Health tips for the cold weather

Keep warm, strengthen your immune system and develop healthy habits. Get practical tips, know the “why,” plus Tamara shares her Congee (Rice Soup) recipe!

For a warmer you in colder weather.

According to Chinese Medicine, one very important way to stay healthy is to adapt the body to the changing temperatures, paying close attention to one’s diet. This time of year it is recommended to eat food that are easy to digest and that protect internal warmth and strengthen the digestive organs. Traditionally, foods that help in this regard for example, include: rice, glutinous rice (in moderation), yams, peanuts, clear soups like chicken soup, and cooked vegetables. In general, I recommend avoiding raw vegetables and fruits, cold foods and beverages, very greasy meats, and very sweet deserts. This is because so much energy is required for digesting raw, cold and greasy foods that the energy needed to perform other functions gets drawn to the digestive organs and away from the systems that help keep us warm and our immune system strong. We are like a high performance car and we want our high performance engine running at its optimal level and keeping our digestive system strong accomplishes this goal!

Another great tip is to massage the bottom of the feet and warm soaks in the evening. The Kidney organ is associated with winter, and the Kidney channel starts on the bottom of the feet. It is recommended, in Chinese medicine, to massage the bottom of the feet regularly. Also, wear socks that are comfortable and warm. Cold feet mean a cold Kidney! You also might enjoy a warm Epsom salt soak in the evening before bed. It’ll soothe the feet as well as warm the kidney channel.


Congee (rice soup)

One cup rice and 6 cups water in crock pot, let cook 4-6 hrs. until the water becomes milky and the rice becomes ‘poufy’. You may need to add a little water if the level drops.

This will store nicely in the refrigerator for a week. Take out desired portion (maybe sauté onions, garlic mushroom? as a flavor base) bring to a boil and add any desired vegetable and/or
beans. You might like to drop an egg and some kale in as a breakfast food.

Options: add in one bone-in breast of chicken (w/out skin) and an inch of fresh ginger root (optional) peeled and shredded. When fully cooked, de-bone chicken, shred meat and add it back in.
Adding the chicken will give it a nice chicken soup flavor. You can also cook the rice in bone broth for enhanced nutritional value.

The Benefits of Congee

Traditionally known as hsi-fan or “rice water,” Congee has a myriad of healing properties. It is both easily digested and absorbed and consists of an uncomplicated rice soup. Congee tonifies the qi (pronounced “chee” which we consider to be our”life force” or “life energy”) and the blood (blood is thought of a bit differently and may be considered as solidified qi or the transport vessel of qi). Congee harmonizes digestion, and also acts as a moderating agent when there is heat and inflammation in the body. With the aid of a nursing mother supply of milk may be increased. Although rice is the most common grain for congee, a variety of additional vegetables, grains, and herbs can be added to enhance the therapeutic properties.

Brown rice: diuretic, thirst-quenching, nourishing: Used for constipation, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting bloating and indigestion +++
Ginger: warming and antiseptic to the organs, used for cold digestive weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, and indigestion.

Tea and Healthy Bones

Drinking tea is not just a past-time but a benefit to your health! From bone-health to a source of natural fluoride, anti-oxidants and more, Go and drink a cup today!

Reposted from the email newsletter of Henry McCann, DAOM, LAc & Candace Sarges, MAc, LAc:

“Aside from water, tea is perhaps the most frequently consumed beverage in the world.”

 

All tea comes from Camellia sinensis, a plant native to the southwest of China. Originally Camellia plants grew as very tall trees but today the plant is grown to the size of a bushy shrub to make leaf harvesting easier. Some varieties of tea such as Puerh are still harvested from wild trees that are centuries old, growing in ancient forests alongside camphor trees. Right now as I sit writing this I’m sipping a Puerh tea aged and fermented for the last 18 years that was harvested from such a forest.

 

“Tea has numerous health benefits and originally was consumed as medicine rather than daily leisure beverage.”

 

In Chinese though we say that food and medicine are of the same origin and tea is no different! Modern research has confirmed numerous benefits from regular tea drinking and a study published this past March reconfirmed something people may find surprising – tea drinking is good for your bones.

 

This study found, “beneficial effects of tea consumption on [bone mineral density], especially in the lumbar spine, hip, [and other locations].” What is particularly interesting about this study is that it was a meta-analysis, in other words it pooled information from numerous other published articles and included information on over 12,000 participants. To read the original study please click here.

 

The exact reasons for the benefit to bone health is yet unknown, but we do know that tea is high in polyphenols, in particular catechins and epicatechins. These compounds have been shown to have significant anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties.

 

Tea is also a good natural source of fluoride, which may explain why tea drinking is associated with greater dental health (with the exception of possible cosmetic staining of the teeth) and lowered risk of oral cancers. While the full reasons for why tea is healthy are still being discovered, there seems to be general consensus that it is.”

 

Go enjoy a cup!