BURDOCK ROOT HEALTH BENEFITS

DESCRIPTION AND USE

Long, brown root with a savory-sweet flavor.  Grows wild everywhere.

It keeps for several weeks, wrapped in clothe, brown bag and refrigerated.

Burdock is the main ingredient of most health food store cleansers.

TRADITIONAL BENEFITS

1.      Cleanses the blood

2.      Tones and strengthens intestines

3.      Improves Mental Clarity

4.      Alkalizes and highly mineralized, an excellent booster food when feel run down from a cold or flu or stress

5.      Eat often to help reduce sweet craving

Depression/Mental Illness-Autumn Chinese element of Metal

Hello friends…Welcome to Autumn!  I promised you more on Depression.  In Chinese medicine, Grief and depression are a part of the Autumn or Lung and Colon Season-Autumn.   The seeds we have sown, now we shall reap.

Autumn is a season of gathering nature’s product before winter’s rest.  Autumn marks the beginning of a cycle of personal turning within; its first official day is September 23.  The equinox day, when’s night’s darkness equals the length of day.

Metal element in Chinese Five Element theory is associated with autumn and represents the mineral ores and salts of the Earth.  These function in creating structure and communication.  For instance, metal wires establish connections and conduct electricity.  Your brain and nervous system is analogous to electrical wiring.  Metal in Chinese system is similar to aspects of Air in astrology.  Both Air and Metal energies are expressed in the inner workings and activities of the mind, developing ideas, writing and speaking.  Degrees of mental clarity can be compared to Metal’s varying forms, which range from crude, impure and dense or to a shining, crystal clear gem.  Whiteness in the facial pallor can represent a metal imbalance, mainly seen in the skin around the eyes and cheeks.  This may be especially noticeable in someone who has had a bad cold, or acute or chronic lung problems or in someone who has recently been experiencing great worry, grief or sorrow, the emotions corresponding to the Metal element.

These feelings can be a healthy response, but if extreme or prolonged may injure the lungs or large intestine, the Metal organs.  Worry may cause poor, shallow breathing or the holding back of proper elimination, both important functions of the lungs and large intestine.  The sense organ for the Metal element is the nose and associated sense is smell. 

Metal’s body fluid is mucus and the climate is dryness.  However, extreme dryness can injure this element, as can its opposite climate, dampness.  The mucous membranes contain 2 types of cells:  serous-producing a watery fluid and mucous cells, which produce a thicker secretion.  It is the mucus that protects and coats the mucous linings, while the serous fluid helps wash debris and bacteria from these sensitive membranes.  Normally, there is a higher percentage of serous cells along the linings.  Excessive mucus is actually a relative state of dryness from inadequate water intake, too much mucous producing food or a Metal imbalance.

You have a choice, you can be open and joyful, welcoming each breathe and each change in life by looking toward the new experience and growth it will bring.  Or if you dwell on sadness, you are open to injure the Metal element and in turn to colds, lung ailments and digestive problems.  Your bowel habits reflect your approach to change; you hold on to fecal matter until you even experience pain or you can freely let go of your waste products.  The “holding on” occurs not just in the rectum but throughout the body, involving muscular tightness, mental tension and other restrictions of bodily functions.  If you are “holding on” please re-train yourself to more easily and efficiently process your foods, thoughts and emotions.

Regular bowel movements occur naturally after eating a meal since the gastrocolic reflex causes contraction of the rectum in response to distention of the stomach.  This is true particularly in children.  Congesting diets high in meats, dairy and refined foods and poor eating habits, like fast foods interfere with our regular bowel movements.  Congestion of the large intestine often leads to the displacement and loss of tone of this organ and is the cause of many pains and illnesses.  General abdominal discomfort and low and mid-backaches are often referred from the distention of the large intestine.  In the Chinese metal system, congestion in the large intestine manifests in the neck, head, nose and sinuses.  Pressure in the head and sinuses, headaches, sore throats as well as crankiness, lack of energy and even lack of enthusiasm for life can come from a back-up in this organ.

This is exactly how I developed cancer.  My large intestine was not releasing the waste products so my blood became highly acidic.  Within 2 years of changing my diet and life perspective, my blood was restored to alkaline and I loved life.  You must be aware by now that cancer cells cannot form in alkaline blood.  We are designed to be 7.3 ph alkaline.  We are healthy and happy.

This Depression/mental illness information will continue so in the meantime:

1.    Detox your body-In Autumn, the body automatically goes into detoxification   whether you realize it or not.  Why not support this process and recover your mental clarity.  Please see YOU ARE ALL SANPAKU (brown rice fast) ebook on karencruickshank.blogspot.ca

2.    For detoxifying yourself of negative emotions stay posted for the Behavioral Barometer as it is such a quick and easy tool to eliminate these past negative experiences.

3.    To regain the tone of the large intestine, please chew at least 32 times.  Please read Power Eating by Muramoto on the blog.

4.   If you want a quick way to establish your Acid or Alkaline level of your body; you can buy Litmus paper strips either at the drug store or at a nursery.

Sending you Divine Love and light til next time.

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