Acid and Alkaline in Life

Acidosis

Acidosis is the tendency towards over-acidity that arises in certain dis-eases.  Acid is always developing in the body but it is usually carried away in the body’s excretions.

There are some conditions affecting the digestion in which acidosis develops either because of increased acid production or because of the loss of alkaline substances by way of the bowels.  This happens when there is much loss of fluid from vomiting or diarrhea.  The treatment is to replace the lost fluid and to hinder the production of acid substances by giving water and salts.  Macrobiotics recommends the following drinks to treat diarrhea or vomiting.

1.    Sho-ban -  soya sauce and bancha or barley tea

2.    Umeboshi plum, ginger soya sauce, bancha or barley tea

3.    Kuzu, umeboshi plum, bancha or barley tea

4.    Miso soup with wakame

5.    Sea vegetable soup

Diabetes is the most common disease which cause acidosis.  In diabetes, the body is unable to use glucose so that fats are incompletely burned and acid substances are produced.  The acid becomes accumulated if there are not enough alkaline forming substances in the blood.

PICKLES-a very important part of our digestive process

Pickles play an important role in our digestive process:

1.  Help in the digestion and absorption of grains
2.  Stimulate appetite
3.  Are a good source of fiber
4.  A good source for absorbing salt
5.  A good way to preserve vegetables

Macrobiotic pickles are ones commonly made use roasted salted rice bran.  The utilization and absorption of a food is a difficult process requiring many steps. Pickles play an active role in many of these steps.
Simply, grains are a Complex Carbohydrate.  A carbohydrate is a molecule commonly found throughout the biological world, mainly in plants.  That is made up of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen.  The most commonly known is Glucose.  The terms, Simple sugar, Simple carbohydrate, saccharide and monosaharide are names for the same thing.  This monosacharide is the base unit (glucose), the building block to make Complex carbohydrates.  In Grains, hundreds of glucose molecules or units are linked together.  The intestines can only absorb the simplest sugars:  Mono and D1(2) sachardies.  The Grain molecule must be broken down into these base units in order to be absorbed and utilized as food in our bodies.
The breaking down process is accomplished by 3 things: 

1.  Chewing-the only physical action of digestion.  In this process, the Grains is torn apart to expose the Complex carbohydrates if you don't chew grains well, it cannot be digested and absorbed.  This is the main reason chewing so emphasized in macrobiotic practice.  Chewing also promotes secretion of:
2.  Enzymes-Enzymes are molecules which catalize (promote and greatly speed up) chemical processes or reaction in our body.  In this case, the process to simple carbohydrate is very important.  The salivary enzyme called Amaylase plays a key role here.  Other Enzymes work in the intestinal track.
3.  Bacteria-also work on the break down of the Grains.  When bread dough uses a fermented or bacteria hosting starter, breaking down of the wheat has already begun.  Old rice is easier to digest because bacteria have begun to break it down.  In our intestines, there are millions of bacteria that live right at the sights of food absorption.  This area with the bacteria is known as your Intestinal Flora.  Here the final breaking down of food occurs before absorption.

Pickles play a role with enzymes and bacteria.  The main worker here is a bacteria known as Lactobacillus, prevalent in pickles.  Lactobacilli aid pancreatic enzymes in the breakdown of complex carbohydrates.  Lactobacilli also produce lactic acid, an important food for the bacteria in the intestinal flora. Pickles help strengthen the intestinal flora.
When making pickles, in our case, rice bran, a process technically known as Lactic Acid Fermentation is occurring.  The key is the early establishment of Lactobaccilli before other bacteria which spoil can multiply.  The latter cannot tolerate the high acidity created by lactobaccilli.
I make quick summer pickles and winter pickles.  With quick summer pickles fermentation is so fast there is no need to do anything.  I rub celtic grey sea salt by hand into cut cabbage or other vegetables.  You can use a pickle press or a rock and a plate to apply pressure.  15 minutes.
Winter pickles, the vegetables are encased in a rice bran/celtic sea salt/water mixture.  It is recommended to flip the vegetables from the bottom to the top so the Lactobacillus can be established.  The pressure will be reduced and the lactic acid fermentation will be allowed to go from 1-6 months, depending on how Yang one wants the pickles.  To halt fermentation, pickle crock is simply refrigerated.  Take out pickles are removed to needed.  Just know the more water in the vegetables, the faster they pickle.
If you are over 40 or come from a farm; remember how pickles were always served as part of a meal.  In Japan, a slice of pickle is always served.

Power Chewing by Muramoto

POWER EATING PROGRAM

YOU ARE HOW YOU EAT

When people experience imbalances in their health, they often try counseling, divorce, relocation, pills, herbs, and surgery. Only as a last resort do they consider changing their eating habits, in the hopes of regaining their health.

When we eat food in a conscious manner, we may, as Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine taught "Let food be our medicine, and medicine be our food."

 Eating is a primal desire, the basis of our survival instinct. Eating is a simple act, yet vastly underestimated as a major influence on health. If you question the importance of food, try fasting for several days, or notice the behavior of a hungry infant. As with all basic human functions, eating can be a greedy indulgence or a spiritual experience. How we eat can merely fill us up and comfort us, or it can heal and transform us.

In many traditions and cultures, eating is considered a crucial, even sacred act. I was told by Lebanese friend that a peasant is not required to stop eating even if a king enters his house. Ancient Jewish law states that if a piece of food larger than an egg is eaten, one must sit down and say grace. Eating with a reverent attitude is recommended in many religious and spiritual ritual practices.

These days, we casually interrupt our meals for the phone and a thousand other hectic, chaotic influences of modern life. While we eat, we jump up and down, talk, read, scurry around, grab a bite, and then grab a digestive tablet.

 According to Consumer Spending Report, Americans now spend over $1 billion on digestive medicines each year Take a good look at your own lifestyle.

If foods are the building blocks of our health, then our stressful mealtime habits are causing us to crumble. Americans are overfed and undernourished. For too many people, food has become a form of entertainment rather than the means of nourishment. Grinning clowns sell high-fat, sugary non-foods. Cartoon characters, film stars and athletes convince Americans to eat junk food.

Yet a growing number of North Americans now are changing their eating habits. Unfortunately, some who eat a healthy diet fail to achieve satisfactory results largely because they focus on what, rather than how to eat. Very few people I observe know how to glean the full power from their food. The effects of even the most healthful meal can be minimized or nullified if eaten improperly.

We each choose what we want for our lives. With PEP, you will derive the maximum benefits from the foods you choose to eat. As you begin to take more care with your food choices, eating manner, breathing, exercise and contemplation, and as you practice directing your energies, you will focus your life more swiftly on where you really want to be.

REALIZE WHY YOU EAT

    Develop an awareness of your motivation for eating. Discover if the reason you are eating is:

1. Mechanical: a spontaneous response to hunger without thought about the quality or effects of food. "I'm so hungry, I could eat anything." "I could eat a horse."

2. Sensory: Eating for the taste, texture, fragrance, visual appeal of the food. "I eat this because it's delicious." "The food looks so pretty." "I love creamy foods."

3. Sentimental: Eating motivated by emotions or memories. "This dish reminds me of childhood, my homeland, the ethnic foods I loved." "I want cookies and milk before bed."

4. Intellectual: Influenced by diet, experts, and scientists. "I eat this because the book says to." "The speaker said these foods are low in calories and high in vitamins."

5. Social: Eating while conscious of the earth and its people, with empathy for others. "I eat food which supports the earth and can feed everyone." As Gandhi said, "I eat simply so that others may simply eat."

6. Ideological: Eating according to religious discipline or spiritual teaching, for development and transformation. "Exercising discipline and care, I eat the food of my spiritual beliefs."

7. Supreme: Freedom in eating deriving from inner wisdom and understanding of self with an awareness of all seven levels. "I eat to support my dream. I know the power of food. I eat to live, not live to eat." (Adapted from George Ohsawa's Seven Levels of Judgment.

READ MORE: http://macrobiotics.co.uk/pep.htm 

NEI CHING The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine

China's oldest medical text.  The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine estimated that the work was written between the 3rd & 2nd centuries B. C.  Although the Yellow Emperor lived about 2700 B.C. 

"The Neijing is one of the most important classics of Taoism. First, it gives a holistic picture of human life. It does not separate external changes - geographic, climatic, and seasonal, for instance - from internal changes such as emotions and our responses to them. It tells how our way of life and our environment affect our health. Without going into detail, the book articulates a treasure of ancient knowledge concerning the natural way to health, implying that all phenomena of the world stimulate, tonify, subdue, or depress one’s natural life force."
READ MORE: http://www.five-element.com/graphics/neijing.pdf

GINGER COMPRESS and GINGER SESAME OIL

GINGER COMPRESS

Purpose:  Stimulate blood and body fluid circulation; helps loosen and dissolve stagnated toxic matter, cysts, tumors, etc.
Preparation:  Place a handful of grated ginger in a cheese cloth or 2 large slices of ginger root and put into pot.  Put into a pot containing 1 gallon of hot water kept just below the boiling point, if you boil you will lose the power of the ginger.  Soak a towel into the ginger water, wring it out tightly and apply, very hot, put inside a hot fresh towel; place on area to be treated.  Apply fresh towel every 3-7 minutes until the skin becomes red.
Special Considerations for Cancer cases:  The ginger compress should be prepared in the usual manner.  However, it should be applied for only a short time, 3-5 minutes maximum, to activate circulation in the affected are and should be immediately followed by a taro potato or potato plaster.  

GINGER SESAME OIL

Activates the function of the blood capillaries, circulation and nerve reactions.  Also relieves aches and pains.  Mix the juice of grated, fresh ginger with an equal amount of sesame oil.  Dip cotton linen into this mixture and rub briskly into the skin of the affected area.  This is also helpful for headache, dandruff and hair growth.

PARASITES

If you have parasites or worms (same thing) you are not alone.  It is estimated that about 90% of the people living in subtropical, where the winters have no frost to kill the eggs, have parasites.   The reason why so few people know much about parasites is because it is very difficult to tell whether parasites are present or not.  At least it is very difficult to find parasites if there are very few of them and they are causing no special symptoms.  But if the infestation is severe it is then very easy to determine whether a person has parasites or not.  

HOW CAN WE FIND OUT WHETHER YOU HAVE PARASITES

The methods for the detection of parasites vary.  Science of applied kinesiology and also biomagnetics offer a quick and easy method testing for the presence of parasites in those people where the infestation is severe.  Some of the signs and symptoms are the liver will become inflammed and irritated.  There will be an area of weakness over the liver (right rib cage area).  The Yuen Chinese Energetics combined with Quantum physics is a quick indentifier and deleter of all parasites.  Over the years, of using various US homeopathic and herbal techniques, I am still astounded on how fast and effective the Yuen Method is.

  Using the Magnetic Analyzer; testing (56 seconds-36 systems of the body) before the removal of parasites and afterwards brings to light the amazing improvements in the test results and consequently the person's health.
I have recorded comments afterwards from "no headaches, to strength and energy, to brighter and clearer mentally, healthier bowel movements."

TYPICAL LIFECYCLE OF THE PARASITE

Hook worm disease or ankylostomiasis:  the major symptom is chronic blood loss anemia.  This is a pypochronic microcytic anemia since the blood iron is used up.  Parasites eat blood airon.  Other possible psymptoms are diarrhea or dysentary and ulceration of the small intestine, especially the jejunum.  (is the part where most of the absorption takes place), itch or local skin irritation due to the larvae of the worms burrowing through the skin, pneumonia like symptoms or pulmonary symptoms due to the larvae passing through the lungs and digestive system.

LIFECYCLE OF THE HOOK WORM

1.  Eggs exit the human with feces.
2.  Eggs hatch in the warm, moist soil with larvae
3.  The larvae become attached to the skin and burrow through the skin into the blood.
4.  The larvae travel via the blood or lymph to the lungs and other parts of the body.
5.  Larvae burrow through the alveolae in the lungs and climb up the wind pipe and then fall into the stomach.  They are now adult size.
6.  In the small intestine the larvae attach to the mucosa with hook-like teeth, mostly in the jejunum, undergo sexual reproduction, the female laying 10,000 eggs a day.  The worms have a lifespan of 2-3 years.

The eggs are so small that they can also enter the host with the air in the form of dust.  When a person who has a severe infestation gets out of bed in the morning, a cloud of eggs rises from the bed clothes.

Occasionally the worms will not migrate to the small intestine but will remain in some part of the body.  For instance, a case was reported where an autopsy showed that a person who died of a condition effecting her brain had 12 tapeworms in her brain.  Other cases of the worms crawling out of the nose due to the worms damaging the optic nerve or if the worms settle in the muscles chronic back or muscle pains of different kinds.  Traditionally, herbal pumpkin combination for removing parasites in intestines and black walnut and garlic getting the parasites out of muscles.  Again, I now use the Yuen method and prayer to get every bit of the nest of parasites.

Reports state that parasites create:  hypoglycemia, indigestion, colitis, back pain, headaches, neck pain, open illeo-cecal valve,.  Some authorities suggest that cancer is often the result of parasites.  Acne and skin problems, poor assimilation resulting in deficiency problems, nausea, vomiting, a feeling of fullness in the stomach.  Some report you feel sick most of the time, you have no energy and generally listless.  The parasites will cause ulceration of the intestines.  The intestines will produce large amounts of mucus to try and protect itself.  As a result absorption of the nutrients might be reduced to such an extent that it becomes virtually impossible to control the deficiencies.

Read more....http://yuenmethod.com/

HEALTH BENEFITS OF UMEBOSHI PLUM PASTE

Besides their dramatic flavor, Japanese pickled plums have remarkable medicinal qualities. Their powerful acidity has a paradoxical alkalinizing effect on the body, neutralizing fatigue, stimulating the digestion, and promoting the elimination of toxins. This is the Far Eastern equivalent to both aspirin and apple; not only is it a potent hangover remedy for mornings after; more than that, an umeboshi a day is regarded as one of the best preventive medicines available.

Like many of Japan's ancient medicinal foods, the origin of the pickled plum is obscure. One theory traces it to China, where a dried smoked plum, or ubai, was discovered in a tomb built over two thousand years ago. The ubai is one of China's oldest medicines and is still used for a variety of medical purposes such as counteracting nausea, reducing fevers, and controlling coughs.

The oldest Japanese record of pickled plums being used as a medicine is in a medical text written about one thousand years ago. Umeboshi were used to prevent fatigue, purify water, rid the body of toxins, and cure specific diseases such as dysentery, typhoid, and food poisoning. Slowly, extensive folklore developed about umeboshi's ability to prevent and cure certain diseases.

During Japan's furious samurai period, which lasted through most of the Middle Ages, the pickled plum was the soldier's most important field ration. It was used to flavor foods such as rice and vegetables, and its high acidity made it an excellent water and food purifier, as well as an effective antidote for battle fatigue.

Almost 200 years ago, the Japanese began experimenting with ways to concentrate the healing powers of umeboshi. Finally, a dark liquid called bainiku ekisu (plum extract) was developed. To make the extract, sour green ume plums are slowly cooked down to obtain their most active ingredients in a highly concentrated form. The resulting dark, sticky, thick liquid is usually mixed with hot water and honey and is drunk as a tonic. Dried plum extract is also formed into pills, called meitan. In both plum extract and meitan, the plums' citric acid content is concentrated tenfold, which is equivalent to about twenty-five times the content found in lemon juice.

Many natural healers around the world feel that these concentrated forms of Japanese plums are among the world's most effective natural medicines. Moreover, they do not have the high salt content of pickled plums. 

READ MORE :http://www.mitoku.com/products/umeboshi/healthbenefits.html