Meet the Herbs: Sang Shen

Chinese: 桑甚
Pin Yin: Sang Shen
Pharmaceutical: Fructus Mori Albae
English: White Mulberry

Strongly tonifies Blood and enriches Yin, goes to the Heart, Liver, and Kidney, and treats constipation due to Blood deficiency in the elderly. What more could you ask for?

It does a handful of other things too, but more importantly, it tastes great! It's like having the satisfying mouth-feel of eating soft granola with the sweetness of dried berries and the texture of fibrous buds popping in my mouth. Did I make that sound appealing? Probably not. But really though, it's that good.

Sang Shen is known to contain high amounts of iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus, sulphur, and anthocyanins. It also contains resveratrol, a polyphenolic phytoalexin also found in grapes that has been shown to be an antioxidant, antimutagen, and anti-inflammatory. According to Wikipedia, the "unripe fruit and green parts of the plant have a white sap that is intoxicating and mildly hallucinogenic."

I bought a bag of them in NYC last weekend and have been munching on them everyday since.

Roasted Vegetable Stew

Over the past few months, I've been prescribing slow-cooked root vegetables as an addition to many of my patients' diets. Root vegetables, particularly yams and sweet potatoes, are very nourishing and tonifying of Spleen energy. The Spleen in Chinese medicine falls under the domain of the Earth element, creating the foundation for the production of new, utilizable energy and all of the physiological processes in the body.

I realized today that all this time I have failed to provide any good recipes to go with my advice!

Here's a delicious and simple recipe for a Roasted Vegetable Stew that I've adapted from a recipe I found in a book on soups:

4 Parsnips, cut lengthwise into 4 pieces and then quartered

2 Red Onions, cut into thin wedges

3 Garnet Yams, cut into chunks

1 Large Leek, cut thickly

1 Fennel Bulb, cut into chunks

3 Celery Stalks, cut into diagonal slices

1 Butternut Squash, skinned, seeds removed, and cubed

2 Whole Heads of Garlic

4 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Herbs du Provence (or just Thyme), Salt, and Pepper for seasoning

4 Cups Vegetable Broth

Handful of Cherry Tomatoes

Pre-heat oven to 400 F. Put all of the cut veggies into a large roasting pan (I need to use two separate 9" x 13" pans for this recipe, but that's only because I don't have a bigger pan!). Drizzle 3 tablespoons of the Olive Oil over the veggies and toss to cover evenly. Put the last tablespoon of olive oil in a little bowl or mug and dip each whole head of garlic into it, being sure to entirely coat it. Place the two oiled heads of garlic on top of the pan of veggies, and moderately sprinkle Herbs du Provence over everything. Place the pan in the oven for at least 45 mins, or until the veggies are roasty browned and tender.

While you're waiting for the veggies to cook, you can make some delicious bread to go with your stew!

1 Loaf crusty bread, I would recommend Ciabatta or Thick Baguette

3 Tablespoons butter or butter substitute (I use Earth Balance)

2 Cloves Raw Garlic, chopped

4 Pieces Sun-dried Tomato

Paprika, Parsley, or in my case Mexican Spiced Chili Seasoning for taste and color

Take your loaf of crusty bread and cut diagonal slits into the bread without cutting all the way through. Mix 3 Tablespoons of butter stuff with the chopped garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. Use a butter knife to stuff and spread the mixture into the slices of the bread. When you're done, sprinkle some seasoning across the top of the loaf and put the bread back together, wrapping the whole thing in foil. When you're ready to bake, put the foiled loaf in the oven at 400F for 10 mins covered so that it can get flavorfully buttery infused, and then uncovered for 5 minutes so that it can get golden brown. I would recommend waiting until the stew is done to toast the bread so that you can serve it up immediately all warm and delicious and whatnot.

Once the veggies are done and you've removed them from the oven, take one head of garlic and squeeze the roasted cloves out. Save the other head for serving with your meal. Take half of the roasted veggies with the squeezed garlic and mash it all up with the 4 cups of vegetable broth with either a food processor or blender until it is almost smooth. Mix the rest of the roasted veggies into this stew and heat on the stove until boiling. Add salt and pepper to taste. When ready to serve, place a few cherry tomatoes on top and garnish with some herby green things (like thyme or rosemary sprigs) for looks and aroma.

It's plenty meal for 4-6 people when served with toasty bread and roasted garlic. What's more, when made with Earth Balance this recipe is vegan!

Tonight we complemented our meal with peach champagne avec fresh strawberries for a fun and tasty beverage. Bon apetit!

Eating GMO Corn Proven To Be Hazardous To Your Health

A new study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences showed that three different varieties of genetically modified corn from Monsanto are toxic to the liver and kidneys.

The difference between their study and the ones conducted by Monsanto? Monsanto manipulated the results of their experiment by using statistical analyses that would favor the safety of their product, as opposed to utilizing all tools available to them to fully analyze the data to determine whether or not there were signs of toxicity.

Another difference? Any sign of toxicity should have elicited a need to continue collecting data past the 90 days Monsanto had designated for the length of their study, since 90 days is no where near long enough to determine long-term effects and chronic illness. The authors of this recently published paper, on the other hand, are extending their experiment for up to two years in light of their results.

Makes me wanna smash things.

The thing that gets me is that these products have been deemed safe for human consumption based on the powerful truth that is science. However, the research itself is up for sale, whereby some laboratories have been paid to produce specific data and, conversely, paid to stop experiments when the data conflicts with what the agropharma companies want to see. It makes me angry.

Anyway, I'm done with my ranting. Just don't eat any GMO foods if you can help it, ok?

Grind Your Own Beef

Or don't eat beef at all. That is all. (Full Story - E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection)

L.A. Times Article - Does it matter what the doctor weighs?

Dr. Regina Benjamin with President Barack Obama

Here's an interesting article from the L.A. Times on the personal health of doctors. Does it matter? Do medical health professionals need to be healthy to be effective?

"A doctor doesn't need to be perfect, but it'd be hard for me to take financial advice from a CPA who had just filed for bankruptcy," said Dr. Timothy Harlan, medical director of the Tulane University School of Medicine, who says he believes physicians should make a genuine effort to be healthy.

Personally, I believe it's my responsibility to be as healthy as possible. I'm kind of a health nut. This morning Nini and I had vegetable juice for breakfast, as we usually do: carrots, beets, cucumber, ginger, and an apple (on the weekends, when we have time, we like to follow that up with bacon and eggs with tomatoes, onions and cheese). Most mornings I'm out at Mar Vista park doing taijiquan or qigong. I drink a lot of green tea.

I don't usually advertise these activities, because people sometimes don't react well to hearing about them. Instead of "hey, good for you" it's some hardcore eye-rolling and "well of course YOU do that. You're healthy! I could NEVER be as healthy as you are."

The fact is, there's no hard line between a "healthy person" and an "unhealthy person." I haven't always had these habits. I only started juicing about a year ago (note: I'm talking about this kind of juicing, NOT this kind). I only started exercising every morning during the past month, when I finally had the freedom to organize my own schedule. I drink green tea because I like how it tastes and how it makes me feel - I'm not choking it down because it's good for me. In the future I may not have the time to exercise every morning, or make juice and then clean the juicer (which takes awhile and is kind of a hassle but still worth it - if you've never had ultra-fresh juice straight from the juicer it's like a punch in the taste buds - much better than anything you could buy in a bottle. Besides that there are all kinds of health benefits which have to do with how fast the nutritional content of juice degrades when you let it sit around - for best results drink within two to three minutes of juicing).

My general philosophy is that you should enjoy life. If life isn't enjoyable, what's the point? I've tried drinking, and cigarettes, and various recreational drugs. I've tried all different kinds of exercise. I've tried not exercising. As a patient, I've tried acupuncture, massage and herbs. I've tried meditation and talk therapy and EFT. For myself, I have found what works, and continue to discover new things all the time. Through learning and teaching martial arts and four years of formal TCM education, I have tools that can help me to understand what works for others. I encourage you to experiment, and find what works for you. If you want to change something about your health, or your life, your body, your mindset, try something different. Don't be afraid to ask questions or seek guidance in unexpected places.

Find a doctor that you connect with. Everyone needs help with health challenges, so don't be afraid to accept professional help. But the best doctor is within yourself. Go look for him or her. They're in there.

TCM Diet by Xu Xiangcai

Here's an interesting article from Xu Xiangcai on the Traditional Chinese Medicine view of food and nutrition. It answers the burning question "what should I eat?"

Chinese healthcare experts have always advocated light and simple diets. They believe that such diets can prevent diseases, strengthen the body and prolong life. Consumption of heavy, greasy, and sweet foods over a long period of time produces heat, phlegm, and dampness within the body and tends to cause illness. The Nei Jing says, “Heavy and greasy food causes a change that may result in serious illness.”

Take a look at the full article: "Traditional Chinese Health - A Simple and Light Diet"

Xu Xiangcai is the author of one of my favorite TCM books, Complete External Therapies of Chinese Drugs.

Ice Cream, Don't Do It

Here's a fun factoid: ice cream makes you sick. It's true.

Well, I should say that it made me more sick than I was before.

I had started to come down with something on Monday evening, starting with a sore throat and heaviness in the head. I blasted myself with herbs, and upon waking I was feeling better. By the end of my shift at noon, however, my sinuses were completely congested, and it felt as though it was clogged through to my ears.

I went home and nursed myself, taking a different set of herbs for my congestion. I even stayed home and canceled my shift, not wanting to infect anyone else with my evil qi. By the afternoon, I was feeling so much better that, despite better judgment, I decided to celebrate with some ice cream. Two spoonfuls, to be exact.

Before the ice cream, I had no sore throat, no headache, no congestion, and no runny nose. After the ice cream, within minutes, my nose clogged up and I was back to wiping snot off my face and I had to drink hot tea to combat the coldness I started to feel. It's as if the ice cream canceled out all of the herbs I've taken and the sleep I've gotten in the last two days.

So next time you think of having ice cream, just don't do it... Unless it's Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk, in which case it might be worth it.

Obese People Enjoy Food Less

According to a new study (pdf), obese people enjoy food less than lean people do.

"We originally thought obese people would experience more reward from food. But we see obese people only anticipate more reward; they get less reward. It is an ironic process," Stice tells WebMD.

According to Chinese medicine, most obese people have an accumulation of dampness in the middle burner. When dampness is present in the Stomach or Spleen, there will be hunger but without any desire to eat.

How is that possible? What do you mean dampness? What's a middle burner?

Chinese medicine is an ancient method which uses a sophisticated system of outward observation to discern what is happening on the inside. They didn't have x-ray machines or MRIs thousands of years ago. Heck, they didn't even have blood tests. Chinese medicine was forced to develop methods of "imaging" the inside of the body by observance of outward symbols - nearly all of which have proven to be incredibly accurate in terms of today's modern anatomy and physiology. The image that we as Chinese medicine practitioners gather is necessarily more metaphorical than Western biomedicine - but that does not make it any less accurate. Indeed, often Western medicine misses the forest for the trees by focusing on the minutiae of bacteria and blood cell counts, while failing to deduce the overall situation of the patient.

I say all that to help me explain dampness. "Dampness" on the inside of the body is what happens when your food and fluids do not properly separate. In a healthy human system, food enters the Stomach, where it undergoes "ripening and rotting" (a term that rather nicely describes the contractions of smooth muscle and secretions of digestive enzymes that takes place). The Spleen extracts the essence of the food, the food energy, if you will, and sends it on its merry way to the next stage of processing.

If the Spleen is weak, it can't properly extract all the food essences from the chewed-up remnants of the Double-Double you just ate. Some portion of the unrefined food energy then sits in your middle burner, where it combines with the fluids of your body to form a kind of sludgy mud we call dampness. As you become fatter, your Spleen becomes weaker, forming what Dr. Naiqiang Gu likes to call "the vicious circle."

As for the middle burner, that's a Chinese medicine term for the general region of the middle of your body. The important organs there are your Spleen and Stomach. The upper burner refers to the upper part of the body (Heart and Lungs) and the lower burner refers, of course, to the lower part of your body and includes the Kidneys, the Bladder, and all the organs of excretion and reproduction. The Liver is anatomically situated within the middle burner, but because of its importance is considered to be functionally deeper in the body and therefore part of the lower burner.

Now how about that "hunger without desire to eat" bit? Well, imagine you have dampness in your middle burner (now that we're all on the same page with that). Your Spleen-Pancreas is underperforming, but it still works - you get some gas and bloating after you eat, you've developed food allergies, maybe you have occasional diarrhea, but you can still eat most things. Your body figures that getting sixty-five percent of the available energy from food is better than not eating at all, and thus you still get hungry. But there's that dampness sitting in your middle burner. Let's suppose that you don't exercise as much as you should and you haven't changed how you eat, so the dampness continues to accumulate. Thus your body doesn't receive the food with the same relish that it might were your middle burner to be nice and clean.

How to break out of this vicious circle? How to rid oneself of dampness and extra weight? For starters, eat less and exercise more. Then, limit or avoid greasy, fried, and fatty foods. Alcohol and soda should also be avoided as they contribute greatly to dampness. And of course, go see your acupuncturist for a treatment and an herbal formula that is customized to your constitution. Your Chinese medicine doctor has many many herbs and formulas at his or her disposal which have a remarkable effect on the digestion.

Food Dyes: Too Much of a Bad Thing?

Bright colors in our food have for millenia indicated freshness, deliciousness, and a host of other positive qualities. But these days nearly anything can be made to look fresh, even if it is highly processed. Check out these tempting-looking donuts - see the bright sprinkles? To your brain, that looks delicious. It probably thinks you've discovered some kind of fruit with multicolored seeds.

It's not just donuts and packaged goods. Farmed salmon has for many years been artificially colored.

There is now new research about the effect of these dyes on children's health. Take a look at this article from the L.A. Times. There is probably no single cause for the sharp rise of ADD and ADHD in the United States and other "developed" countries, but these studies may provide a clue towards finding the contributing factors.

Late Summer

In Chinese medicine, the five elements - Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood - can be used to describe all patterns that occur in nature, including the change of seasons. Spring is the season of the Wood element, of new growth and fresh movement. Summer is related to the Fire element, being the hottest season of the year, and Fall to Metal, the time of contracting and consolidating. The Winter season is associated with the Water element, the most dark and yin time of the year.

So where does the Earth element fit into the seasons? Some people say that the Earth element is represented in the change of seasons from one to the next, that time when things feel kind of still and grounded as hot turns to cold and dark turns to light. Another idea is that Earth is represented in the Late Summer, the time of the big harvest when the days are no longer unbearably hot, but the leaves have yet to turn and blow away in the autumn wind.

Walking through the Mar Vista Farmer's Market this morning made me feel like Late Summer really is the time of the Earth. As the last of the berries, peaches, and plums were being sold, their seasonal decline marked by the smaller and smaller tables taken up by the farms that grow them, there have been some new arrivals to the market to take their place. Today there were baskets full of summer squashes of all kinds - zuchini, cousa, yellow, and those cute little flat ones that look kind of like UFO's. There were also the first of the pomegranates, persimmons, asian pears, and so much delicious corn. Huge yams the size of my cat were pulled from the Earth and placed for sale in delicious piles of deliciousness.

The Earth element in the human body is related most closely to the digestive system, the place in which we take in from our surroundings and process what we need. It is the foundation of our bodies, being anatomically the physical center of ourselves as well as the center in which we can spiritually "stomach" what the universe gives us.

In celebration of my Spleen and the spirit of late summer, here's a simple recipe for a delicious seasonal soup I had for supper. All the produce can be found at the farmer's market, and ingredients in the soup have the Chinese nutritional properties of tonifying the Spleen and Stomach:

4 Garnet Yams, cut into large chunks
3 cloves Garlic, chopped
1 bunch Spinach, cleaned and cut
1 bunch of Baby Bok Choy
1 bunch On Choy, cut into thirds
2 large handfuls of mushrooms
6 slices fresh Ginger
6 pieces of Da Zao
3 pieces of Huang Qi
1 lb Jumbo Shrimp
*serves 3 hungry people who can really get down, with enough left over for lunch the next day

Put the cubed yams and garlic in a pot with plenty of water (at least a gallon). Bring to a boil and cook until the yams darken in color. Turn the heat down halfway and throw in the spinach and baby bok choy. Add the ginger, da zao and huang qi and cook for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms. You can season to taste with some salt, lime, or soy sauce, or nothing at all if you like it the way it is (I happened to have some prepared nước mắm for such an occasion. I am Vietnamese... that stuff runs in my veins!). Right before serving, blanch the on choy until it just gets soft, and cook the shrimp just long enough for it to get pink. Enjoy with some rice or noodles!

You Are What You Eat

We picked up a copy of the Healthy Times Newspaper today while at a grocery store in Corona. Here's a fun feature article from their Sept/Oct issue:

A stupendous insight of civilizations past has now been confirmed by today's investigative, nutritional sciences. Research has shown that what was once called The Doctrine of Signatures was astoundingly correct. The doctrine contends that every whole food has a signature or pattern that resembles the human body organ or physiological function that most benefits from it.

Here is just a short list of examples of whole food signatures:

	A sliced carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris, and radiating lines look just like the human eye…and YES science now shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.
	A tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food.
	Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows that grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.
	A walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemishpere, upper cerebrums, and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neo-cortex. We now know that walnuts help delvelp over 3 dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.
	Kidney beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.
	Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23 percent sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
	Eggplant, avocados, and pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look like these organs. Today’s research shows that when a woman eats 1 avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this?….It takes exactly 9 months to grown an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them.)
	Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the motility of male sperm and increase the number of sperm, a way to overcome male sterility.
	Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.
	Olives assist the health and functions of the ovaries.
	Grapefruit, oranges, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.
	Onions look like body cells. Today’s research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.

There was also a little table of the 12 Most and Least Contaminated Produce (conventionally grown fruits and vegetables contaminated by toxic pesticides):

12 Most Contaminated:

Peaches
Strawberries
Apples
Spinach
Nectarines
Celery
Pears
Cherries
Potatoes
Bell Peppers
Raspberries
Grapes

12 Least Contaminated:

Sweet Corn
Avocado
Pineapples
Cauliflower
Mangoes
Sweet Peas
Asparagus
Onions
Broccoli
Bananas
Kiwi Fruit
Papaya

The accompanying article discussed how children were more likely to suffer negative effects from pesticide exposure because of their lower body weight, their less developed immune systems, and the fact that they're still growing. For all of us, unsafe levels of pesticides have a wide variety of side effects on the endocrine, nervous and immune systems.

Why 32% of American Children are Overweight

Eating Your Way To Health

With all the diet fads and various nutritional guidelines floating around nowadays, it's hard to determine which advice to actually follow. Though some food choices may be considered healthier than others, there's also the matter of taste (which definitely influences my stomach!), not to mention the issues of cost and convenience that are factored into making decisions on what to eat. Picking the right foods for you is one of the best ways to stave off ill health and disease.

In Chinese Nutritional Therapy, dietary guidelines are not only given on the basis of the foods' intrinsic nutritional value, but also on the individual's needs according to their state of health. For instance, orange juice is a nice refreshing beverage, packed with vitamin C and universally known for its antioxidant properties. However, someone with a "cold phlegm" condition may actually get worse drinking a tall glass everyday. They would be better off drinking a warm tea of ginger steeped in hot water instead.

How food is prepared, and subsequently how it is eaten, is just as important as the food itself. Chinese Nutrition principles in regards to preparation are very simple: the more you warm the foods, the warmer they will behave in the body. Grilled meats, for example, will be the most warming of foods, whereas raw fruits in general will be the most cooling. Slow cooking methods like soups and braising will be more warming than steaming or blanching. It is generally recommended that foods are best lightly cooked; it is not recommended to eat foods directly out of the refrigerator as it is considered to be too cold and can injure your "digestive fire."

If you feel that you would like to eat healthier, but don't know where to begin, changing the way you eat your food could be the first step. Digestion is best done in a relaxed, well-lit environment, free of mental and physical distractions. If you eat lunch at your desk at work, try designating a different space separate from your work space in which to eat. Eat in the cafeteria or lounge, or take a walk outside and find some shade to sit in.

If you find yourself eating on-the-go, in your car, or standing over the sink, the best thing to do is stop, sit down, and don't do anything else but eat until you are done swallowing that last bite of food. Taking the time to eat a meal can reduce stomach discomfort and indigestion.

One of the best ways to maintain healthy digestion is to eat at regular intervals. In Chinese medicine, the Spleen is in charge of the digestive process, ensuring that the food we eat gets properly transformed into utilizable parts and sent out to be used by the body. According to Chinese medicine, the Spleen likes regularity, and works best when it knows when to do its job. Eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at regular times everyday will automatically improve ones digestive health.

If you're interested in what foods would be best for you according to Chinese nutrition, ask your acupuncturist or Chinese herbalist.