grass roots health!

Build yourself a healthier life from the roots up! Ocean Acupuncture is a centre for natural medicine in Curl Curl on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. In this blog, our practitioners share with you their insights, tips, recipes, observations, knowledge and advice. We love little tidbits of info that help you get back to your roots – your natural state – which is light, vibrant and relaxed. Please feel free to add your comments and let us know what you think!

01 October 2010

Seeds and sprouts to grow and eat

The Wood element relates to Spring and the colour green, and Spring is when new green shoots emerge from the soil. Surrounding yourself with new life is a wonderful way to embrace the season.

Now is a great time to get out into the garden or start a herb garden on your windowsill. Grab some pots, a bag of potting mix and some seeds. It’s the perfect time to plant basil to ensure a good supply to go with your summer tomatoes. Coriander, parsley, chives and mint are easy to grow and so useful to bring some colour and life to your meals. Ordinary scrambled eggs become a delicious treat when garnished with freshly picked herbs.

Watching your seeds sprout and grow is great visual therapy for the Liver in Spring, helping you to connect with the cycle of the seasons and harnessing the power of your subconscious to engage the body in regeneration and healing.

Sprouts are also great to eat. They’re cooling and cleansing according to Chinese medicine dietary therapy, and they help to free the flow of stuck Liver Chi-energy. As the seed germinates into a sprout, nutrients become much more available and plentiful, such as vitamins, enzymes, amino acids and free fatty acids. This makes sprouts easier to digest than their seed counterparts, and provides a powerhouse of vitality.

How to make your own sprouts:

Place one part seed to at least three parts purified or spring water into a clean, large, wide-mouthed jar and cover with mesh or cloth (I use a Chux secured with a rubber band!).

Soak as specified below, drain well and keep in a warm dark place (or on a dish draining rack covered with a cloth), ideally with the jar mouth tilted down for full drainage.
Rinse morning and evening and drain well as above, until sprouted (if using alfalfa, radish, red clover or mustard then after three days continue the sprouting process while exposed to indirect sunlight, to create chlorophyll).
Remove hulls by placing sprouts in large bowl of water and gently shaking them, reaching underneath to scoop up loose hulls. This is essential for alfalfa and radish as the hulls easily rot. For other sprouts it’s optional, according to taste.

Seed -- Soak time -- Days to sprout

2 tbsp alfalfa &/or red clover -- 6 hrs -- 5-6 days
¼ cup radish &/or mustard -- 6 hrs -- 5-6 days
½ cup lentils &/or fenugreek -- 8 hrs -- 3 days
½ cup mung beans -- 8 hrs -- 3-5 days
1 cup wheat, rye &/or oats -- 12 hrs -- 3 days
1 cup aduki, chick pea, soy*, other legumes, grains -- 12 hrs -- 3-5 days
2 cups sunflower seeds -- 12 hrs -- 2 days

* Soy must be rinsed 4 times a day to prevent rotting

Source: Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford

Sprout salad with French-style dressing

Enjoy your home-grown sprouts in a salad with this French-inspired dressing. It combines pungent and sour flavours to raise your Yang energy up and cleanse the Liver and Gallbladder.

Place 1 heaped tablespoon of Dijon seed mustard in a bowl. Gradually add good quality extra-virgin olive oil, stirring constantly. The mixture should become thicker and become creamy. When oil starts to bead on the top, it’s time to add the juice of a few lemons, tasting until you get the balance you like. Season with natural salt and a hint of (optional) crushed garlic.

See also: Zingy Spring Salad

This post is brought to you by Lois Nethery, acupuncturist and Chinese medicine herbalist at Ocean Acupuncture in Curl Curl.

Ocean Acupuncture is a natural medicine centre of independent health practitioners. The views expressed in this blog are the author's only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the other Ocean Acupuncture practitioners.
The information presented in this blog, and on the Ocean Acupuncture website, is for interest and educational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for health or medical information or advice. For health or medical advice, please consult your health professional.

Recipe: Zingy Spring Salad

With lots of green fresh herbs, sweet-sour green apple and tender sprouts, this is a great salad to rejuvenate a stagnant and congested Liver in Spring. The dressing is a combination of therapeutic flavours – Sour, Sweet, Pungent and Salty. The fifth therapeutic flavour – Bitter –comes from the herbs, so that the cleansing and renewing energy enters all of the channels and organ systems, giving you a gentle all-over detox with an emphasis on Liver and Gall Bladder cleansing.

Enjoy this salad as an accompaniment to grilled fish, or with tahini and avocado spread on sourdough bread.

Serves 1 as a light meal, or 4 as a side salad with other dishes

Salad

Few stems of watercress
Few stems of coriander
Few stems of parsley
Few stems of basil
Few mint leaves
1 green apple, diced
Handful of alfalfa sprouts (or combo eg alfalfa & garlic etc)

Dressing

Sour: Juice of ½ lime (or lemon, or 1 tbsp raw unrefined apple cider vinegar)
Salty: Splash of tamari (or medium soy sauce)
Sweet: Splash of mirin (or few drops of maple syrup or honey)
Pungent: 1 tsp minced ginger
Sweet/Sour: 3 sundried tomatoes, finely chopped

Roughly chop all herbs, including soft stems, and combine with the apple and sprouts in a bowl. Adjust proportions of herbs to taste. If serving later, pour a little lime juice over chopped apple to prevent browning.

Combine all dressing ingredients, check balance of tastes and adjust if desired (Sweet, Sour, Pungent and Salty). Dress and toss the salad and serve immediately.

See also: Growing your own sprouts

This post is brought to you by Lois Nethery, acupuncturist and Chinese medicine herbalist at Ocean Acupuncture in Curl Curl.

Spring is here!

Gloriously warm one day, chilly and windy the next - the changeable Wood element belongs to Spring. The Wood element also relates to the Liver and Gallbladder, the colour green and the sour flavour.

This month, learn how to keep healthy in Spring by adapting to the weather and the Wood element:

How can you prevent cold and flu?

Why is Spring the best time for a natural detox?

How can you use flavours and cooking styles to rejuvenate your energy?

How can you cleanse a sluggish Liver and Gallbladder with "kitchen-cupboard cures"?

Why are sprouts a "super-food" and how can you grow and eat them?

What's a great recipe to refresh your whole body in Spring?

We've been getting lots of calls lately from people wanting to:
* quit smoking
* lose weight for Summer
* treat injuries from Winter sports
* clear the effects of stress
* get pregnant naturally or support IVF
* have an efficient labour and birth
* ... and much more!!

If this applies to someone you know, then please pass this on to them as we'd love to help!

Wishing you well,
Lois Nethery

This post is brought to you by Lois Nethery, acupuncturist and Chinese medicine herbalist at Ocean Acupuncture in Curl Curl.

Gentle Spring detoxing

There is a natural lightening that takes place in Spring – there is literally more light as the days lengthen and the quality of the sunlight brightens. The emergence of flowers, with their colours and perfumes, lightens the spirit. The longer and brighter days also help to lighten our mood, especially for those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder during Winter.

If you’re a gardener, even if that means caring for a pot on the windowsill, you will notice the emergence of tender new growth on Winter-dormant plants, and the light tendrils of seedlings emerging from the soil.

Those seeds hold the potential energy of a complete plant within them – possibly a huge tree, metres tall. The delicate new seedling stretching up towards the sun is fragile new life with massive potential energy.

The ancient Chinese sages looked to harmonise the human being with the environment, always aiming for effortless flow. They noticed that these energies of Spring needed to be mirrored within the body, so that the inner and the outer were in balance.

This means that the natural dormancy, resting and contemplation during Winter, with hearty foods and plenty of sleep, now becomes transformed in Spring to encourage that Yang-energy of potential growth to move upwards and outwards towards the sun.

The basis of well-cooked whole-foods in Winter is equivalent to well-composted soil that has been resting fallow in the cold, dark months. It has provided the foundation for the new life in Spring to rise up effortlessly, nourished and supported.

So food in Spring is light and fresh, with none of the weight of Winter food. However, because Spring weather is changeable, you can bring in denser foods when the weather turns cool and have lighter foods when it warms up.

When the weather is warm and still

When the days are warm and still, choose lightly cooked stir fries with some pungent flavours like shallots and ginger, balanced with a “full-sweet” food such as rice.

Introducing some raw food is a good way to rejuvenate the Wood-element organs in Spring. It’s also helpful to decrease the quantity of food, especially in the evenings.

Food for windy days

On windy days, the general approach is to make use of the pungent flavour to bring the Yang-energy to the body’s surface and help the “Wei-Chi” (protective energy) to function well.

You can include more Wintry cooked foods on cold windy days, such as the “full-sweet” potato baked in sesame oil, with warm-pungent rosemary to simultaneously warm the core and bring warm energy to the surface.

If the weather is windy but the temperature is warm, try combining sweet and pungent food with lighter cooking methods, for example shiitake mushroom, julienne carrots and shredded cabbage quickly sautéed in sesame oil with garlic and a dash of white pepper.

Using pungent, sweet and sour flavours

Selecting from the pungent foods will help your Yang-energy rise like a new seedling from the Winter storage in the Kidneys and Water element.

Balancing this with “full-sweet” foods will help support the Chi-energy on the interior of your body, so the outward movement is balanced with inner warmth, nourishment and stability.

Using a little of the sour flavour can help to cleanse and regenerate the Liver and Gallbladder, and Spring is the ideal time for this as it is the corresponding season in the Five-Element system.

General detox suggestions for Liver and Gallbladder refreshment

Cut down on stimulants, intoxicants and unbalancing foods such as coffee, alcohol, tobacco, sugar, greasy food and strong spices. This will give your Liver a chance to cleanse and renew itself, sort of like replacing the oil and fuel filters in a car service!

When the Liver and Gallbladder are refreshed and unburdened, your blood can be purified and your mental and emotional state is light, flexible, balanced and decisive. If you are in a leadership role, you will find it more natural and effortless when your Liver and Gallbladder are supple and vibrant.

When Liver and Gallbladder are overburdened with the excesses of modern living, whether from food, intoxicants, pollutants or stress, then the whole system becomes sluggish and stuck, with symptoms such as:

irritability, frustration, resentment, anger or rage
indecision, procrastination or lack of courage
stiff neck, tight shoulders and between shoulder blades, “crunchy neck” (sounds and feels gritty when you roll your head), “Frankenstein neck” (tight knots in the neck)
discomfort, burning, full feeling or pangs beneath the ribs, especially on the right
digestion issues – including indigestion, bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhoea or irritable bowel syndrome

In these cases, you can do a gentle “kitchen-cupboard” cleanse or you could try a stronger version with support from your health care professional. Chinese medicine herbalists can support this cleansing process with appropriate herbal preparations. Try it – you won’t believe how much better you can feel!

GENTLE CLEANSE

This can take place over a month or two. In addition to cutting out stimulants, as mentioned above, also cut out heavy meats, dairy, eggs, peanuts and have only small amounts of other nuts and seeds. The diet is based around whole, unrefined grains (like brown rice, quinoa, millet, barley, oats), legumes (lentils, chick peas, kidney beans etc), vegetables and fruits. This diet will gradually cleanse the Liver and Gallbladder.

If you have gallstones or sediment or have strong symptoms, you can add specific cleansing foods such as pear, parsnip, seaweeds, lemon, lime and turmeric. Radish is a specific cleansing food; daily you can have one or two radishes between meals for 3 weeks, plus five cups of chamomile tea throughout the day.

You can also use about a tablespoon per day of cold-pressed organic flax-seed oil poured over meals (can split between two meals), six days a week for about two months.

STRONGER CLEANSE

For five consecutive days, have a salad of organic greens as the evening meal, with two tablespoons each of olive oil and lemon juice as the dressing (be sure to consume all the dressing).

GALL BLADDER FLUSH

Please consult your health care professional for the strongest version of this process.

Source: Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford

See also: Zingy Spring Salad and Protection from the wind

This post is brought to you by Lois Nethery, acupuncturist and Chinese medicine herbalist at Ocean Acupuncture in Curl Curl.

Using Spring flavours for vibrant health

During the Winter, you’ve been having well-cooked food, usually with plenty of carbohydrate, fat and protein. All of that food energy has been stored deep in the body, to nourish the foundations of your body’s vitality in the Kidney organ energy system, creating the basis for longevity and robust health. Winter is a time of maximum Yin, with inward-moving stillness and storage.

Using pungent flavours
Spring represents a rapid transformation as Yang energy pushes outward. To help your body’s Yang energy burst forth in Spring, use the pungent flavour to encourage its upward and outward movement.

You can choose foods that suit your invididual type. If you tend to be more cold than hot, choose more warming pungents. If you have heat in the body, choose some cooling pungents. If you’re not sure what applies to you, ask your acupuncturist for advice.

Warming pungents:
• spearmint
• rosemary
• shallots
• onion family (including garlic, chives, shallots, spring onion, leek etc)
• cinnamon bark and branch
• cloves
• fresh ginger
• fennel
• chamomile
• anise
• caraway
• dill
• bay leaf
• mustard greens
• basil
• nutmeg

Hot pungents:
• dried ginger
• horseradish
• black pepper
• cayenne, chilli and other hot peppers
These are all pungent-flavoured but hot-natured, so should be used sparingly in Spring. Hot-natured food can imbalance the delicate Yin energy and unsettle the mind.

Cooling pungents:
• peppermint
• marjoram
• elder flowers
• white pepper
• radish and radish leaves

Neutral pungents:
• taro
• turnip
• kohlrabi

Using the “full-sweet” flavour
The sweet flavour helps to harmonise and balance the outward-moving energy of pungents.

“Full-sweet” flavoured whole-foods sustain and build energy in the body’s centre. The following are especially useful in Spring as they build central energy but also help upward and outward movement:

• sweet rice
• sweet potato
• sunflower seed
• pinenut
• cherry
• walnut
• cabbage
• carrot
• shiitake mushroom
• fig
• yam
• peas

Other “full-sweet” foods include:
• most whole grains and legumes
• beet
• button mushroom
• celery
• silverbeet
• cucumber
• eggplant
• lettuce
• potato
• squash
• almond
• chestnut
• coconut
• sesame seed and oil
• whole-food sweeteners like amasake, barley malt, honey, molasses, rice syrup and unrefined cane juice powder.

Meat and dairy are also sweet in flavour but please use sparingly in Spring as they are also heavy and mucus-forming.

Most fruits are cooling and cleansing, encouraging heat and other built-up residues to leave the body; so these foods are called “empty-sweet.” Empty-sweet foods don’t support the cultivation of Chi-energy in the body, but they are good when used in moderation to clear excesses like unhealthy heat.

For ideas for using these flavours in different kinds of Spring weather, see also: Gentle Spring detoxing and fasting

Source: Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford

This post is brought to you by Lois Nethery, acupuncturist and Chinese medicine herbalist at Ocean Acupuncture in Curl Curl.

Protect yourself from the wind - prevent cold & flu

We've already seen some very windy days this Spring.

In Chinese medicine, if you're exposed to wind then you are much more likely to develop cold and flu, and this is definitely a pattern that acupuncturists see regularly in their clients when the weather is changing.

The most vulnerable area is the back of your neck and your upper back, so please ensure that you keep these areas well covered at all times, until the warmer days of Summer arrive. For kids, try skivvies or sleeveless polar-fleece vests with high necks.

It's so tempting to walk around in T-shirts at the first sign of warm weather, soaking up the sun's glorious rays into winter-white skin. But with the changeable nature of the Wood element that dominates in Spring, that warm sunny day can quickly turn to a chilly windy one.

Please ensure that you are prepared for this whenever you leave the house in Spring. Pack a jumper and a scarf and use them throughout the day as soon as you feel a breeze or a chill. It’s something extra to carry, but it’s well worth it for preventing the stress to the body that comes with cold and flu.

”First aid” for wind exposure
If you do happen to be exposed to the wind when you’re out, then apply these “first-aid” measures as soon as you get home:

Have a hot bath or shower
Dress in loose, warm, comfortable clothing and socks
Make some “protection tea”:

a few slices of fresh ginger with a little honey, covered and steeped for 5 mins; or
a peppermint tea bag and a little honey; or
the traditional Chinese version is simmering spring onion, ginger and honey in water for 5-10 mins (in China I saw the modern version which is ginger simmered in Coke!)

Drink the tea while it’s still quite hot, have a few cups if you like, rugged up under a blanket
Rest for half an hour or so, hopefully working up a slight sweat
After this, your whole body should feel very warm. This means you have brought your “Wei-Chi” – protective energy – to the outermost layers of the body, warding off illness.

If you can’t do all the above steps - eg for lack of time or if you’re at work - then prepare a cup of protection tea and a hot water bottle or a hot wheat pack.

While you drink the tea, place the heat pack on your upper back and base of neck. This will bring your protective energy to the vulnerable “Tai-Yang” channels that cross there, giving you a good measure of protection.

This post is brought to you by Lois Nethery, acupuncturist and Chinese medicine herbalist at Ocean Acupuncture in Curl Curl.

grass roots health!

01 October 2010

Seeds and sprouts to grow and eat

Recipe: Zingy Spring Salad

Spring is here!

Gentle Spring detoxing

Using Spring flavours for vibrant health

Protect yourself from the wind - prevent cold & flu

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