Five Phases Congee for chronically ill or cancer patientsWhen your loved one is struggling to get enough nutrition into their system and the digestion may be effected, the foods that you cook for them ought to be very easy to digest. They should be cooked and warm which will support the Qi of the Spleen and the digestion.
In Chinese and East Asian medicine there is a long understanding that the prepared food of choice is a nutritious rice porridge known as "congee" in Mandarin or "jook" in Cantonese. I have discussed these in past blog updates.Today I want to discuss a congee for very chronically ill people, and in this case cancer patients. But note that Five Phase Congee is good for any sick person and makes a very nutritious breakfast for anybody.
I call this Five Phase Congee and it is a congee that I use to impart nutrition, strengthen the Qi of the five organs and stop weight loss.
The Chinese character for "qi" depicts a man eating a bowl of rice in his house and there are vapors of life sustaining essence rising from the rice. White rice is easier to ingest and digest than brown rice. It will also help arrest diarrhea, a common side effect of chemotherapy.
The basic congee recipe is 1 cup of Japanese or Chinese white rice to 5 cups of liquid.This is easiest when cooked in a crockpot rather than a traditional pot on the stove. Its much simpler to cook, not requiring constant attention and stirring to prevent burning. The congee will require at least 4 hours of cooking for the rice to properly dissolve into a thick soupy gruel.
Basic Congee recipe:
2 cups of white rice 10 cups of homemade chicken stock 4 cloves of garlic, 2 ginger roots (size of your thumb) sliced
Put all ingredients in the crockpot and cook for 4 hours, stirring ocassionally.Start with high heat and turn down to low heat after 2 hours.
This will be your base and you can then use this for several days. Keep it refrigerated, then reheat portions as necessary.
Chicken Stock: Yellow GoldLet me discuss here the chicken stock as it is prepared by a dear friend of mine, Deborah Todd.
I call this Yellow Gold. It is the most powerfully delicious and nutritious chicken stock I've ever come across and it is like essence of chicken. This is powerful medicine.
In a large soup stock pot, put the skin and bones (the carcass) of a large organic chicken. Fill the pot with double filtered water (about 3 quarts). Add a whole head of garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced. Add a cup of thinly sliced ginger (use a mandolin). I should mention here that chicken is considered a powerful tonic for the Spleen and digestion. When the digestion is very weakened, making a stock is the best way to gain the benefits for your patient. The two aromatics will warm the digestion and the internal organs and strengthen the Spleen as well. Ginger will also help settle an upset stomach if the patient is having nausea. You can also add other cooking herbs/vegetables if you like: celery, carrot, rosemary, thyme, etc.
Add 3 quarts of water and 2 TBSP of sea salt.
Sea salt has more minerals in it and an enhanced flavor that is easier to taste and more palatable to chemotherapy patients who often lose sense of taste. You can always add more salt later, but start off conservatively.
I have altered this recipe slightly by adding 5 dried shiitake mushrooms. Mushrooms enhance the immune system and I use enoki and shiitake a lot in my decoctions.Cook this pot with the lid ajar for at least 6 hours over the course of 3 days. Add water whenever necessary. All of the connective tissue should dissolve and the bones should separate and sink to the bottom.
Chill this pot of soup whenever you are not cooking it and let the fat congeal on the top. Skim off and save this fat in a separate container and store it in the refrigerator.
After three days of cooking and skimming the fat there are two last steps to clean your broth.
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Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Cancer Patients-Chicken Stock-Congee Recipe-Rice Porridge-White Rice
Thursday, 12 April 2012
Acupuncture And Moxibustion-Acupuncture Points
The Meaning of Zhen Jiu ( ??) Acupuncture is not just acupuncture. In fact, the word for acupuncture in Chinese, Zhen Jiu, actually translates to “acupuncture and moxibustion” which shows how central moxibustion is within acupuncture. Moxibustion is the warming of acupuncture points or needles. Most often, this is done through burning an herb called [...] read more..
Monday, 19 March 2012
Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome-Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine
Let’s face it, while they are indeed “merry & bright”, the holidays can also be a stressful time of the year. Big spending, big eating and big chunks of time with family, work colleagues and friends can be a volatile mix and can wreak havoc on your ability to keep cool, calm and collected. With [...] read more..
Featured in British Journal of Urology
I wanted to share recent article in BJUI which I am interviewed about integrative urology and acupuncture for Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome. Acupuncture is gaining acceptance in urology. Copyright © 2008 This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. The use of this feed on other websites breaches copyright. If this content is not [...] read more..
Chinese herbs shown effective for treating fertility issues!
A recent study from the Adelaide University titled “Efficacy of Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine in the management of female infertility: A systematic review” found that that “Chinese herbal therapy improved pregnancy rates as much as 2-fold in just a 4-month period in comparison with Western Medical fertility drug therapy or IVF.” read more..
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Unrelenting Stress-Chinese Medicine
We all live with some amount of stress. In fact, a little stress keeps life interesting, keeps you on your toes, and can be an agent for change. It’s when stress overshadows everything in your life, that it becomes a problem. Unrelenting stress can impact your health in countless negative ways, from insomnia to poor digestion. In Chinese medicine, stress almost always is described as a disharmony between the Liver and Spleen organ systems. Very simply, your Chinese Liver system is responsible for regulating . . . ? Read More: Ten Ways Less Stress Can Improve Your Health read more..
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Respiratory Infections-Gluten Intolerant-Chinese Medicine-Consequences-Experiment
My Grand Experiment: No Gluten, No DairySummary:Stopped eating gluten and dairy foods for 8 weeks. Result so far: No annual respiratory infections, no nasal congestion, drier lungs, loss of 10 lbs.
So, I want to discuss an experiment that I've been conducting on myself. I decided 8 weeks ago to stop eating gluten and dairy. I have a history of respiratory infections and am particularly susceptible to catching colds which would often turn into bronchitis and this often started in the autumn. (Read earlier posts about Metal phase of year).Confession moment: So, this year I decided that instead of just thinking "Do as say, not as I do" when counseling my patients about their health and diet lifestyles- I really needed to follow my own advice, be a model, and think actively about what consequences my food choices were having for my health.
I'm classically Spleen Qi deficient in Chinese medicine terms. That means that my digestion tends to be weak and that my ability to transform food into Qi and Blood is not efficient. It also means my body's ability to regulate and transform fluids in the body is sluggish and I have an accumulation of viscosity in my fluids: mucus and phlegm.Classically speaking, Chinese medicine points to the Spleen, its role in EAM as the chief of digestion, and the general strength of the digestion as the foundation of strong immunity. The famous Jade Windscreen decoction which we give to people to strengthen immunity especially during seasonal transitions, is based on this premise- of strengthening the Middle Jiao (digestion).The Spleen is also paired with the Lung. Together they are the Taiyin channel and their partnership regulates Qi in the body. So, when the Spleen is weak, often the Lung suffers as well- so one can see how weak digestion can lead to lowered immunity which often results in respiratory infections.
Ancestral Qi, Health History, LifestyleOver the years I've pondered how as a child I contracted walking pneumonia. I think this early illness weakened my Taiyin system. In palpating my Lung channel one can feel adhesions in the channel that indicate long term chronic weakness of the Lung Qi.I find similar indications in my Spleen channel.My family also has a history of diabetes which in our case correlates to weakness of the Middle Jiao (Digestion).So, I think that both my genetic background and my ancestral Qi lead me towards immune system vulnerability and Taiyin deficiency.
Lifestyle choices over time also have probably contributed to vulnerability in my Taiyin system. The Spleen is responsible for organizing principle of the mind and is also involved in maintaining the blueprint of the body (our genetic code perhaps?). It does this at night and if the Spleen is overtaxed (poor food choices) and lack of sleep, and over-thinking- then it becomes exhausted.I'm certainly guilty of not sleeping enough, of staying up too late, of eating unhealthily at times.
So, pondering all these things and wanting to try and not get sick this autumn, I undertook an experiment of giving up gluten and dairy.
I'm not sure that I'm really gluten intolerant- I certainly don't suffer from Celiac disease. I do think that I may have an allergy to wheat, however. I know that dairy definitely gives me mucus. But I decided that going off gluten and dairy would just be a simple way to establish a baseline.
In Chinese medicine we often say that dairy contributes to Dampness in the body. In fact, its good to consider that humans are the only species that continues to drink milk and eat milk products past infancy. A lot of people seem to also have dairy allergies. In East Asia, until recently, milk was not a common food. The mythology that came out of advertising in the U.S. during my childhood was that milk was equated with health- so every child was supposed to drink multiple glasses per day. What this did for saturated fat intake and its related health consequences is well documented. read more..