeling less hungover. (Watermelon promotes urination and helps excrete the toxins of alcohol faster)
In western medicine there is even more research on watermelon, click here for more. 

Bananas - As mentioned in the Ben Cao Gang Mu Shi Yi (1765 A.D.), Bananas act on the digestion of the Large Intestine. Essentially, they have a detoxifying effect. They help the Large Intestine, and promote the excretion of toxins.  While it's great to urninate alot after drinking to "get all the toxins out", this also will deplete potassium and salts in the body. 100g of banana has about 358mg of potassium. Even before the science of hangovers was known, TCM was using bananas for condtions we now know are caused by dehydration and intoxication.

Some people are more effected by different kinds of alcohol. It's not just about the dehydrative effects of being "intoxicated". Why do some people wake up feeling seedy after even just 2 beers the night before?

Beer and grain-based alcohols cause more dampness - nausea, cloudy headed, heaviness, bloating.(More about dampness can be found in this awesome article.

The over-working of the Spleen and Stomach results in depleting the Spleen Qi and can lead to poor digestion, bloating and diarrhoea.

Spirits are much more warming and "hot" in nature than beers and wine. The more heat in your system the more strong the odour of the bowels, sweat and breath will be.

Toxic heat can cause things like skin to flare up - that's why you can find an acne break out after a big night out! If you already have skin conditions or acne, then heating foods and alchool should be avoided. People with acne should at the very least stay away from spirits. 

One of our herbal teas is made especially for clearing stagnation and toxic heat - HANGOVER TEA. 

It's based on a traditional chinese herbal formula Bao He Wan. This tea should be drunk in the morning upon waking. Hot water can be added to the herbs to make more tea over and over again, each time it will be a little less strong. You need the strongest effects first thing, then as the day goes on the herbs will still continue to expel heat and toxins, stimulating digestion and elimination. 

More info about our Hangover Tea can be found here.

New Years Resolution...Part 2

In part one, we looked at the Spleen's role in thinking.

In the Huang Di Nei Jing it says the "Spleen stores ideas worrying beyond measure with out self-control will injure ideas" 

This concept that the Spleen stores ideas, is a link to digestion of both food and thoughts,  reinforced by another quote from the Nan Jing “...the Spleen stores ideas and intelligence”

This same passage states “the Kidneys store essence and Will”.  Will or Zhi as it is known in TCM, is the activation of our decisions into reality.

So when we make a new years resolution there is a complexity of steps involving success! Let's look at how Chinese medicine sees this process: 

An Idea – Spleen energy. Lack of ideas? Dont know what to do or what you want to do? Lots of Circular thinking - that's weak Splen energy. 

A conversation – no, talking to yourself is not a sign of madness…but you need to decide within yourself what you will do. Not every idea is a good one. Whether we “think it through” , weigh up pros and cons, imagine possible consequences. – this is all the Spleen energy which digests thoughts and imaginations.

A decision – Gall Bladder energy is needed for this part.

The Gall Bladder is responsible for courage. A person with weak Gall Bladder energy will be chronically indecisive, timid and lack courage to put forward their ideas and self into the world. Naturally assertive people who are comfortable with themselves have healthy Gall Bladder Energy. Overly confident people or those who can't help themselves in piping up, having to be right and letting everyone know can be linked to an excess of Gall Bladder Qi.

Follow through - Will Power (Zhi) to act on the decision and follow through. “The spirit of the Kidneys, the Zhi, rules the will, drive, ambition and survival instinct” Huang Di Nei Jing

This is where most new years resolutions come undone. If you already have the resolution then you’ve already decided what you want to do. Kidney energy is what’s needed for a strong Will (Zhi).

An interesting saying in Chinese medicine about the Will is that ACTIVATING THE WILL, STRENGTHENS THE WILL. Which means each time you act on the decision in accordance with your new years resolution, it further strengthens your resolve. 

My next post will focus on ways to strengthen the Will (Zhi) and Kidney Energy. 

These ancient texts of the Yellow Emperors Classic (Huang Di Nei Jing) even mention acupuncture points to strengthen the Zhi, the Gall Bladders decision making energy and other aspects of our mental functions can be treated with acupuncture and herbal medicine. 

To all my readers, Happy New Year. I truly hope this new year is better than you've had so far and more fun than you could imagine! 

Self Help - Natural ways to relieve pain

Pain is an interesting phenomena of the human body.

Firstly, you need to know why you have the pain. Pain is a signal of something wrong and shouldn’t just be ignored or self-medicated without knowing it’s cause. In Chinese medicine, practitioners are all about getting to the root cause of the problem. We don’t just treat the symptoms but the Root as well (In TCM, this theory is called the Ben and Biao).

 

This post is really for people in chronic pain, when you know the cause and may need to manage it. There are lots of natural remedies on this earth which can alleviate pain. Please don’t take this advice as a replacement for seeing your health care professional or Western medical doctor.

Pain in the muscles or joints is a common one where we may easily know the cause. A simple over-working at the gym or sleeping incorrectly can cause us to wake up with muscular pain. If pain continues or gets worse, its advisable to seek professional advice and treatment. 

Natural ways to relieve pain:

• Warming

Heat makes blood vessels expand, which increases the blood supply to the heated area. If there is infection, then heat should NOT be applied. In Chinese medicine we usually suggest using heat at a hot but tolerable level (not a lukewarm hotpack) applied to the area for 20 minutes at a time.

Heat gets Blood flow to the area, while massage or movement can move some of the stagnation and assist repair and healing.  Heat shouldn’t be continuously applied without any movement or massage in-between each dose.

• Acupressure

Thousands of years people have been rubbing where it hurts, as an instinctive reaction to pain. Acupressure and Tuina-Chinese massage has been born out of this instinctive touching where pain occurs to relieve it. Knowing which channels and points are good for different areas of pain is the key to successful self-acupressure.

Here are some of my favourite self-acupressure points which may be useful for pain relief:

 Houxi SI 3 – Neck pain

Make a fist and look at your pinky finger. This point is just above where your pinky finger sits in the fist – under the knuckle bone of the 5^th metacarpal bone. The pressure should be directed towards the thumb under the bones, Use on the same side as the neck pain. For a stiff neck press it for about 2-3 minutes until a dull-achy sore feeling  is in the hand, continue pressing it and slowly rotate the neck from side to side according to it’s natural position.

  Hegu LI4 – Head pain, neck pain, shoulder and arm pain.

This point strongly stimulates release of the bodies natural pain killers. It is commonly called the “headache point” although in my 10+ years of practice I rarely find it a cure-all for headaches, sometimes it can make a strong headache worse. It is a very strong point for treating pain along it’s channel (the Large Intestine Channel) which goes from the index finger to the elbow and up onto the face. Press it the with your thumb or the back of a pen to get the right pressure

Diji Sp8 – Period pain

This point is the number one point for treating abdominal and period pain. It will be very sensitive during the period so the best way to use it with acupressure is to press it in with the back (not sharp) end of a pen. It is 3 cun measurements from the crease of the popliteal crease of the inside of the leg – Easy way to find it is the width of the four fingers, below the crease of the knee. See the picture that will make more sense! The point is right next to the bone.

Press this one for about 5 minutes until the pain starts to subside. When the pain is coming back you can press it again as many times as needed. 

• Plants

Plants have pain relieving properties – ranging from the opium poppy to essential oils, many of our pharmaceutical pain relieving drugs have natural plant origins.

• Essential Oils

Essential oils that can relieve muscular pain or menstrual pain (period pain) are CLARY SAGE and FRANKINSENCE oil. These are not the fragrance oils but the essential oils.

Frankinsense is a Chinese herb called Ru Xiang. It’s main function is to “move Blood” or as some author’s say it “quickens the Blood to dispel stasis”. Stasis or stagnation of Blood causes sharp and stabbing pain which is fixed in location.

These oils would normally be applied externally to the affected area. Don’t apply any oils to an open or healing scar site. It’s always appropriate to seek professional advice about whether it’s ok to use Essential oils in your specific health /sickness circumstances or in cases such as in pregnancy.

• Moxibustion

Heat is used in the treatment for pain in Chinese medicine, going back thousands of years. Heat was used in the form of Moxa, or Moxibustion well before there were microwaves to make wheat-bag hot packs.

If youre not familiar with moxa or moxibustion, you can click here for the post: Whats that Moxa smell all about?

The moxa box is a great invention of Chinese medicine which essentially houses the moxa stick and makes it easy to apply to the self.

MARIE HOPKINSON - Practice Details at www.metrohealth.com.au

Stories from China... Inside the Chinese Medicine Hospital

My three months in Hangzhou as an intern at the Hangzhou Shi Zhong Yi Yuan was one of my most memorable life experiences.

As a teacher in TCM, I am constantly urging my students to "go to China". There is no substitute for this experience. I can't even articluate all the reasons eloquently why this is so imperative, but in this post I hope to shed some light on it.

Imagine a room, around 45m2, with about 6 desks in there. About half the size of a standard office desk. Around each desk are 3 or 4 typical Chinese wooden stools - the kind a size 14 westerner could fit half of their butt on!


The outpatients clinic is a room just like this, except it is filled with people. Each doctor has their own desk, alonside them are their intern(s) - the more they have the more popular that doctor probably is.

Walking in at 8am when the hospital is just opening, it's buzzing full of people. The doctors havent even arrived but there are people everywhere. Down the hallways and crowding around the desks. Each patient is often are accompanied by an entourage - family support for their sick mother, father or even grown up child. Often the patients would have several relatives or close friends with them.
It's apparent that when a person is sick their community is mobilised.

The system in the hospitals at that time (ten years ago) - and still is the way in many hospitals- is a no appointment, first come, first served basis. The patients would register at the administration of the hospital, recieve a ticket then go and wait at the doctors desk to be seen. They place their patient record book on the table and before long a queue of patient record books piles up. When the doctor walks in and sees the normal 15 or so books lined up on their desk they can see today is just another ordinary, incredibly busy day.


The self-ownership of the health care record was the first amazing, unique thing that stood out to me in my first weeks of studying in China. This system seemed so simple and sensical that I wondered why we don't do it in Australia? The answer to that one probably lies in the bureaucratic and popous traditions of western medicine (which developed in ways that take the power away from the patient and make the doctor look important and all-knowing)...but perhaps also in the underlying ownership of health that native Chinese inheritently have. This is a deep part of Chinese Medicine and it seemed that the Chinese have taken this into their management of their health care system at the root of it.

Basically each person is issued with a booklet, which added to that a swipe card around the mid 2000's. The card and the booklet contain all their records with doctors - both western and TCM, the card could be swiped at the computer station or doctors desk and all their MRI's, CT's etc would come up on the screen.

This is an amazing system when you consider "doctor shopping" - one doctor can see what the others have done thus far. It almost creates a bit of professional accountablity amoung herbalists - they can see what herbs and drugs have been prescribed, tests ordered and anything else inbetween.

Marie and Dermatology Doctor Luo Wei Dan

I digress from the main point but I really want to paint the picture that China is such an amazingly different place to any western country and it's health care system is definatley a unique one. I can't think of one western country that dosen't have issues with it's government issued medical services (the NHS in the UK, HMO's in the USA and Medicare etc in Australia).
Waiting lists for routine procedures, possibly unecessary health complications created by the waiting time to simply recieve a diagnosis (not even treatment), and the cost burden to patients are all common complaints.

I'm not saying that China is perfect by any means, but it was common to see a patient present with a health problem for the first time at 8am, see the doctor, have tests ordered and completed and return with MRI or CT test results by the afternoon of that same day. These weren't rich people - just normal everyday people. And this is with the enormous population (1.351 billion at last count - by the way there are 0.3 billion in the USA).

In China, low wages paid to health care workers certainly plays a part. But shouldn't health care be our greatest service to people? High population always lowers costs - supply and demand.

When you go to China as a TCM intern you have the privillage to observe so much. It's not just the hundreds of Chinese medicine (herbal), acupuncture or Tuina cases you see. I found I observed much more because of the language barrier. Your senses are awakened to what you see and feel more than what you can hear and understand in terms of language.

This amazing health care system was a massive stand out to me on my first visit to China as an intern. It's just something different. It has it's faults and flaws just as any other system but it's totally different to what we experience as "hospital medicine" in Australia.

Pregnant? The Chinese medicine and Acupuncture experience.

Pregnancy can be one of life's most amazing experiences, certainly each pregnancy is different and can have it's own different health problems as well as health benefits. 

From a Chinese medicine perspective, pregnancy is a "yin time"...yin and yang are two opposites in our body.

Yin is best described by  words like sedentary, building, solid, dense, rich, cold or cool
Yang is best described by - active, doing, dynamic, hot or warm

Processes in our body usually require yang and yin but there are times where we are more one or the other - Sleep is a time where it should be mostly yin. A disharmony of yin and yang here would be when there is an over activity of the mind or body at night when one should be quiet and resting.

In pregnancy, as the foetus is being "built" there is a greater consumption of yin (which is Blood and nutrients) in Chinese medicine. Eating more Yin foods is often necessary.  These yin tonic foods tend to be the more richer, heavier things like meats, grains and root vegetables. 

Acupuncture, Chinese Herbs and Diet Therapy are used for many discomforting symptoms which can occur in pregnancy including:
Morning Sickness, Swelling and fluid retention, pain - especially common is lower back pain and sciatica, promoting labor, overdue labor and foetus position correcting - Breech position is commonly treated with acupuncture and moxibustion.

In the coming weeks I will outline how Chinese medicine approaches some of these ailments and symptoms.

Many acupuncturists are in favour of doing a course of treatment from 36 weeks onwards to promote labour and smooth flow of Energy and Blood, which is intended to promote a normal labour. This type of treatment is called PRE BIRTH ACUPUNCTURE. In my practice, Metro Health and Medicine, I offer this treatment at once a week for 4 weeks up to the due date.

A recent study of patients who sought acupuncture during their pregnancy were asked by survey about their experiences of the birth and what benefits they reported from having acupuncture during their pregnancy.¹

Of 133 participants who gave qualitative data, there were five main reported outcomes (some gave more than one outcome). Effectively treated their chief concern (37,2%) Holistic benefit (22.9%), no benefit (20.61%), achieved desired birth (13.74%) and assisted in childbirth (5.73%)

A copy of this interesting study is available in our clinic's waiting area at Metro Health and Medicine.


REFERENCES:

1. Soliday E, Hapke P. Patient-reported benefits of acupuncture in pregnancy. Comp Therapies in Clinical Practice 2013;19(1): 109-113

USEFUL LINKS:

Debra Betts Website - A midwife and acupuncturist from New Zealand who has made an abundant amount of resource available:  http://acupuncture.rhizome.net.nz/ 

Download the PDF booklet about pain relief in Labor:  http://acupuncture.rhizome.net.nz/acupressure/download.aspx