Thursday 25 June 2015

Sea vegetables-Why the Okinawa people have the longest healthiest lives!


SEA VEGETABLES
Sea vegetables are the greatest food source of nutrition and minerals.

WAKAME –The Women’s Seaweed
Graceful, green fronds with a subtly sweet flavor and slippery texture.  Expands quite a bit, so cut it in small pieces.  High in calcium, thiamine, niacin, and Vitamin B12.  Traditionally used in Oriental medicine to purify the blood, strengthen intestines, skin and hair.  Beneficial for the reproductive organs, and to help regulate women’s cycles.

KOMBU- The Great Enhancer
Mellow flavoured, broad green frond, expands greatly when soaked.  Contains glutamic acid—a food tenderizer and flavor-enhancer.  Softens beans and makes them more digestable.  Sweetens root vegetables in stews, so they melt in your mouth.  For “al dente” kombu, cook ½ hour to 45 minutes, then slice into bite size pieces or julienne strips.  Or, cook it for 1-1/2 hours in a pot of beans, stir the pot and the kombu will dissolve and disappear.

HIJIKI-The Strong One
Striking black strands, with a firm texture and uniquely strong flavor.  Richest of all the seaweeds in calcium and iron—a good choice when you need to be able to stand up under pressure.  Known in Japan as “the bearer of wealth and beauty, hijiki is traditionally used to strengthen the bones, revitalize skin and hair.  Also builds strong intestines.

ARAME-The Artist’s Choice

Delicate brown-black strands with a mild, semi-sweet flavor, and firm, pleasing texture.  High in both calcium and iron.  Surprisingly artful when combined with other foods—try adding ¼ cup to a batch of cornmeal muffin batter, or a pot of split pea soup or adzuki bean salad.  Also delicious and attractive cooked together with buckwheat and onions as a pilaf.   What else could you use it?  If you are looking for a Quick Fix:  Using Arame in a stir fry.  Soak for 5 – minutes and add towards the end of your stir fry cooking.  Add a small amount of tamari (wheat free soya sauce) as you add Arame to stir fry.

Celtic Sea Salt- the Salt of Life



Celtic Grey Sea Salt        The “Salt of Life”
How does Celtic sea salt differ from white sea salt?  White sea salt can be harmful as it is refined.  In fact, many come from the same refineries.    Our bodies don’t like ‘processed’.
What is Celtic Sea Salt?
It is the complex, balanced mixture of essential minerals our body needs and craves in almost the exact proportions required.  The chemical analysis of Celtic Sea Salt is almost identical to that salty ‘mini-ocean’ for the fetus-amniotic fluid- in which we were all created.
Celtic salt is moist; dry salt indicates that the magnesium has been removed, because magnesium clings to water.  Salt from salt mines and ancient sea beds is far less beneficial for human consumption.  Thousands of years of rainfall through many geological layers will deplete vital minerals from these mines and beds. In the living minerals, gases and moisture found in the living waters of our oceans is where Celtic salt is harvested annually.  Salt deposits will either have too many minerals, or not enough. 
Celtic sea salt has a perfect balance of the essential trace minerals and gases the body requires, people find they use about one-third the amount they would use with other ‘salts’.
What does Celtic sea salt actually do?
Proper Celtic sea salt has an infinite number of roles in our health.  One of the most important is that it recharges the cells and energizes the body.  The body’s natural salinity maintains the cells; Ph 7.3-7.5.  Proper salt actually helps our cells produce other necessary minerals, and recharges the cells in much the same way as a battery.  The better you maintain the battery, the longer it lasts and the better it performs.
Traditionally, people used to eat a salty soup before a meal to enhance digestion.  Salt re-enriches your saliva so your body can manufacture the proper digestive juices to break down the complex carbohydrates, celluloid’s and chlorophyll from the vegetables which contain potassium.  It actually creates hydrochloric acid.
Hydrochloric acid?
Our stomachs are full of hydrochloric acid.  Hydrochloric acid is made from the hydrolysation of chlorine.  The chlorine comes from the essentially balanced sodium chloride, we find in Celtic salt.  Celtic salt ensures the correct function of our digestive system.  If you complain of acid reflux symptoms; I would suggest checking your sea salt and hydrochloric levels.
7 Times the nutrition
Using the High mineral balanced Celtic sea salt, you get up to seven times the nutrition out of vegetables by increasing food’s potency and enhancing the positive effects of nutrients, re-enriching saliva and creating hydrochloric acid.

How it all works!
There is a general rule of osmosis when it comes to bodily functions:  Water goes wherever salt goes.  Without replenishing our body’s salt reserves, we throw off that vital balance of salt and water that keeps us functioning normally.
Your body will begin to secrete water more quickly in order to raise the level of sodium concentration in the bloodstream.
Signs of too little salt; takes the form of sweating profusely and loss of appetite.  Within a few days comes extreme fatigue, followed by muscles that become sore and stiff and begin to twitch.  Finally, insomnia and perhaps convulsions occur in extreme instances.
Without proper salt, the cells cannot regenerate and they have no energy.  The cells actually take sodium from the saline fluid surrounding them and convert the sodium to potassium to create energy and cool down the body.  As the body sweats, it loses electrolytes as well as salts and fluids.  Proper salt replenishes these supplies and provides energy to live and function.  Denying yourself the proper salt worsens every problem in which cell repair and rejuvenation must occur to maintain body function.
This is the single, most important biological fact that must be considered when talking about Celtic sea salt.  The cells degenerate and age without this vitally balanced saline solution.
So, we delete to zero minus infinity all misinformation about salt and strengthen us to 100% infinite potential.  Some are concerned if salt causes high blood pressure.  This is table salt or ‘sodium chloride’- two different minerals even though they share the same name.  So, we delete all misinformation about salt causing high blood pressure to zero minus infinity.  In fact, Celtic sea salt actually stabilizes blood pressure whether high or low.
Because it is the primary CLEANSER of our veins and arteries –keeping our ‘transmission lines’ clean.  Celtic sea salt has the ability to clear plaque.  Proper sea salt in the blood dream will actually cleanse the blood vessels and ensure normal circulatory flow.  Oil and salt work together as a team – salt breaks up grease.
Chefs have known for centuries that if they add oil alone to food, it becomes ‘greasy’ and indigestible; but if they add salt, it breaks up the bonds of the oil giving it a wonderful taste and consistency.
Celtic sea salt helps to digest and emulsify foods natural oils – oil and salt compliment each other.  Celtic sea salt does the same thing in our bodies having the ability to scour the artery walls clean.
How do I use Celtic sea salt?
 In cooking or baking, use only 2/3 of what the recipe calls for – salt to taste.  Sprinkle it lightly over raw fruits and vegetables and prepare yourself for a taste sensation.  Some people dissolve and drink small quantities in a glass of water 2 or 3 times a day or in a glass of fruit or vegetable juice. 
Yes, natural sea salt makes a wonderfully gradient bath with the same levels of salt as our blood and the ocean.  It is detoxifying and strengthening bath changing your bathwater into a healing amniotic fluid.

Please see  Arthritis, Kidney Function and Salt Baths post on my blog.

Friday 12 June 2015

Arthritis, Kidney Function, and Salt Baths

By:  Herman Aihara Introduction by Bob Ligon

Herman Aihara developed the theory of acid and alkaline in response to a question that he had about George Ohsawa’s thoughts on acid and alkaline. Basing his thinking on the elements present in foods such as sodium, calcium, phosphorus, and sulfur, Ohsawa designated acid foods as yin and alkaline foods as yang. Herman investigated this idea and distinguished the meaning of acid, acid foods, and acid-forming foods, and alkaline, alkaline foods, and alkalineforming foods. The acid- or alkalineforming quality of a food is the new effect (either acid or alkaline) of a food after it has been digested and assimilated. Herman agreed with Ohsawa that acid and acid foods are yin, and alkaline and alkaline foods are yang. However, Herman discovered that acid-forming foods could also be either yin or yang (see Acid and Alkaline, Herman Aihara, G.O.M.F., 1986 for more details). Many of the most common foods, both yin and yang, in the American and European diet, i.e., meat, eggs (both yang foods), dairy, sweets, and all drugs (yin foods or substances), are considered acid forming. These foods, according to acid/alkaline theory, are taxing and eventually weakening to the kidneys. The prevalence of these foods, along with other factors, contributes to a condition of weak kidneys. Such has been Herman’s observation from many years of consultation experience. The following is a letter Herman received from a woman with a deteriorating bone condition. Herman offers his opinion on how to approach this condition, including specific suggestions on how to strengthen the kidneys. And addressing a frequently asked question about one of those suggestions, Herman explains why he recommends salt baths    

Wednesday 10 June 2015

Shiatsu Hands-on Therapy

From US Illustrated Bodyworker Magazine.
 Although 25 years have passed, I remember clearly my first shiatsu treatment.  Shiatsu was little known in America then, so I had only vague expectations, based on Swedish massage, of lying naked on a table and being rubbed with oil.  Instead, I found myself--quite clothed and unoiled--lying on a futon placed on the floor.  The practitioner worked on my arms, legs, and head, applying a firm downward pressure on specific points with his thumbs and hands.  Some of the points were tender even painful to the touch.  On these he often worked a bit deeper and harder.  Nevertheless about 20 minutes into the hour session, I began to feel relaxed.  As the treatment continued, the relaxation deepened.  Afterward I had a profound sense of physical, emotional and mental well-being and balance.
"Shiatsu is based on the same meridian-energetic theory underlying all of traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine.  According to this model, 14 major meridians or conduits of vital energy, called ki, run through the body.  These meridians, two on the trunk, six on the arms and six on the legs are related to the major organs and functions of the body.  They comprise a system of circulation whereby the ki moves through the body.  "In Shiatsu, pressure from the fingers and hands of the practitioner can change the energy flow, thereby stimulating and strengthening weak organs and sedating overactive ones."  "Shiatsu can be very helpful in cases of stress--physical, emotional and psychological."  It is effective health maintenance.  Many people come in once or twice a month for a tune-up.  Shiatsu is used to treat a wide range of medical problems and can be particularly effective with hose that may be stress related like back pain, chronic indigestion, hypertension and depression.