Acupuncture Articles
Dry Needling for Back Pain
Low Back Pain treated with Dry Needling and Acupuncture Releasing the Motor Point of the Upper Trapezius to treat Chronic Low Back Pain Release the Trigger Points in the Low Back with Dry Needling I almost always treat chronic low back pain by dry needling the...
Acne Rosacea Acupuncture Treatment
Acne Rosacea treated by Classical Chinese Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs Acne Rosacea Common Symptoms Acne Rosacea is an embarrassing ailment that plagues males and females alike. It is characterized by a red rash on the nose and cheeks. It can spread across the face,...
Your Body Keeps the Score: The Man Who Would Not Stop
Phillip the Man The man who would not stop. Phillip is an interesting father of 2 young kids, divorced, and in his mid-forties. He is extremely active, with a long history of soccer and softball, that in his later years has morphed into a strict regimen of classic...
Acupuncture for Cervical Ripening and Labor Induction
Acupuncture for Cervical Ripening Acupuncture for Cervical Ripening is very similar to how we use acupuncture to induce labor. The difference is in our point selection, focusing more specifically on points that "move the Qi" through the midline of the body, were the...
Acupuncture for Postpartum Depression: A Case Study
Acupuncture for Postpartum Depression with Anxiety: A Case Study Acupuncture for postpartum depression, when coupled with Chinese Herbal Medicine treatment, and Somatic Mindfulness, is a very effective treatment for postpartum depression. What...
Chinese Herbs For Back Pain and Sciatica–Shu Jin 2
Chinese Herbs for Back Pain and Sciatica--Shu Jin 2 My favorite Chinese Herbs for Back Pain and Sciatica is a formula called Shu Jin 2. I also use Shu Jin 2 for bulging and herniated discs, stenosis, and piriformis syndromes. While my primary treatments...
Difference between Dry Needling and Acupuncture?
Is there a difference between Dry Needling and Acupuncture? Dry Needling: The fundamental difference between Dry Needling and Acupuncture is that Dry Needling uses needles to deactivate painful trigger points. Trigger points are painful areas of specialized...
Moxabustion Versus Acupuncture
Chinese and Japanese style moxabustion, or moxa, has may applications in Chinese Medicine. Its an integral part of any authentic acupuncture practice. Moxabustion involves warming the acupuncture area/point with the processed leaves of Artemesia Vulgaris, wild...
Dry Needling and Acupuncture Together
Can Dry Needling and Acupuncture Work Together? Dry Needling vs. Acupuncture: Releasing Trigger Points while Opening up Qi flow People often ask whether Dry Needling and Acupuncture Together work as well as either alone? In fact the most sophisticated understanding...
Prevent Flu and Colds Naturally with Chinese Medicine
Are you wondering with all the stress of Covid-19, and the upcoming elections, how to prevent flu and colds naturally? The Nei Jing/Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, which presents the cutting edge medical wisdom of its time, is full of brilliant advice...
Source Natural’s Wellness Formula For Colds and Flu
Source Naturals Wellness Formula for Cold and Flu--The Right and Wrong Way to Use Source Natural's Wellness Formula is one of my favorite herbal mixes for certain kinds of cold and for flu. Let's be clear though--no herb formula is a substitute for staying home in...
Chinese Herbs for Post-Partum Depression and Anxiety Disorder
Chinese Herbs for Postpartum Depression and Anxiety Chinese Medicine Treats The Individual The use of Chinese herbs for postpartum depression and anxiety disorders, is based on treating the individual. Postpartum Depression and anxiety don't exist in a vacuum, but in...
Essential Oils for Acne
Essential Oils for Acne are part of my protocol for curing Cystic and Hormonal Acne with Acupuncture, Ayurveda, and Chinese Herbal Medicine. I have been specializing in the treatment of Cystic and Hormonal Acne in my San Diego Acupuncture and Natural Medicine...
Irritable Bowel Syndrome Treatment: Acupuncture, Ayurveda, and Chinese Herbs
What is Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)? Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a functional disorder of the Large Intestine (Colon) that can cause cramps, bloating, gas, pain, diarrhea, or constipation. People with IBS-D will have diarrhea on a regular basis with...
Acupuncture for Cystic Acne
Acupuncture for Cystic Acne Acupuncture for cystic acne is very powerful and has an immediate, almost miraculous effect. Styles of Acupuncture There are many different styles of Acupuncture. The oldest is Classical Chinese acupuncture. That is what I use when I treat...
Hormonal Acne Natural Treatment with Ayurveda, Acupuncture, and Chinese Medicine
Hormonal Acne Natural Treatment with Ayurveda, Acupuncture, & Chinese Herbs is Safe, Effective, and Gentle. My treatment of Acne includes Acupuncture to clear pathalogical heat from the body and to balance the hormones causing the acne. Even in teenaged boys there...
Acupuncture for Headaches
Acupuncture for Headaches--Treat the Symptoms and The Causes, Part 2 Acupuncture for Headaches along with Dry Needling gives immediate relief from tension and migraine headache pain. We continue now from this previous article Acupuncture for Tension Headaches,...
Cure Tension Headaches with Acupuncture and Dry Needling
Can I Cure My Tension Headaches with Acupuncture and Dry Needling? It is possible to cure tension headaches with Acupuncture and Dry Needling permanently. Treatment is fast, effective, and relaxing. Acupuncture and Dry needling for headache pain feels good, is...
Dry Needling for Neck Pain
I have used Dry Needling for Neck Pain in my San Diego Acupuncture clinic for 27 years on close to one thousand people. Dry Needling provides very quick relief from all kinds of chronic and acute neck pain. It successfully treats: Numbness and Tingling in the...
Psychosomatic Illness and Acupuncture
Psychosomatic Illness and Acupuncture There is a very interesting report recently in the Guardian newspaper on the recent dramatic crisis between the USA and Cuba which, apparently, involves a case of mass psychosomatic illness and brings to mind the fact that...
Cure Insomnia Permanently
Cure Insomnia Permanently With Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine Its very possible to cure Insomnia permanently with Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal Medicine, Mindfulness Practice, Body Scanning, and the development of what specialists call Sleep Hygiene or Sleep...
Trigger Point Acupuncture and Dry Needling
Trigger Point Acupuncture and Dry Needling I am reprinting this article on Trigger Point Acupuncture and Dry Needling that I wrote back in 2009, for my friend Anthony Carey, the owner of Function First here in San Diego. Function First is a system of corrective...
Acupuncture Meridians
What are Acupuncture Meridians? Acupuncture “meridians” are the pathways through which our body's Qi (pronounced "Chee") energy flows, as described in the seminal medical text the Nei Jing around 200 B.C.E.. But the term meridian, coined by the Jesuit Priests who...
Can Western Medicine Explain How Acupuncture Works?
I was recently responding to this question on Quora: "How does Western medicine explain acupuncture." and wanted to share my response and to expand upon it. Can Western Medicine Explain How Acupunture Works? Western Medicine, or more exactly, Western Science, because...
Cupping Therapy for Myofascial Pain
Cupping Therapy for Myofascial Pain is an integral part of Classical Chinese acupuncture and is very useful for myofascial pain and sports medicine b/c it breaks up adhesions in the fascia and brings new blood to the area when capillaries are deliberately ruptured.....
Summer in Chinese Medicine
The discussion of Summer in Chinese Medicine begins with a book written in somewhere between 400 and 200 B.C.E., called the Huang Di Nei Jing, called The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic of Medicine. This is the Old Testament of Classical Chinese Medicine, our oldest...
Menopause Natural Treatment: Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine
In Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda Menopause Natural Treatment begins with the premise that menopause, and andropause, like puberty, like the transitions that occurs around ages 2, 5, and 36, are just that, transitions, not diseases. We get symptoms because of the wild...
Popular Heartburn Medicine Increases Risk for Dementia
Proton Pump Inhibitors Linked to Higher Dementia Risk: The Chinese Medicine Alternatives We face a national epidemic of Dementia as baby boomers who have spent years on Heartburn Medication like Prilosec, Protonixx, and Nexium, hit their 60's and 70's, while at the...
Anger and Fear: How Our Nervous Systems Make Us Sick
Anger and Fear: How Our Nervous Systems Make Us Sick Chinese Medicine attributes a minimum one third of disease as due to the effects of excessive amounts of emotions like anger and fear, but also sadness, grief, worry, on our bodies via the nervous system....
Acupuncture for Neck Pain
Acupuncture for Neck Pain: A recent article in Time magazine has this byline: Acupuncture Actually Works for Neck Pain I love the qualifier "actually". As if after 40 years of acupuncture in the USA, anyone would be surprised. When I began my acupuncture practice...
Mediterranean Diet, Red Rice Yeast, and Guggal for Cardiovascular Disease
Mediterranean diet, and lifestyle; lots of exercise, warm family relations, help reduce heart disease. An alternative to statin drugs I have had very good results with even without any other changes in the variables is the Chinese herbal medicine called Red Rice...
Insomnia Cure with Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture and Ayurveda: Sleep Culture and the Idea of Sleep in Medicine
Insomnia Cure with Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture and Ayurveda--Sleep Culture and the Idea of Sleep I recently had a treatment of insomnia cure of a patient with chronic insomnia whose husband insists on keeping an elaborate array of media devices that operate a...
A Case of Vertigo and Headache treated with Dry Needling and Classical Chinese Acupuncture
Vertigo and Headache Treated with Dry Needling and Classical Chinese Acupuncture Combines the Best of Two worlds. First I use Dry Needling to deactivate the inflammed trigger points that are the immediate cause of the Headache pain. I also stimulate the motor points...
Dry Needling and Acupuncture for Acute and Chronic Pain
Dry Needling and Acupuncture for Acute and Chronic Pain One of the most common reasons people seek help from Chinese Acupuncture and Dry Needling is for the treatment of pain. Avoid the Dangerous Side Effects of Drugs with Dry Needling and Acupuncture ...
Chinese Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture for Acute Compartment Syndrome
Interesting article today in Scientific American on acute compartment syndrome, a potentially devastating injury that can even lead to amputation of a limb, and that also gives a glimpse into the role of the fascia in organizing the tissues of the body. Releasing the...
The Effect of Hot Weather on Anger
Liver Qi, Pitta Dosha, and The Effect of Hot Weather on Anger and Aggression Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda both describe how hot weather increases anger and aggression in humans. It describes in detail how and why hot weather increases levels of aggression by...
Acupuncture for Pain Relief
Acupuncture vs. Drugs for Pain Relief Doctor Denial Syndrome One of my many pet peeves regarding the neglect of Acupuncture for Pain Relief in Bio Medicine/Western Medicine. How can such smart people be so smart some of the time, and so dumb other of the time? The...
Acupuncture for Allergies
How I Use Acupuncture for Allergies People suffering from Allergies and Sinusitis in Autumn here in San Diego dread the dry, hot, winds that blow in from the high desert during our “Santa Ana” conditions. The problem for allergy sufferers is that the dry hot...
Using Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine to Protect Your Digestive Fire in Summer
In summer we sweat and our yang energy or heat keeps getting dispersed and exhausted. On freezing cold days you feel cold, but on boiling hot days you sweat and become exhausted. In winter in every culture people eat heavy high-calorie foods, but in summer switch to...
Interstitial Cystitis and Neurogenic Bladder–Treatment with Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs
Interstitial Cystitis and Neurogenic Bladder have a long history of treatment with Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs. Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs are so effective for chronic inflammatory bladder and pelvic floor issues because of the regulating effect acupuncture has...
Trigger Point Pain, Acupuncture, Mindfulness, and the Anti-inflammatory Diet
A patient came in recently for acupuncture with terrible upper and mid back trigger point pain that began one day recently after taking a nap. In fact, he had woken from this nap with such bad chest and back pain that he rushed to the ER, fearful of a heart attack....
Sulindac ,Clinoril, and Taking Ownership of Your Health
<h1>Sulindac or Clinoril is Dangerous</h1> Today's NY Times ( Generic Drug Damages Case) has a sad article about a law suit involving a woman who is now legally blind after taking a prescription pain drug, Sulindac, and almost dying. Sulindac, or...
Dry Needling and Acupuncture for Trigger Point Pain Relief
Dry Needling and Acupuncture for Trigger Point Pain Relief Trigger points are a significant factor in a huge percentage of acute and chronic pain conditions. It is critical when first meeting a patient to differentiate between the possible causes of your pain....
Rotator Cuff Pain Treated with Dry Needling and Acupuncture
Rotator cuff pain ranges from the tight, achy soreness and pain common with stress and overwork injury, to the more severe sports injuries involving tendonitis, sprain, strain, and partial tears of the rotator cuff, to what Chinese Medicine dubs “50 year shoulder”,...
Chinese Herbs for GERD
Chinese Herbs for GERD Chinese herbs for GERD--Gastro Esophogeal Reflux Disease, formerly called chronic heartburn, work better and faster than drugs do. That's because they actually help to change the functioning of the tissues causeing the discomfort, the stomic and...
Anchor the Yang: Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture and Moxabustion Therapies for Summer Solstice
The Chinese and Indian View: Life is a Passage Through Cycles In Chinese Medicine (as also Ayurveda) a fundamental concept is to prepare for what is ahead. This is not just generalized prevention as in eating a healthy diet or sleeping well, but is specific to...
The Seven Essential Attitudes in Mindfulness Practice- Lesson1
Mindfulness Practice Lesson 1: Non Judging My favorite book that I recommend to my Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine patients for learning Mindfulness Meditation, which I think is invaluable as a tool for stress management and to address the underlying nervous system...
Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen: The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic
I am very excited to have just received my copy of the new, comprehensive and annotated translation of the seminal text of Chinese Medicine, The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic. I have studied this text before in various incomplete or limited translations, but this is...
Acupuncture in the Seasons and for Prevention of Illness
While Acupuncture is most often used in the USA to treat an illness that has already occured, since ancient times acupuncture has been used to prevent illness. There are specific discussions on this topic in the Nei Jing, or Yellow Emporer’s Classic. In...
Sliding Cups in the Treatment of Colds, Flu, and Pain
Sliding Cups is a specialized method of cupping that involves moving cups along large areas of muscles and fascia, like the IT band or hamstrings, or along the rhomboids, after massaging the skin with Ayurvedic oil, lotion, or counter irritants like Tiger Balm. It is...
Moxabustion to Strengthen the Immune System
In Chinese medicine moxa-bustion is done in summer and autumn to prepare for winter. Moxabustion warms the channels and stregnthens the organ complexes, especially the Adrenal-Digestive axis. Directions for Home Moxabustion. Please do moxa safely and at your own risk....
Acupuncture for Pain Relief
Acupuncture for pain relief in San Diego! I use acupuncture to treat Acute and Chronic Pain, Sports Injuries and Repetitive Use Injuries. Unlike drugs, acupuncture removes the cause of your pain, and not just your symptoms. Acupuncure, and dry needling, as completely...
Myofascial Pain Relief with Dry Needling
Definition and History of Dry Needling, Trigger Points and Trigger Point Acupuncture The Term Dry Needling--History Dry Needling is a term first coined by M.D. clinicians and researchers in England and the USA who treated myofascial pain, or trigger point pain by...
Hormonal Acne: Treatment with Chinese Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture
Hormonal Acne Many women, especially young women, suffer from what can be termed hormonal acne. Hormonal acne typically, but not exclusively, occurs sometime during the 7 days prior to the onset of bleeding, known as, the pre-menstrual phase of the menstrual cycle....
Experts Talk About Sinusitis Treatment – NYTimes.com
Experts Talk About Sinusitis Treatment - NYTimes.com"The sinusitis patients who do well are the ones who really abide by using the Neti pot or the saline irrigation bottles. And whether we add additional medications or not to the saline, it’s that mechanical flushing...
Moxabustion for Menstrual Bleeding and Fibroids
Acupuncture and Moxabustion for Menstrual Bleeding, Menopause, and Fibroids Acupuncture, Moxabustion, and Chinese Herbal Medicine are first line treatments for a wide range of Woman's Health/Gynecological health issues. Acupuncture and Moxabustion are specifically...
Healing Eczema with Integrative Natural Medicine
Disease occurs in individual human beings. Your and my unique characteristics of body and mind are the particular terrain from whence our imbalances grow. Disease is always easier to treat if the terrain is healthy, and often impossible to treat successfully if it is...
Acupuncture in Cancer Treatment
Acupuncture in Cancer Treatment: What Is It Used For Acupuncture provides a total approach to supportive health care for people with cancer using Biomedicine. It can be used to address many of the concerns that come up during and after chemotherapy, radiation,...
Dry Needling
Dry Needling for Back Pain
Low Back Pain treated with Dry Needling and Acupuncture Releasing the Motor Point of the Upper Trapezius to treat Chronic Low Back Pain Release the Trigger Points in the Low Back with Dry Needling I almost always treat chronic low back pain by dry needling the...
Pickle Ball Injury: Biceps Tendonitis Treated by Dry Needling
An Overuse Injury from Playing Too Much Pickle Ball! Here is a 53 year old man who came in to have his Biceps Tendonitis treated by Dry Needling. He is relatively de-conditioned from his desk job, slightly obese, and a recent convert to pickle ball....
Knee Pain Dry Needling for a Circus Trapeze Artist
Dry Needling for Knee Pain in a Trapeze Artist Chronic Tendonitis in the Quadraceps and Patellar Tendons Here is dry needling directly into the Quadriceps and Patellar tendons in a circus artist with a chronic tendonitis that recently flared up. I have also released...
Chronic Low Back Pain Treated with Dry Needling
Here is an interesting case of a well nourished 34 year old male whose chronic low back pain was treated successfully with dry needling... This is a man who has suffered from unpleasant low back pain for 7 years. But, he is strong and able to lift heavy things without...
Dry Needling for Frozen Shoulder & Rotator Cuff Injuries
Dry Needling for Frozen Shoulder and Rotator Cuff Injuries Dry Needling for Frozen Shoulder and Rotator Cuff Injuries is a quick and effective way to relieve pain and get back to your sports, athletic, and daily living activities. What Dry Needling Does? How...
Your Body Keeps the Score: The Man Who Would Not Stop
Phillip the Man The man who would not stop. Phillip is an interesting father of 2 young kids, divorced, and in his mid-forties. He is extremely active, with a long history of soccer and softball, that in his later years has morphed into a strict regimen of classic...
Dry Needling for IT Band Syndrome and Runner’s Knee
Trigger Point Therapy with Dry Needling Is Effective for IT Band syndrome and Runner's Knee TriggerPoint Therapy with Dry Needling gets rid of the muscular and fascial pain of IT Band syndrome, also sometimes called TFL syndrome, fast. This is because Dry needling...
Dry Needling for Tennis Elbow with Electrical Stim
Dry Needling for Tennis Elbow with Electrical Stimulation I use dry needling for tennis elbow several times per week. Its a very effective treatment that gives immediate results in most cases. As the muscles and tendons associated with tennis elbow become so dense and...
Difference between Dry Needling and Acupuncture?
Is there a difference between Dry Needling and Acupuncture? Dry Needling: The fundamental difference between Dry Needling and Acupuncture is that Dry Needling uses needles to deactivate painful trigger points. Trigger points are painful areas of specialized...
Dry Needling and Acupuncture Together
Can Dry Needling and Acupuncture Work Together? Dry Needling vs. Acupuncture: Releasing Trigger Points while Opening up Qi flow People often ask whether Dry Needling and Acupuncture Together work as well as either alone? In fact the most sophisticated understanding...
Acupuncture for Headaches
Acupuncture for Headaches--Treat the Symptoms and The Causes, Part 2 Acupuncture for Headaches along with Dry Needling gives immediate relief from tension and migraine headache pain. We continue now from this previous article Acupuncture for Tension Headaches,...
Cure Tension Headaches with Acupuncture and Dry Needling
Can I Cure My Tension Headaches with Acupuncture and Dry Needling? It is possible to cure tension headaches with Acupuncture and Dry Needling permanently. Treatment is fast, effective, and relaxing. Acupuncture and Dry needling for headache pain feels good, is...
Dry Needling for Neck Pain
I have used Dry Needling for Neck Pain in my San Diego Acupuncture clinic for 27 years on close to one thousand people. Dry Needling provides very quick relief from all kinds of chronic and acute neck pain. It successfully treats: Numbness and Tingling in the...
Trigger Point Acupuncture and Dry Needling
Trigger Point Acupuncture and Dry Needling I am reprinting this article on Trigger Point Acupuncture and Dry Needling that I wrote back in 2009, for my friend Anthony Carey, the owner of Function First here in San Diego. Function First is a system of corrective...
Can Western Medicine Explain How Acupuncture Works?
I was recently responding to this question on Quora: "How does Western medicine explain acupuncture." and wanted to share my response and to expand upon it. Can Western Medicine Explain How Acupunture Works? Western Medicine, or more exactly, Western Science, because...
Cupping Therapy for Myofascial Pain
Cupping Therapy for Myofascial Pain is an integral part of Classical Chinese acupuncture and is very useful for myofascial pain and sports medicine b/c it breaks up adhesions in the fascia and brings new blood to the area when capillaries are deliberately ruptured.....
Acupuncture for Neck Pain
Acupuncture for Neck Pain: A recent article in Time magazine has this byline: Acupuncture Actually Works for Neck Pain I love the qualifier "actually". As if after 40 years of acupuncture in the USA, anyone would be surprised. When I began my acupuncture practice...
Dry Needling for Shoulder Pain
Dry Needling for Shoulder PainDry Needling for Shoulder Pain What is Dry Needling? Dry Needling is a needle therapy used to relieve trigger points . Dry needling was pioneered by Janet Travell, M.D., author of "Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: Trigger Point...
A Case of Vertigo and Headache treated with Dry Needling and Classical Chinese Acupuncture
Vertigo and Headache Treated with Dry Needling and Classical Chinese Acupuncture Combines the Best of Two worlds. First I use Dry Needling to deactivate the inflammed trigger points that are the immediate cause of the Headache pain. I also stimulate the motor points...
Dry Needling and Acupuncture for Acute and Chronic Pain
Dry Needling and Acupuncture for Acute and Chronic Pain One of the most common reasons people seek help from Chinese Acupuncture and Dry Needling is for the treatment of pain. Avoid the Dangerous Side Effects of Drugs with Dry Needling and Acupuncture ...
Dry Needling and Acupuncture for Trigger Point Pain Relief
Dry Needling and Acupuncture for Trigger Point Pain Relief Trigger points are a significant factor in a huge percentage of acute and chronic pain conditions. It is critical when first meeting a patient to differentiate between the possible causes of your pain....
Rotator Cuff Pain Treated with Dry Needling and Acupuncture
Rotator cuff pain ranges from the tight, achy soreness and pain common with stress and overwork injury, to the more severe sports injuries involving tendonitis, sprain, strain, and partial tears of the rotator cuff, to what Chinese Medicine dubs “50 year shoulder”,...
Myofascial Pain Relief with Dry Needling
Definition and History of Dry Needling, Trigger Points and Trigger Point Acupuncture The Term Dry Needling--History Dry Needling is a term first coined by M.D. clinicians and researchers in England and the USA who treated myofascial pain, or trigger point pain by...
Acupuncture in Cancer Treatment
Acupuncture in Cancer Treatment: What Is It Used For Acupuncture provides a total approach to supportive health care for people with cancer using Biomedicine. It can be used to address many of the concerns that come up during and after chemotherapy, radiation,...
Cupping Articles
Moxabustion Versus Acupuncture
Chinese and Japanese style moxabustion, or moxa, has may applications in Chinese Medicine. Its an integral part of any authentic acupuncture practice. Moxabustion involves warming the acupuncture area/point with the processed leaves of Artemesia Vulgaris, wild...
Dry Needling for Shoulder Pain
Dry Needling for Shoulder PainDry Needling for Shoulder Pain What is Dry Needling? Dry Needling is a needle therapy used to relieve trigger points . Dry needling was pioneered by Janet Travell, M.D., author of "Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: Trigger Point...
Moxibustion and Cupping
oxibustion is the burning of cones made from the processed fine leaves of the Mugwort plant on Acupuncture points, or on broad areas of the body to achieve specific healing effects. Moxabustion is warm, and as heat is an energy source, it is a way...
Moxabustion for Menstrual Bleeding and Fibroids
Acupuncture and Moxabustion for Menstrual Bleeding, Menopause, and Fibroids Acupuncture, Moxabustion, and Chinese Herbal Medicine are first line treatments for a wide range of Woman's Health/Gynecological health issues. Acupuncture and Moxabustion are specifically...
Chinese Medicine Articles
Chinese Summer Cooling Drink: Watermelon
Chinese Summer Cooling Drinks: Watermelon Rind Soup! In San Diego County Late Summer brings the hellish weather of Santa Ana conditions: dry heat from the desert. Even now, Sept 9, 2024, we have had a week of 100 degree days. The Problem with Iced Beverges Americans...
Acne Rosacea Acupuncture Treatment
Acne Rosacea treated by Classical Chinese Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs Acne Rosacea Common Symptoms Acne Rosacea is an embarrassing ailment that plagues males and females alike. It is characterized by a red rash on the nose and cheeks. It can spread across the face,...
Overeating Relief with Chinese Medicine “Preserve Harmony Pill”
Overeating Relief with Chinese Herbal Prescription Preserve Harmony Pill Chinese Medicine excells at the treatment of digestive disorders, and one of the easiest cures is overeating relief with Chinese Herbal Medicine formula Preserve Harmony Pill, known in Chinese as...
What is Chinese Herbal Medicine
What Is Chinese Herbal Medicine? Chinese Herbal Medicine is one of the therapeutic methods of Classical Chinese Medicine. Classical Chinese Medicine is a 2200 year old written tradition, created by the literate intelligentsia of ancient China. The people that invented...
Chinese Herbs For Back Pain and Sciatica–Shu Jin 2
Chinese Herbs for Back Pain and Sciatica--Shu Jin 2 My favorite Chinese Herbs for Back Pain and Sciatica is a formula called Shu Jin 2. I also use Shu Jin 2 for bulging and herniated discs, stenosis, and piriformis syndromes. While my primary treatments...
Herbs for Damp Heat in TCM
A person asked me what about Herbs for Damp Heat in TCM on Quora. Here is my off the cuff answer Damp Heat in TCM, Traditional Chinese Medicine, the term coined in the Communist era for what we now just call Chinese Medicine, is associated with an array of symptoms...
Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine–How Do They Compare?
Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine are different systems of natural medicine with different medical language, practices, medicinals, and theory. For example, Chinese Medicine uses Acupuncture needles and a kind of massage done over the clothing, Tui Na. Ayurveda, on the...
Prevent Flu and Colds Naturally with Chinese Medicine
Are you wondering with all the stress of Covid-19, and the upcoming elections, how to prevent flu and colds naturally? The Nei Jing/Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, which presents the cutting edge medical wisdom of its time, is full of brilliant advice...
Source Natural’s Wellness Formula For Colds and Flu
Source Naturals Wellness Formula for Cold and Flu--The Right and Wrong Way to Use Source Natural's Wellness Formula is one of my favorite herbal mixes for certain kinds of cold and for flu. Let's be clear though--no herb formula is a substitute for staying home in...
Chinese Herbs for Post-Partum Depression and Anxiety Disorder
Chinese Herbs for Postpartum Depression and Anxiety Chinese Medicine Treats The Individual The use of Chinese herbs for postpartum depression and anxiety disorders, is based on treating the individual. Postpartum Depression and anxiety don't exist in a vacuum, but in...
Ayurvedic Dandelion Greens for Spring
Ayurvedic Dandelion Greens for Spring are a great cleansing vegetable, excellent year round, but especially good in Spring. They are a wonderful Sattvic food that helps to cleanse the body of the ama dosha that accumulates naturally over the winter months. Green...
Essential Oils for Acne
Essential Oils for Acne are part of my protocol for curing Cystic and Hormonal Acne with Acupuncture, Ayurveda, and Chinese Herbal Medicine. I have been specializing in the treatment of Cystic and Hormonal Acne in my San Diego Acupuncture and Natural Medicine...
Irritable Bowel Syndrome Treatment: Acupuncture, Ayurveda, and Chinese Herbs
What is Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)? Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a functional disorder of the Large Intestine (Colon) that can cause cramps, bloating, gas, pain, diarrhea, or constipation. People with IBS-D will have diarrhea on a regular basis with...
Hormonal Acne Natural Treatment with Ayurveda, Acupuncture, and Chinese Medicine
Hormonal Acne Natural Treatment with Ayurveda, Acupuncture, & Chinese Herbs is Safe, Effective, and Gentle. My treatment of Acne includes Acupuncture to clear pathalogical heat from the body and to balance the hormones causing the acne. Even in teenaged boys there...
Winter Bone Broth
Bone Marrow Soup, Part 2: Winter In cold weather its natural to crave warm food. And the alchemical transformation of solids into liquids, of vegetables and meats or bones into soup, is a way of liberating the essence of these foodstuff into a substance that is much...
Chinese Herbal Chicken Bone Broth for Recovery from Bronchitis
I discovered Chinese Herbal Medicine Chicken Bone Broth for Recovery from Bronchitis in 1991. I was in my second year of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture school, and was also working full time as an apprentice in two very busy San Diego Acupuncture Clinics. At the...
Spring in Chinese Medicine
Movement, Wind, Moisture, Cold Spring is a time of transition and change, when the contractive cold moist Yin energies of Winter gradually give way to the expansive hot Yang energies of Summer. Spring in Chinese Medicine is a process that involves movement and wind,...
Vegan Land and Sea Vegetable Soup for Spring
Vegan Land and Sea Vegetable Soup is a gentle way to cleanse and renew the body in Spring, or whenever you feel weak or are recovering from illness. It relies on the deep flavors of root vegetables, sea vegetables, and shitake mushroom. It is a simple soup with subtle...
Winter Cleanse Soup with Burdock, Dandelion, and Kombu
A Winter Cleanse Soup is a good remedy for the overeating of heavy rich foods that occurs around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. So, at the end of January, or in Early Spring, restor your gut microbiome by making a Chinese Medicine Soup with...
Cure Insomnia Permanently
Cure Insomnia Permanently With Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine Its very possible to cure Insomnia permanently with Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal Medicine, Mindfulness Practice, Body Scanning, and the development of what specialists call Sleep Hygiene or Sleep...
Cold Causes Stagnation Heat Causes Movement
From today's newspaper comes this cool article about a fruitcake that has survived, in nearly edible condition (probably actually edible, as all that is reported is a slightly rancid butter smell), for 100 years at the South Pole in Antarctica. Which brings to mind...
Chinese Medicine on Weight Loss
Weight Loss in Chinese Medicine Chinese Medicine places our diet as a cornerstone, along with good sleep and a positive mental approach to life, as the cornerstones of health. Here is what Chinese medicine has to say about weight loss as we age When I taught nutrition...
Is Daily Sweating Important for Health?
Someone asked me the other day, "Why is daily sweating important for health?" My response was, "Is it?" I don’t think there is any scientific evidence that sweating is especially beneficial for health. I have seen claims made, but I have not seen hard core research....
Lipedema and Chinese Medicine
Lipedema and Chinese Medicine. Lynette wrote in and asked, "Can you explain what excess a body with Lipedema has. Are they damp diseases! feedback most welcomed for myself and my support groups!" Lipedema is a a disorder of the adipose (fat) tissue that occurs almost...
Roasted Garabanzo Cookies
Roasted Garabanzo Cookies are descended, in my brain, from the dry roasted split chickpea (pottu kadalai..பொட்டுக்கடலை) I used to eat when I was a protein starved vegetarian monk in Tamil Nadu, South India, as a youth. Roasted Garabanzo are a favorite snack in South...
Winter Jing Tonic Cabbage Soup
Winter Jing Tonic Cabbage Soup is an ideal way to nourish what Chinese Medicine calls the Kidney Qi, associated with the deepest level of body energy, the Jing, or Essence. Growth, reproduction, basic energy levels, strength, and mental faculties are all associated...
Vitamin B-12 Deficiency
Vitamin B-12 Deficiency is very common in people over 50, and in people who use drugs that reduce stomach acid, and also that take the antidiabetes drug Metforman. I find Vitamin B-12 supplementation very valuable in the treatment of neurological disorders,...
Chinese Medical History
Chinese Medical History and the Beginnings of Scienctific Thought Chinese Medical History, like the medicines of the ancient Eygptians, Hindus, and Sumerians goes back to at least 1200 BCE when the Chinese were already making Gold Acupuncture needles. Eratosthenes in...
Twelve Ways to Heal Eczema Naturally
Here are twelve ways to heal allergic eczema (atopic dermatitis) naturally that I have developed over the years of specializing in the treatment of skin disorders with Acupuncture, Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda. One of my first cases in the clinic as a student at...
Ayurvedic Hibiscus Summer Tea
Ayurvedic Hibiscus Summer Tea is naturally Pitta pacifying. This means its cooling and refreshing in the hot summer months, especially in the late summer Santa Ana conditions here in San Diego with the dry dusty weather. At the same time, because of its slight sour...
Pasture Raised Meat and Milk in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine
Pasture raised Meat and Milk in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine is meat and milk as our ancestors ate it. Our hunter gatherer ancestors obviously did not drink milk, as they did not yet practice animal husbandry. But they were certainly not vegans or vegetarians, as the...
Qi, Sweating, and Fear
What Is Qi What the Chinese call Qi , and what Ayurveda calls Prana, is the Vital Life Force that moves things, quite literally, and also that creates growth and decay. Qi and Prana are what moves things quite literally on so many levels. Its only a living body that...
Menopause Natural Treatment: Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine
In Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda Menopause Natural Treatment begins with the premise that menopause, and andropause, like puberty, like the transitions that occurs around ages 2, 5, and 36, are just that, transitions, not diseases. We get symptoms because of the wild...
Popular Heartburn Medicine Increases Risk for Dementia
Proton Pump Inhibitors Linked to Higher Dementia Risk: The Chinese Medicine Alternatives We face a national epidemic of Dementia as baby boomers who have spent years on Heartburn Medication like Prilosec, Protonixx, and Nexium, hit their 60's and 70's, while at the...
Winter and Sleep in Chinese Medicine: Kidney Qi
Winter and Sleep in Chinese Medicine: Kidney Qi Its Winter. Classical Chinese Medicine has this to say about it. "Go to sleep early, but get up LATE, after the sun has risen." Makes total sense because as an animal you don't want to waste your valuable energy...
Diet and Nutrition in Chinese Medicine: Wakame Sea Veggie to Nourish Kidney Yin and Cleanse Lymphatics
Diet and Nutrition in Chinese Medicine: Nourish Kidney Yin and Cleanse in Winter with Sea Veggies Winter and the Kidney Qi in Chinese Medical Theory In winter the Qi enters the Kidneys, the physically lowest of the Zang/Solid internal organs, and the energetically...
Peanut Allergy and Infants
I happened upon an article in the Guardian newspaper describing how giving peanut products in small amounts to infants under twelve months who are at risk of developing peanut allergy (those with eczema) may prevent peanut allergy in future.. As someone who...
Ginger In Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine
Ginger Root: Universal Medicine There are no panaceas in medicine, but if there were going to be one, it would have to be the humble Ginger root. Ginger is called "Vishabhesaj" in Ayurveda, Sanskrit for "universal medicine." That is both because of its wide...
Winter Bone Broth, Part 1
Winter Bone Broth--Extract Jing and Replenish What's Been Lost Bone broth, or what we call bone marrow soup in Chinese Medicine is just the rage right now, and for good reason. Extracting the mineral essence of solid things, like bones and root vegetables, into liquid...
Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine: Protect Your Agni in Summer
Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine can be used to preserve what Ayurveda calls Agni--the metabolic fire that is what makes us warm blooded and that is associated with health, strength and vitality. Chinese Medicine calls this physiological fire Yang or...
A Case of Vertigo and Headache treated with Dry Needling and Classical Chinese Acupuncture
Vertigo and Headache Treated with Dry Needling and Classical Chinese Acupuncture Combines the Best of Two worlds. First I use Dry Needling to deactivate the inflammed trigger points that are the immediate cause of the Headache pain. I also stimulate the motor points...
Food Coloring and Hyperactivity
Food Coloring, ADD, and Environmental Toxins in Chinese Medicine As I mentioned in this previous post, Environmental Toxins are considered one of the Miscellaneous Causes of Disease in Chinese Medicine, the other Causes of Disease in Chinese Medicine being...
Chinese Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture for Acute Compartment Syndrome
Interesting article today in Scientific American on acute compartment syndrome, a potentially devastating injury that can even lead to amputation of a limb, and that also gives a glimpse into the role of the fascia in organizing the tissues of the body. Releasing the...
The Effect of Hot Weather on Anger
Liver Qi, Pitta Dosha, and The Effect of Hot Weather on Anger and Aggression Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda both describe how hot weather increases anger and aggression in humans. It describes in detail how and why hot weather increases levels of aggression by...
Nuts as Weight Loss Aid
This news does not surprise me, as in Ayurveda nuts are in the category of Rasayana--foods that promote health and longevity. They benefit the deepest layers of the body, Ojas, commesurate with what Chinese Medicine calls Jing or Essence. As such you will find nuts...
Autumn in Chinese Medicine
Autumn Fall utumn in Chinese Medicine is the time of falling, hence its secondary name. Spring up, Fall down. In fact we even use the word autumn to describe a period in the human life span, the autumnal years, a period of beautiful maturity that...
SIGNS OF EFFECTIVE AND INEFFECTIVE DIGESTION
“Good Digestion, Good Sleep, Good Prognosis.” --Old Chinese Medical Adage: The digestive tract is the inner core of the body. Good digestion is one of the foundations of health. Our body’s very cells are built from the food that we eat and the oxygen that...
The Nature of Vata Dosha and How to Pacify It
The way to prepare dishes that pacify Vata Dosha is to first understand what Vatta embodies. Vata dosha is the manifestation of Air and Space in our human bodies. Air and Space in its pure state is cold and dry. Air only becomes warm due to the effects of fire from...
Are Your Bladder Infections from Factory Farmed Meat?
Chinese Medicine excels at the treatment of bladder and other Urinary tract infections. I am yet, thank God, to meet a Urinary infection that did not respond to Chinese Herbal Medicine formulas such as Ba Zheng San/Dianthus Formula, or Si Miao Wan/Four Marvels...
Using Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine to Protect Your Digestive Fire in Summer
In summer we sweat and our yang energy or heat keeps getting dispersed and exhausted. On freezing cold days you feel cold, but on boiling hot days you sweat and become exhausted. In winter in every culture people eat heavy high-calorie foods, but in summer switch to...
Interstitial Cystitis and Neurogenic Bladder–Treatment with Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs
Interstitial Cystitis and Neurogenic Bladder have a long history of treatment with Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs. Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs are so effective for chronic inflammatory bladder and pelvic floor issues because of the regulating effect acupuncture has...
Healthy Summer Fruit Tart
A Healthy Summer Fruit Tart is a nutrient dense food full of fiber, vitamins, minerals, flavanoids, antioxidants, and protein, with high amounts of life force from fresh ripe, organic ingredients, and without what's bad for you--white sugar, artificial stuff,...
Springtime Tea from Somalia with Cardamom and Mint
Food and drink like language and music spreads between cultures without rules. But within any given tradition, within any given culture, its as if there are unspoken rules that govern change; creativity is allowed, but to a point. In the world of food or music, for...
Goji Berries in Chinese Herbal Medicine
I got to thinking about Goji Berries in Chinese Herbal Medicine recently, when someone wrote in to ask whether Goji berries are best eaten raw or cooked? The following is my response to the following question sent in. Eyton, I received a box of dried fructus lycii,...
Are Goji Berries Best Eaten Raw or Cooked?
The people ask: are Goji berries best eaten raw or cooked? This is my response to the following question sent in. Eyton, I received a box of dried fructus lycii, (goji berries)from a friend and on the back of the box it says ‘this product needs to clean and cook...
Ayurveda and Fruits: Match Food to Your Dosha and the Season
What foods match your dosha? Fruits are naturally sweet sour and refreshing. Some fruits, like apples, also have an astringent or drying property, depending on variety, macs more than fiji, for example. Your mouth feels a bit dry after a bite of apple, or quite dry...
Come in from the Cold Ayurveda Winter Tea
Tonight it was quite cold for San Diego and I walked to my friend's house and then we went out again, so when we came back in I made an Ayurveda winter tea. We put on a small kettle and I placed in the tea pot: Fresh Ginger Slices, 5 Cloves 4 Cassia Twig 1 inch,...
What’s Wrong with Red Bull and other Energy Drinks?
Are Energy Drinks like Red Bull good for you? Informative article today in NY Times today on energy drinks. One of the operative quotes: "...one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on...
Grass Fed Milk, Cultured Butter, Butter in Ayurveda
Grass Fed Milk, Cultured Butter, Butter is Better If you eat butter, let it be from cows that exercised in the fresh air and sun and ate grass in summer pastures, not soybeans and grains in barns. I really like the Organic Valley brand Pasture Butter (and also Grass...
Wakame Sea Vegetable with Turnip, Pear, and American Ginseng
Wakame is a delicate, mild tasting, low calorie sea vegetable with a succulent texture. A favorite food in Japanese and Korean cuisine, it is traditionally cooked in miso soup, served on its own as a cold side dish (sunomono), or cooked with foods...
Grass Fed Pastured Dairy Cattle Milk is Healthier and Tastes Better
http://www.organicvalley.coop/about-us/overview/our-history/ Briefly, Organic Valley's Grass Fed Cow's Milk is healthier, containing Omega 3's, is not homogenized, and tastes much better. It smells and tastes what the free range milk in my small village in...
Juiced Watermelon with Lime, Ginger, and Salt
Alternative to Iced Drinks in Hot Weather Protect the Agni/ Yang in Summer: Juiced Watermelon with Lime, Ginger, and Salt The other day was quite hot (for SD!), and I swam at the beach after walking down from the top of Torrey Pines, and got home overheated and...
Mauk Family Farms Organic Raw Wheat-Free Flax Crusts
There are many ways to get healthy Omega 3 fat into your diet. One is fresh wild fishes like salmon, mackeral, and sardines. If you don't like fish, you can take a fish oil supplement in summer and cod liver oil in the winter, just like grandmother used to give....
Summer Raw Beet, Sardine, and Pasta Salad
Summer is a time when even cold dry (Vata) types or cold damp (Kapha) types can have little more raw foods. One of the ways to make raw foods more compatible for cold types with weaker digestive energy (Agni/Spleen Qi) is to have it in small amounts with other foods...
Chinese Herbs for GERD
Chinese Herbs for GERD Chinese herbs for GERD--Gastro Esophogeal Reflux Disease, formerly called chronic heartburn, work better and faster than drugs do. That's because they actually help to change the functioning of the tissues causeing the discomfort, the stomic and...
Anchor the Yang: Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture and Moxabustion Therapies for Summer Solstice
The Chinese and Indian View: Life is a Passage Through Cycles In Chinese Medicine (as also Ayurveda) a fundamental concept is to prepare for what is ahead. This is not just generalized prevention as in eating a healthy diet or sleeping well, but is specific to...
Heaven Mountain Goji Berry
Goji Berry Super Food Lots of foods are super foods, in terms of anti-oxidant or anti-biotic value, like cabbage, nettles, and onions. One that has received a lot of well deserved hype are "Goji Berries" or Gou Qi Zi in Chinese Medicine and Culture. Gou Qi Zi are...
Statin Drugs: Smoke and Mirrors, or Mirrors and Smoke
The below article written by Dr. Mercola really sums up the problem with the bio-med approach to heart disease and cholesterol. Never mind that besides the issue of cholesterol, Dr. Ornish and the research on both the Okinawan and Mediterranean diets show that a big...
Baked Butternut Squash and Black Bean Stew
Cooking Methods in Chinese Food Medicine: From Warm to Hot to Very Hot One of the aspects of Food Medicine we pay attention to in Chinese Medicine is the cooking method itself. Each method of cooking adds relative values of heat to the dish being prepared. Steaming...
Importance of Diet in Chinese Medicine
Over the millenia Chinese physicians developed a very effective and scientific (empirical) model for assessing health and disease. Practitioners assess a person’s health by feeling the quality of the pulses at each wrist, and by observing the color and form of the...
Chinese Medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine, sometimes called TCM, or just Chinese Medicine, is a complete medical system that has diagnosed, treated, and prevented illness for over 2300 years. Imagine, for a moment, that the medicine of Hippocrates, the father of western...
Freeze Dried Nettles for Eczema, Allergy, and Asthma
Fresh and Freeze-Dried Nettles When I was a teenager, I was enthralled by the story of Milarepa, "Tibet's Greatest Yogi," who, spent twelve years in the cold high mountains, meditating and living only on soup made from Nettles and herbs. This is one of the most...
Top Ten Foods to Lower Cholesterol
In my San Diego acupuncture and Ayurveda practice I see a lot of patients with high cholesterol whose doctors want to or have put them on Statin drugs. Some of them are even on multiple versions.But statin drugs are not without a frightening array of risks-- pain,...
Eden Foods Bisphenol-A (BPH) -free cans
The only brand I know of that has BPH- free cans is Eden, a company that has been operating out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, since the 60's. Still, I always recommend if you use any canned beans, always wash them really well. You don't know what is in the liquid they are...
Korean Summer Rice with Job’s Tears, Shitake, and Hijiki
Rice with Job' Tears in Summer In Korea, Rice with Job's tears "barley" (Coix lacryma-jobi in Latin, YiYiRen in Mandarin Chinese, Hato Mugi in Japanese, Uiin in Korean)-- is cooked in the summer to help relieve the effects of the hot, humid weather. Job's tears...
Provencal Style Lima Bean Summer Soup
Lima Bean Summer Soup Live with the Seasons. Summer is a time to replenish fluids and eat more cool foods. On really hot days we may not feel like hot food. Pureed vegetable or bean soup nourishes the Agni or "Spleen Qi" with healthy herbs and spices, yet is great at...
Green Tea Health Benefits
Green Tea Health Benefits Some info from a workshop a few years ago at Halcyon Tea shop in South Park, San Diego on green tea health benefits from the perspective of modern science. In fact Oolong and Pu-erh tea also have enormous health benefits, and even...
Fungi Perfecti–Mycorrhizal Fungi for Health and Wellness
Central to the treatment of Auto-Immune and other difficult to treat diseases in Chinese Medicine is the use of "medicinal mushrooms" such as Reishi (Ling Zhi), Cordyceps, Maitake, etc. These have been used in Chinese Medicine, in all its Asian variants--Japanese,...
Winter Seasonal Eating
Winter Seasonal Eating In Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda winter seasonal eating is common sensical. Just as its natural to eat and drink cooling things in summer, winter is the time we maintain body heat with warming foods and herbs....
Afghani Winter Turnips
Mr. Zia's Afghani Winter Turnips One of my favorite places for home cooking in San Diego years past was Mr. Zia's Afghan restaurant, on 30th St. in North Park. Mr. Zia became a friend, and even took me to the Afghani mosque during Ramadan. He served an array of...
Chinese Herbs for Morning Sickness
Chinese Herbs for Morning Sickness Chinese herbs for morning sickness work very well, as do other herbs and diet tricks, that I will explain, below. Morning Sickness refers to Nausea in Pregnancy. It does not have to be in the morning, it can occur any time of...
Burdock Root Detox Drink
Burdock Root for Detoxification in Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda Burdock Root Detox Drink is a decongesting, heat clearing, detoxifying beverage that clears toxic heat and dampness, called Pitta and Ama in Ayurveda. While cleansing toxins from the body, it also...
Arugala, Purslane, Mizuna Green Salad with Feta and Fava
Boy the Hillcrest, San Diego Farmer's Market has gotten better and better as more and more people are understanding the value of Organic, Locally Grown Produce. In fact, anyone with four square feet of land, or even one or two wine barrels* and some decent sun can...
Fasting in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine
Fasting in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine Fasting in Ayurveda Ayurveda believes that light fasting can greatly benefit your health. Light fasting healthfully stimulates the digestive fire of your entire gut, from your salivary glands to your large intestine, including...
Eczema and Psoriasis Chinese Medicine Herbal Remedy: Skin Cleanser
Skin Cleanser Herbal Formula for Eczema and Psoriasis One of my favorite Chinese Herbal Formulas for the treatment of Eczema and Psoriasis is made by one of my esteemed herbal teachers, Dr. Huang, M.D. Dr. Huang was a professor of Herbal Medicine and Dermatology...
Healing Eczema with Integrative Natural Medicine
Disease occurs in individual human beings. Your and my unique characteristics of body and mind are the particular terrain from whence our imbalances grow. Disease is always easier to treat if the terrain is healthy, and often impossible to treat successfully if it is...
Keep the Surfer Warm Decoction: Boost Performance, Prevent Colds, Surfer’s Ear, Pain and Stiffness
KEEP THE SURFER WARM DeCOCTION is my own mixture of Chinese Herbs, extracted here in the USA by Kan Herbs Co (see link below to learn more about their process). I have used it over the years with my surfer buddies and patient to improve performance, prevent colds,...
What Is a Healthy Digestive Tract
What Are the Signs of a Healthy Digestive Tract? A healthy digestive tract is marked by "good appetite, good digestion and good elimination." This will produce a clean tongue coating, a postive feeling after eating, and regular, easy, productive elimination. What is...
Healing Ulcerative Colitis
Ulcerative colitis is a form of inflammatory bowel disease that affects the large intestine. It should not be confused with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Ulcerative colitis is characterized by the presence of inflammation and ulceration in the intestinal mucosa. The chief...
Chinese Herbal Medicine for Bladder Infection or Antibiotics?
Chinese Herbal Medicine for Bladder Infection or Antibiotics? Chinese Herbal Medicine for Bladder Infections (a.k.a. Cystitis, Urinary Tract Infection, or UTI,) is very effective. . They infections are fairly easy to treat with conservative measure such as...
Teff n’ Quinoa Gluten Free Pancakes Recipe
Teff n' Quinoa Gluten Free Vegan Pancakes Recipe Autumn and Winter are ideal times for the warming, grounding quality of of pancakes. But why use pre-packaged, over-salted, sugary, low-fiber pancake mixes whose pre-ground grains may or may not be fresh, when...
Immunity Boosting Foods in Ayurveda
Immunity Boosting Foods Immunity boosting foods are those that are full of Prana-- freshly made and well prepared, organic, easy to digest, and pure. Tailored to our individual body-mind type (prakruti), age, and the season, they fill the body with Prana...
Ayurveda Articles
Morroccan Beet Salad for Vata Dosha
Here's a Beet Salad for Vata Dosha I learned from my Morrocan friend Edith that I like to make in Autumn and Spring as a side dish with heavier food. Beet are an excellent Vata vegetable as they are easy-to-digest and, like turnip and radish, and excellent digestive...
Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine–How Do They Compare?
Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine are different systems of natural medicine with different medical language, practices, medicinals, and theory. For example, Chinese Medicine uses Acupuncture needles and a kind of massage done over the clothing, Tui Na. Ayurveda, on the...
Neem for Skin and Detox
Neem for Skin and Detox Ayurveda uses Neem leaf and oil more than any other herb for Skin problems from A to Z. . Neem leaf extract is taken by mouth for Skin disorders from Acne and Hives to Eczema and Psoriasis. Neem oil is used topically on tinea, fungal...
Ayurvedic Detox Tea for Colds and Flu
When fighting a cold or the flu ramp up your Agni internal fire by drinking a quart a day of Dr. Wickermasinghe's Ayurvedic Detox Tea for Colds and Flu. Yes, the flu and colds are caused by viruses. But nursing is a vital part of medicine. Staying warm, pushing hot...
Ayurveda to Prevent Flu and Colds in Winter
Ayurvedic Diet Matched to the Season and Dosh: Use Ayurveda to Prevent Flu and Colds When we speak about using Ayurveda to Prevent Flu and Colds in Winter, we are talking creating the healthiest immune system possible. Yes, flu is caused by a virus. By why do...
Essential Oils for Acne
Essential Oils for Acne are part of my protocol for curing Cystic and Hormonal Acne with Acupuncture, Ayurveda, and Chinese Herbal Medicine. I have been specializing in the treatment of Cystic and Hormonal Acne in my San Diego Acupuncture and Natural Medicine...
Pacify Kapha in Late Winter Early Spring
There is a reason to Pacify Kapha in Late Winter and Early Spring. Kapha Dosha rises naturally in all of us in when the snows melt, the rivers flood, and even in coastal Southern California the earth is moist from the Winter rains. But the nights are still long...
Irritable Bowel Syndrome Treatment: Acupuncture, Ayurveda, and Chinese Herbs
What is Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)? Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a functional disorder of the Large Intestine (Colon) that can cause cramps, bloating, gas, pain, diarrhea, or constipation. People with IBS-D will have diarrhea on a regular basis with...
Ayurvedic Kitchari
What is Kitchari? Kitchari is a Sattvic, light, easy-to-digest, cleansing, detoxifying food that is excellent once a week, at the change of seasons, or any time you feel like giving your digestive system a break. It is also just a normal one-pot-dish you can have for...
Health Benefits of Bacopa
Bacopa Monierri, or Brahmi, in Sanskrit, is a rejuvenative tonic and sedative used in Ayurveda to strengthen the heart and nervous system. Uses of Bacopa in Ayurveda Bacopa is classified as Bitter and Hot in Ayurveda, yet it pacifies both Pitta and Kapha...
Hormonal Acne Natural Treatment with Ayurveda, Acupuncture, and Chinese Medicine
Hormonal Acne Natural Treatment with Ayurveda, Acupuncture, & Chinese Herbs is Safe, Effective, and Gentle. My treatment of Acne includes Acupuncture to clear pathalogical heat from the body and to balance the hormones causing the acne. Even in teenaged boys there...
Peppermint and Gotu Kola Ayurvedic Cooling Summer Tea
Peppermint is considered cooling in Chinese Medicine, while Spearmint is a little bit warming. Peppermint’s use in tea is versatile. Gotu Kola/Brahmi/Centella Asiatica is used widely in Ayurvedic medicine for its rejuvenating and calming qualities.
Kapha in Spring
Dealing With the Kapha in Spring "Spring becomes what Winter was..." This line from an ancient poet is a perfect expression of the philosophy of preventive medicine that is at the heart of Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine. It explains why we have to deal with the...
Smoothies for Pitta Dosha
Smoothies for Pitta Dosha People who are Pitta dosha dominant can certainly have more cooling food, as well as raw food that is cooling such as cucumber lettuce and leafy cruciferous veggies sweet fruits coconut flesh, water, and milk milk, butter, ghee And Pitta...
Is Daily Sweating Important for Health?
Someone asked me the other day, "Why is daily sweating important for health?" My response was, "Is it?" I don’t think there is any scientific evidence that sweating is especially beneficial for health. I have seen claims made, but I have not seen hard core research....
Chinese Medical History
Chinese Medical History and the Beginnings of Scienctific Thought Chinese Medical History, like the medicines of the ancient Eygptians, Hindus, and Sumerians goes back to at least 1200 BCE when the Chinese were already making Gold Acupuncture needles. Eratosthenes in...
Ayurvedic Summer Cabbage Salad with Beet and Onion
Ayurvedic Summer Cabbage Salad with Beet and Onion I am a huge fan of cabbage salad. When I was a strict vegetarian it must have been its hearty quality and chewy texture that appealed. Now that I am an omnivore, I value cabbage both for its delicious, slightly sweet...
ProPita Tea by R-U-Ved
ProPita Tea is a delicious blend of cooling herbs and spices that makes a naturally refreshing summer tea, whether drunk hot in the morning or room temperature/cool during the day. I love to brew a quart of ProPita tea in the hot weather with two bags, brewing it...
Benefits of Triphala
The Benefits of Triphala Triphala literally means “three fruits.” It is made from equal amounts of three powerful Ayurvedic herbs. These three herbs are called Amalaki, Bibhitaki, and Haritaki in Sanskrit, the language of Ayurveda and the Vedic classics...
Menopause Natural Treatment: Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine
In Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda Menopause Natural Treatment begins with the premise that menopause, and andropause, like puberty, like the transitions that occurs around ages 2, 5, and 36, are just that, transitions, not diseases. We get symptoms because of the wild...
Ayurvedic Winter Spice Churna
Ayurvedic Winter Spice Churna are "masalas" (spice mixtures) used to boost immunity by improving digestion and stimulating Agni digestive fire. They are used year round, but can be especially good in Winter and also for Ama/toxin accumulation. They can be tailored to...
Winter and Sleep in Chinese Medicine: Kidney Qi
Winter and Sleep in Chinese Medicine: Kidney Qi Its Winter. Classical Chinese Medicine has this to say about it. "Go to sleep early, but get up LATE, after the sun has risen." Makes total sense because as an animal you don't want to waste your valuable energy...
Cold Cucumber Avocado Yogurt Soup for Summer: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha
Cold Cucumber Avocado Yogurt Soup for Summer: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha Ingredients 2 cups chopped cucumber, peeled if non-organic 1 cup avocado 1.5 cups plain yoghurt or kefir 1-2 tbsp fresh bell pepper 3-4 tbps fresh cilantro Salt and White Pepper to...
Smoothies for Vata Dosha
Smoothies for Vata Dosha--Part One A reader had this comment recently about Smoothies for Vata Dosha, after reading this article about Raw Veggies or Salad for a Vatta Dominant Person. Are Smoothies Better than Juicing for Vata Dosha? "I see that the key here is to...
Ginger In Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine
Ginger Root: Universal Medicine There are no panaceas in medicine, but if there were going to be one, it would have to be the humble Ginger root. Ginger is called "Vishabhesaj" in Ayurveda, Sanskrit for "universal medicine." That is both because of its wide...
Strategies to Pacify Pitta in Summer Heat
There are many ways to pacify the Pitta which becomes elevated with the oppressive heat of summer. Some are good for you, like cooling teas and juicy cooling fruits, others are unhealthy, like air conditioning, especially turned down low, which attacks the surface of...
Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine: Protect Your Agni in Summer
Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine can be used to preserve what Ayurveda calls Agni--the metabolic fire that is what makes us warm blooded and that is associated with health, strength and vitality. Chinese Medicine calls this physiological fire Yang or...
Pacify Kapha with Curried Baked Cauliflower and Kabocha Squash
In Ayurveda, Kapha Dosha accumulates or increases in everyone in Late Winter and Early Spring. This can be a problem in particular for Kapha dominant types with their moist, unctuous, slow moving, cool bodies. But everyone, regardless of dosha, will want to pacify...
Agni Digestive Fire and Ama Digestive Toxins
...continued from previous article... Healthy Agni Digestive Fire Agni Digestive Fire is one of the pillars of good health in Ayurveda. You cannot have overwhelmingly good health unless your Agni is strong. Strong physical Agni enables you to convert foods and liquids...
Disease Formation in Ayurveda: Dosha Elevation, Agni Metabolic Fire, Ama Digestive Toxins -1
Ayurveda: the Formation of Disease through Dosha Elevation, Weakened Metabolic Fire/Agni, and Increased Toxins/Ama Ayurveda looks at the formation of disease in the body as the function of two primary factors: One is elevated or unbalanced Dosha (Vatta, Pitta, and...
Ayurveda: Vegeterianism or Not
Does Ayurveda propose vegetarianism and a vegeterian diet for all? Many modern Ayuvedic physicians, especially those teaching in Europe and the West, espouse lacto-vegeterianism as the ideal diet for everyone. But is this an accurate reflection of the Ayurvedic texts...
The Effect of Hot Weather on Anger
Liver Qi, Pitta Dosha, and The Effect of Hot Weather on Anger and Aggression Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda both describe how hot weather increases anger and aggression in humans. It describes in detail how and why hot weather increases levels of aggression by...
Vata Balancing Tea
A simple way to take the edge off of the cold, windy, dryness of the late Autumn early Winter Vata season is with a good Vata tea.. Why Vata Balancing Tea? To balance Vata is to reduces it. We reduce, or pacify our doshas, because their natural tendency is to...
Vata in Winter
Let's talk about what happens to Vata in Winter and how it relates to the qualities of the elements Air and Space, or Wind and Ether (as in etheric) that the Vata dosha is a manifestion of. Ayurveda describes the ways in which different kinds of foods,...
Benefits of Ayurvedic Oil Bath
Benefits of Ayurvedic Oil Bath: Foundation of Healthy Living Ayurvedic Oil Bath (Abhyangha) is self massage with warm oil. In Ayurveda its traditionally done once a week by the whole family for wellness and prevention of disease. Regular oil massage, or Abhyanga, is...
Anu Thailam Ayurvedic Nasal Oil
What Is Anu Thailam Anu Thailam is the name of a wonderful Ayurvedic Nasal Oil that is a very effective remedy for allergies, sinusitis, some headaches, and head colds. Thailam is the word in the South Indian Dravidian languages like Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and...
Autumn in Chinese Medicine
Autumn Fall utumn in Chinese Medicine is the time of falling, hence its secondary name. Spring up, Fall down. In fact we even use the word autumn to describe a period in the human life span, the autumnal years, a period of beautiful maturity that...
How Disease Forms in Ayurveda: Dosha Elevation, Weakened Agni/Digestive Fire, and Increased Ama/Digestive Toxins
Ayuveda looks at the formation of disease in the body as the function of two primary factors: One is elevated or vitiated (in Indian English) Dosha (Vatta, Pitta, and Kapha), and the other, is the formation of Ama, which can loosely be translated as Toxic Material....
Dosha in Ayurveda–Pitta, Vatta, and Kapha
Dosha in Ayurveda--Your Template for Individual Health Radiant health, according to Ayurveda, is simply a state in which you experience a zest for life and feel integrated and whole. Your appetite, digestion, and elimination are good, you breathe deeply and easily,...
Using Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine to Protect Your Digestive Fire in Summer
In summer we sweat and our yang energy or heat keeps getting dispersed and exhausted. On freezing cold days you feel cold, but on boiling hot days you sweat and become exhausted. In winter in every culture people eat heavy high-calorie foods, but in summer switch to...
Your Ayurvedic Dosha and Mindfulness Meditation
Great article in the New York Times called The Morality of Meditation about recent science research into the practice of Mindfulness Meditation. Research done by neuroscientists and psychologists into the effects of Mindfulness meditation show "mounting scientific...
Ayurveda and Fruits: Match Food to Your Dosha and the Season
What foods match your dosha? Fruits are naturally sweet sour and refreshing. Some fruits, like apples, also have an astringent or drying property, depending on variety, macs more than fiji, for example. Your mouth feels a bit dry after a bite of apple, or quite dry...
Grass Fed Milk, Cultured Butter, Butter in Ayurveda
Grass Fed Milk, Cultured Butter, Butter is Better If you eat butter, let it be from cows that exercised in the fresh air and sun and ate grass in summer pastures, not soybeans and grains in barns. I really like the Organic Valley brand Pasture Butter (and also Grass...
21 Tips for for Vata Dosha
21 Tips for Vata Dosha 70% of diseases begin with Vata elevation. In large strokes, Vata is elevated by frenetic, jam packed 24/7 lifestyles, by overstimulation, by cold dry weather and cold dry food, by too much bitter medicines, by raw food, lack of rest, and by the...
Vata Dosha
Here is a quick guide to Healthy Living for Vata Dosha in Autumn. The foundation of health in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine are Lifestyle and Diet. To build a temple you have to make the foundation first. Here is a template for a lifestyle that will keep Vata dosha...
Vata Dosha, Fear, Anxiety, and ADDH
Vata Dosha, Fear, Anxiety, and ADDH Vata dosha is the dosha whose nervous system responds to stressors with fear. Anxiety is the cascade of physical and mental responses, or symptoms, that occur when our sympathetic nervous system has been activated by the flight...
Summer Raw Beet, Sardine, and Pasta Salad
Summer is a time when even cold dry (Vata) types or cold damp (Kapha) types can have little more raw foods. One of the ways to make raw foods more compatible for cold types with weaker digestive energy (Agni/Spleen Qi) is to have it in small amounts with other foods...
Human Microbiome Project Validates Ayurvedic and Chinese Medicine Thinking
“I would like to lose the language of warfare,” said Julie Segre, a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute. “It does a disservice to all the bacteria that have co-evolved with us and are maintaining the health of our bodies.”...
Ayurveda Summer Tea Ayush ProPita Tea
My favorite herbal tea for hot weather is Ayurveda Summer Tea Ayush ProPita Tea. Ayush ProPita tea is a naturally cooling tea that is mildly relaxing. ProPita tea combines cooling herbs and spices like Tulsi, Sandalwood, and Cardamon, with sweet soothing spices like...
Ayurveda Summer Tea–Ayush Brand ProPita Tea
Ayurvedic Summer Tea One of my favorite Ayurveda Summer Teas is Ayush Brand ProPita Tea. This is a naturally cooling tea that is mildly relaxing. Because it combines energetically cooling herbs and spices like Tulusi, Sandalwood, and Cardamon, with sweet spices like...
Safe Neti Pot Use
Safe Neti Pot Use: Dos and Don'ts Below is an article from NPR about a recent death in Louisiana suspected to be from someone who ignored the principles of Safe Neti Pot Use by using polluted unboiled tap water. Before anyone gets too freaked out, let's look at the...
Common Cold in Ayurveda
Common Cold in Ayurveda Common Cold in Ayurveda is called Pratishyaya and is usually an aggravation of Kapha dosha. This is because its symptoms involves increased amounts of liquid discharge, build up of phlegm, and the sensation of feeling chilled. We are more...
Natural Cranberry Sauce with Dates and Saffron, Low Sugar
It seems silly to buy canned cranberry sauce with a ton of sugar and the bonus of toxic Phtalates, when it is so easy to make it homemade. Takes literally minutes. Boil water, add cranberries and sweetener. Simmer 15 minutes. Voila! Ingredients1 bag cranberries....
Vegan Turkish Lentil Soup
Vegan Turkish Lentil Soup: The other day I found some very lovely Turkish Yellow lentils at the Middle Eastern food store. Here in San Diego, I get my Middle Eastern groceries at either North Park Produce, in City Heights, or out at Heritage International Market in El...
Lassi: Indian Summer Yogurt Drink: Several Recipes
Lassi is an Indian drink based on yogurt and water, especially drunk in hot dry weather (some people in India do not eat Yogurt much at all during rainy season, as it is considered heavy and building to Kapha, which builds climactic ally during the monsoon. This is...
Lassi Summer Yogurt Drink
Lassi Summer Yogurt Drink is made from blending yogurt, or kefir, with water and spices, or fruit. While many Indians, especially vegetarians, eat yogurt with spiced foods at lunch time, and drink yogurt mixed with water, during the day, year round, it is especially...
Indian Lemonade 2
Years ago when I lived in the small village of Kanadukathan, http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=10.175599&lon=78.7842035&z=16&l=0&m=b in Tamil Nadu, India, I learned from my friend Lakkuman to put Cumin seed in the drinking water. Water is by nature cooling, and there we...
Experts Talk About Sinusitis Treatment – NYTimes.com
Experts Talk About Sinusitis Treatment - NYTimes.com"The sinusitis patients who do well are the ones who really abide by using the Neti pot or the saline irrigation bottles. And whether we add additional medications or not to the saline, it’s that mechanical flushing...
Winter Papaya Salad with Toasted Black Sesame
Winter Papaya Salad with Toasted Black Sesame Papaya is one of the few fruits (the other being banana) that are recommended with other foods. Papaya is especially good with proteins, due to its high levels of the digestive enzymes papain and chymopapain, which act...
Ayurveda: Disease Formation by Dosha Vitiation, Agni, and Ama
Ayurveda: the Formation of Disease through Dosha Vitiation, Weakened Agni/Digestive Fire and Accumulated Ama/Digestive Toxins Ayuveda looks at the formation of disease in the body as the function of two primary factors: One is vitiated or unbalanced Dosha...
Staying Healthy with the Seasons: Fall in Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda
Fall, the Hinge Between Summer and Winter In Chinese medicine, Fall and Spring are seen as the "hinges" between Summer and Winter. The seasons are a kind of love dance between heaven and earth. In Summer, Gaia (Mother Earth) opens like a flower, her energies are at...
Summer Raw Cabbage Salad a.k.a. Cole Slaw
I am a huge fan of cabbage. When I was a strict vegetarian it must have been its hearty quality and chewy texture that appealed. Now that I am an omnivore, I value cabbage both for its delicious, slightly sweet taste, and its high fiber low calorie ratio. In fact...
Ten Day Ayurvedic Detox Cleanse
Cleansing in Ayurveda A great way to recover from the overeating of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, is with a Ten Day Ayurvedic Detox Cleanse. Ten Day Ayurvedic Detox Cleanse versus Purgatives A Tend Day Ayurvedic Detox Cleanse is used routinely in Spring,...
Healing Eczema with Integrative Natural Medicine
Disease occurs in individual human beings. Your and my unique characteristics of body and mind are the particular terrain from whence our imbalances grow. Disease is always easier to treat if the terrain is healthy, and often impossible to treat successfully if it is...
Ayurveda in the Integrative Treatment of Cancer
Ayurveda, like traditional Chinese Medicine, is interested in addressing the root cause of diseases, and not just their symptoms. Relieving symptoms is very important, but medicine is much more profound when used to promote health and longevity, too.According to...
What Is a Healthy Digestive Tract
What Are the Signs of a Healthy Digestive Tract? A healthy digestive tract is marked by "good appetite, good digestion and good elimination." This will produce a clean tongue coating, a postive feeling after eating, and regular, easy, productive elimination. What is...
How to Harvest Fresh Stinging Nettles
Stinging Nettles: Soup and Medicine I first heard about Stinging Nettles when I was a teenager, and I read by the story of Milarepa, "Tibet's Greatest Yogi," who used Stinging Nettles as both food and medicine. At one point in his career as an ascetic, Milarepa was...
Healing Ulcerative Colitis
Ulcerative colitis is a form of inflammatory bowel disease that affects the large intestine. It should not be confused with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Ulcerative colitis is characterized by the presence of inflammation and ulceration in the intestinal mucosa. The chief...
Vegan Nopalitos (Cactus Leaves) with Tofu, Shitake, and Dill
Many people are very concerned with cleansing and "toxins". Right now Whole Foods has a gigantic post-holiday display across from the dairy aisle with all the ingredients for a radical purgative cleanse. But if people ate a balanced diet, they would not need military...
Cafe la Blanca Simple Vegan Vegetable Soup
On a recent trip to Mexico City I stayed in the historic district across the street from a sweet little restaurant that became my nightly haunt. A relic from the '50's, Cafe La Blanca served a lovely, mild, easy-to-digest vegetable soup that calmed my nerves and...
Recipes
Chinese Summer Cooling Drink: Watermelon
Chinese Summer Cooling Drinks: Watermelon Rind Soup! In San Diego County Late Summer brings the hellish weather of Santa Ana conditions: dry heat from the desert. Even now, Sept 9, 2024, we have had a week of 100 degree days. The Problem with Iced Beverges Americans...
Morroccan Beet Salad for Vata Dosha
Here's a Beet Salad for Vata Dosha I learned from my Morrocan friend Edith that I like to make in Autumn and Spring as a side dish with heavier food. Beet are an excellent Vata vegetable as they are easy-to-digest and, like turnip and radish, and excellent digestive...
Ayurvedic Detox Tea for Colds and Flu
When fighting a cold or the flu ramp up your Agni internal fire by drinking a quart a day of Dr. Wickermasinghe's Ayurvedic Detox Tea for Colds and Flu. Yes, the flu and colds are caused by viruses. But nursing is a vital part of medicine. Staying warm, pushing hot...
Vegan Protein for Ulcerative Colitis
Vegan Protein for Ulcerative Colitis and other digestive issues has to be easy to digest and, according to Ayurveda, should not aggravate any of the three doshas. In Ayurveda we call light, easy to digest food that pacifies all three doshas, tridoshic, or Sattvic. A...
Ayurvedic Dandelion Greens for Spring
Ayurvedic Dandelion Greens for Spring are a great cleansing vegetable, excellent year round, but especially good in Spring. They are a wonderful Sattvic food that helps to cleanse the body of the ama dosha that accumulates naturally over the winter months. Green...
Ayurvedic Kitchari
What is Kitchari? Kitchari is a Sattvic, light, easy-to-digest, cleansing, detoxifying food that is excellent once a week, at the change of seasons, or any time you feel like giving your digestive system a break. It is also just a normal one-pot-dish you can have for...
Winter Bone Broth
Bone Marrow Soup, Part 2: Winter In cold weather its natural to crave warm food. And the alchemical transformation of solids into liquids, of vegetables and meats or bones into soup, is a way of liberating the essence of these foodstuff into a substance that is much...
Cucumber Avocado Summer Soup
Cucumber Avocado Summer Soup is light, cooling, full of fiber, easy to digest, and safe for all three Doshas
Peppermint and Gotu Kola Ayurvedic Cooling Summer Tea
Peppermint is considered cooling in Chinese Medicine, while Spearmint is a little bit warming. Peppermint’s use in tea is versatile. Gotu Kola/Brahmi/Centella Asiatica is used widely in Ayurvedic medicine for its rejuvenating and calming qualities.
Chinese Herbal Chicken Bone Broth for Recovery from Bronchitis
I discovered Chinese Herbal Medicine Chicken Bone Broth for Recovery from Bronchitis in 1991. I was in my second year of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture school, and was also working full time as an apprentice in two very busy San Diego Acupuncture Clinics. At the...
Winter in Classical Chinese Medicine
The idea of winter in classical Chinese Medicine embodies the idea of slowing down. Slowing down is exactly what cold does to atoms in nature. To stop for a moment and meditate on the passage of time, to feel time moving inside you, is to practice the value of the...
Vegan Land and Sea Vegetable Soup for Spring
Vegan Land and Sea Vegetable Soup is a gentle way to cleanse and renew the body in Spring, or whenever you feel weak or are recovering from illness. It relies on the deep flavors of root vegetables, sea vegetables, and shitake mushroom. It is a simple soup with subtle...
Winter Cleanse Soup with Burdock, Dandelion, and Kombu
A Winter Cleanse Soup is a good remedy for the overeating of heavy rich foods that occurs around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. So, at the end of January, or in Early Spring, restor your gut microbiome by making a Chinese Medicine Soup with...
Epazote Mexican Herb to Relieve Gas
Epazote Mexican Herb to Relieve Gas is popular as a fresh herb in southern Mexican cuisine. It is most famously used in black beans, and is said to have a "carminative" effect. Carminative herbs and spices are medicines that, in the terms of European herbology prevent...
Smoothies for Pitta Dosha
Smoothies for Pitta Dosha People who are Pitta dosha dominant can certainly have more cooling food, as well as raw food that is cooling such as cucumber lettuce and leafy cruciferous veggies sweet fruits coconut flesh, water, and milk milk, butter, ghee And Pitta...
Smoothies for Vata Dosha in Summer
Smoothies for Vata Dosha in Summer: Eating with the Seasons Smoothies for Vata Dosha in Summer is part two of https://bodymindwellnesscenter.com/smoothies-for-vata-dosha/ . In Ayurveda we eat with the seasons, so you can have more raw in Summer when Pitta is...
Vegan Gluten-Free Cookies with Jam
Vegan, Gluten-Free Thumbprint Cookies with Jam Low-Sugar, Vegan Thumbprint Cookies are fun to make! Kids love making them and eating them. A great way to get nutrient dense nuts, seeds, and legumes into the diet. I grind my pumpkin seeds and roasted chickpeas in my...
Roasted Garabanzo Cookies
Roasted Garabanzo Cookies are descended, in my brain, from the dry roasted split chickpea (pottu kadalai..பொட்டுக்கடலை) I used to eat when I was a protein starved vegetarian monk in Tamil Nadu, South India, as a youth. Roasted Garabanzo are a favorite snack in South...
Ayurvedic Summer Cabbage Salad with Beet and Onion
Ayurvedic Summer Cabbage Salad with Beet and Onion I am a huge fan of cabbage salad. When I was a strict vegetarian it must have been its hearty quality and chewy texture that appealed. Now that I am an omnivore, I value cabbage both for its delicious, slightly sweet...
Pomegranate Coconut Water Pitta Pacifying Summer Drink
Pomegranate Coconut Water Pitta Pacifying Summer Drink is a low sugar herbal fruit beverage that is strongly Pitta pacifying and cooling to the body perfect for replacing electrolytes in Summer hot weather and hard exercise. Coconut water is a very traditional hot...
Ayurvedic Hibiscus Summer Tea
Ayurvedic Hibiscus Summer Tea is naturally Pitta pacifying. This means its cooling and refreshing in the hot summer months, especially in the late summer Santa Ana conditions here in San Diego with the dry dusty weather. At the same time, because of its slight sour...
Jewish Style Sweet and Sour Vegan Cabbage
Jewish Style Sweet and Sour Vegan Cabbage Cabbage is one of nature’s miracle foods. You don’t have to buy exotic foods like Goji berry to have a healthy diet. Goji berries are great, and are used in Chinese medicine as food medicine and in medicinal formulas for...
Ayurvedic Okra Masala
Indian Style Tri-doshic Okra Masala Here is one of my favorite Okra recipes: Indian Style Tri-doshic Okra Masala. There are many ways to make Okra. Iraqi's cook it with onion and tomato. My friend Mrs. Mehdi with onion, cumin, and black pepper. My Persian friend adds...
Ayurvedic Winter Spice Churna
Ayurvedic Winter Spice Churna are "masalas" (spice mixtures) used to boost immunity by improving digestion and stimulating Agni digestive fire. They are used year round, but can be especially good in Winter and also for Ama/toxin accumulation. They can be tailored to...
Diet and Nutrition in Chinese Medicine: Wakame Sea Veggie to Nourish Kidney Yin and Cleanse Lymphatics
Diet and Nutrition in Chinese Medicine: Nourish Kidney Yin and Cleanse in Winter with Sea Veggies Winter and the Kidney Qi in Chinese Medical Theory In winter the Qi enters the Kidneys, the physically lowest of the Zang/Solid internal organs, and the energetically...
Cold Cucumber Avocado Yogurt Soup for Summer: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha
Cold Cucumber Avocado Yogurt Soup for Summer: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha Ingredients 2 cups chopped cucumber, peeled if non-organic 1 cup avocado 1.5 cups plain yoghurt or kefir 1-2 tbsp fresh bell pepper 3-4 tbps fresh cilantro Salt and White Pepper to...
Smoothies for Vata Dosha
Smoothies for Vata Dosha--Part One A reader had this comment recently about Smoothies for Vata Dosha, after reading this article about Raw Veggies or Salad for a Vatta Dominant Person. Are Smoothies Better than Juicing for Vata Dosha? "I see that the key here is to...
Ginger In Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine
Ginger Root: Universal Medicine There are no panaceas in medicine, but if there were going to be one, it would have to be the humble Ginger root. Ginger is called "Vishabhesaj" in Ayurveda, Sanskrit for "universal medicine." That is both because of its wide...
Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine: Protect Your Agni in Summer
Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine can be used to preserve what Ayurveda calls Agni--the metabolic fire that is what makes us warm blooded and that is associated with health, strength and vitality. Chinese Medicine calls this physiological fire Yang or...
Pacify Kapha with Curried Baked Cauliflower and Kabocha Squash
In Ayurveda, Kapha Dosha accumulates or increases in everyone in Late Winter and Early Spring. This can be a problem in particular for Kapha dominant types with their moist, unctuous, slow moving, cool bodies. But everyone, regardless of dosha, will want to pacify...
The Nature of Vata Dosha and How to Pacify It
The way to prepare dishes that pacify Vata Dosha is to first understand what Vatta embodies. Vata dosha is the manifestation of Air and Space in our human bodies. Air and Space in its pure state is cold and dry. Air only becomes warm due to the effects of fire from...
Using Spices in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine to Protect Your Digestive Fire in Summer
In summer we sweat and our yang energy or heat keeps getting dispersed and exhausted. On freezing cold days you feel cold, but on boiling hot days you sweat and become exhausted. In winter in every culture people eat heavy high-calorie foods, but in summer switch to...
Healthy Summer Fruit Tart
A Healthy Summer Fruit Tart is a nutrient dense food full of fiber, vitamins, minerals, flavanoids, antioxidants, and protein, with high amounts of life force from fresh ripe, organic ingredients, and without what's bad for you--white sugar, artificial stuff,...
Springtime Tea from Somalia with Cardamom and Mint
Food and drink like language and music spreads between cultures without rules. But within any given tradition, within any given culture, its as if there are unspoken rules that govern change; creativity is allowed, but to a point. In the world of food or music, for...
Daikon Radish: Detoxify and Digest
Daikon Radish is naturally detoxifying. It is pungent, light, and warm, and is delicious in soups, salads, and as a pickled vegetable. Its detox effect is often increased by pairing it with fresh or pickled ginger. Daikon Radish in Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda The...
Come in from the Cold Ayurveda Winter Tea
Tonight it was quite cold for San Diego and I walked to my friend's house and then we went out again, so when we came back in I made an Ayurveda winter tea. We put on a small kettle and I placed in the tea pot: Fresh Ginger Slices, 5 Cloves 4 Cassia Twig 1 inch,...
Wakame Sea Vegetable with Turnip, Pear, and American Ginseng
Wakame is a delicate, mild tasting, low calorie sea vegetable with a succulent texture. A favorite food in Japanese and Korean cuisine, it is traditionally cooked in miso soup, served on its own as a cold side dish (sunomono), or cooked with foods...
Grass Fed Pastured Dairy Cattle Milk is Healthier and Tastes Better
http://www.organicvalley.coop/about-us/overview/our-history/ Briefly, Organic Valley's Grass Fed Cow's Milk is healthier, containing Omega 3's, is not homogenized, and tastes much better. It smells and tastes what the free range milk in my small village in...
Juiced Watermelon with Lime, Ginger, and Salt
Alternative to Iced Drinks in Hot Weather Protect the Agni/ Yang in Summer: Juiced Watermelon with Lime, Ginger, and Salt The other day was quite hot (for SD!), and I swam at the beach after walking down from the top of Torrey Pines, and got home overheated and...
Mauk Family Farms Organic Raw Wheat-Free Flax Crusts
There are many ways to get healthy Omega 3 fat into your diet. One is fresh wild fishes like salmon, mackeral, and sardines. If you don't like fish, you can take a fish oil supplement in summer and cod liver oil in the winter, just like grandmother used to give....
Summer Raw Beet, Sardine, and Pasta Salad
Summer is a time when even cold dry (Vata) types or cold damp (Kapha) types can have little more raw foods. One of the ways to make raw foods more compatible for cold types with weaker digestive energy (Agni/Spleen Qi) is to have it in small amounts with other foods...
Anchor the Yang: Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture and Moxabustion Therapies for Summer Solstice
The Chinese and Indian View: Life is a Passage Through Cycles In Chinese Medicine (as also Ayurveda) a fundamental concept is to prepare for what is ahead. This is not just generalized prevention as in eating a healthy diet or sleeping well, but is specific to...
Ayurveda Summer Tea–Ayush Brand ProPita Tea
Ayurvedic Summer Tea One of my favorite Ayurveda Summer Teas is Ayush Brand ProPita Tea. This is a naturally cooling tea that is mildly relaxing. Because it combines energetically cooling herbs and spices like Tulusi, Sandalwood, and Cardamon, with sweet spices like...
Ayurveda Summer Tea Ayush ProPita Tea
My favorite herbal tea for hot weather is Ayurveda Summer Tea Ayush ProPita Tea. Ayush ProPita tea is a naturally cooling tea that is mildly relaxing. ProPita tea combines cooling herbs and spices like Tulsi, Sandalwood, and Cardamon, with sweet soothing spices like...
Curried Quinoa Super Food: Pacify Kapha in Late Winter/Early Spring
Curried Quinoa Super Food: Pacify Kapha in Late Winter/Early Spring The ancient grain of the Incas, Quinoa has a delicate, nutty, slightly bitter flavor and the lightest texture of all grains. This combination of bitter taste and light texture make it an ideal grain...
Late Winter Arugala for Kapha
Arugula is one of those green leafy vegetable that is so delicious both raw and cooked. It lends a nutty and spicy taste to other milder greens, and serves as a fine foil for feta cheese, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and dried Turkish apricots (those plump dark...
Baked Butternut Squash and Black Bean Stew
Cooking Methods in Chinese Food Medicine: From Warm to Hot to Very Hot One of the aspects of Food Medicine we pay attention to in Chinese Medicine is the cooking method itself. Each method of cooking adds relative values of heat to the dish being prepared. Steaming...
Celery Root, Burdock, Brocolli, and Sea Food Miso Soup for Dinner
Chick Pea Miso Soup with Celery Root and Scallops Ingredients 1 cup scallops or other sea food 1 cup chopped celery root 1 cup chopped burdock root 1/2 cup white, brown, or fresh shitake mushrooms 1 cup small broccoli florets 4″ piece of kombu sea veggie, cut into...
7 Steps for a Healthy Winter from the Yellow Emperor
Practical Advice for Winter from the Yellow Emperor’s Classic 1)In winter, get plenty of rest, more than your normal amount. Cast away Puritan guilt and Cowboy pride about getting by on lack of sleep. Leave martyrdom to the religious fanatics. 2)In Winter cultivate...
Freeze Dried Nettles for Eczema, Allergy, and Asthma
Fresh and Freeze-Dried Nettles When I was a teenager, I was enthralled by the story of Milarepa, "Tibet's Greatest Yogi," who, spent twelve years in the cold high mountains, meditating and living only on soup made from Nettles and herbs. This is one of the most...
Sea Vegetables for Health- Cleanse Lymph and Build Kidney Qi in Winter
Sea Vegetables for HealthWild vegetables grow all over the earth and in the water. Dandelion greens, nettles, burdock are a few of the valuable and highly nutritious land vegetables that are easy to grow most anywhere.Sea vegetables also grow both North and South. I...
Statin Drugs vs. Red Rice Yeast (Monascus purpureus)
In my last post I mentioned that I see a lot of patients with high cholesterol and triglycerides whose doctors want to or have already put them on Statin drugs. Some of them are even taking two or more at once.But statin drugs are not without a frightening array of...
Kale with Pomegranate Molasses and Cumin
Kale with Pomegranate Molasses and Cumin One of my favorite ways to cook Kale is inspired by the classic Linguine with Broccoli that you find at Southern Italian restaurants. Their method is really simple--olive oil, garlic, lemon, parmesan. I take the olive oil and...
Common Cold in Ayurveda
Common Cold in Ayurveda Common Cold in Ayurveda is called Pratishyaya and is usually an aggravation of Kapha dosha. This is because its symptoms involves increased amounts of liquid discharge, build up of phlegm, and the sensation of feeling chilled. We are more...
Natural Cranberry Sauce with Dates and Saffron, Low Sugar
It seems silly to buy canned cranberry sauce with a ton of sugar and the bonus of toxic Phtalates, when it is so easy to make it homemade. Takes literally minutes. Boil water, add cranberries and sweetener. Simmer 15 minutes. Voila! Ingredients1 bag cranberries....
Late Autumn/Early Winter Whole Grain n’ Flax Blueberry Pancakes
Rainy Winter Morning Whole Grain Wild Blueberry Pancakes. Rainy winter mornings after long hikes in the San Diego desert make me want pancakes. Good, solid, whole grain ones. The kind that make you feel like you ate food, not syrupy junk. At Trader Joe's the other day...
Vegan Turkish Lentil Soup
Vegan Turkish Lentil Soup: The other day I found some very lovely Turkish Yellow lentils at the Middle Eastern food store. Here in San Diego, I get my Middle Eastern groceries at either North Park Produce, in City Heights, or out at Heritage International Market in El...
Vegan Kabocha Squash Soup for Autumn
Vegan Afro-Indian Kabocha Squash Soup for AutumnThis is a wonderful pureed vegetable or pureed veggie soup, depending on how you serve it, that is based on an African ground nut (pea nut) and squash soup I tasted way back in 1984 at The Prophet restaurant in...
Lassi Summer Yogurt Drink
Lassi Summer Yogurt Drink is made from blending yogurt, or kefir, with water and spices, or fruit. While many Indians, especially vegetarians, eat yogurt with spiced foods at lunch time, and drink yogurt mixed with water, during the day, year round, it is especially...
Lassi: Indian Summer Yogurt Drink: Several Recipes
Lassi is an Indian drink based on yogurt and water, especially drunk in hot dry weather (some people in India do not eat Yogurt much at all during rainy season, as it is considered heavy and building to Kapha, which builds climactic ally during the monsoon. This is...
Indian Lemonade 2
Years ago when I lived in the small village of Kanadukathan, http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=10.175599&lon=78.7842035&z=16&l=0&m=b in Tamil Nadu, India, I learned from my friend Lakkuman to put Cumin seed in the drinking water. Water is by nature cooling, and there we...
Mexican Summer Beverages (Aqua Fresca) to Clear Heat
As I noted in a previous post, Lime is considered cooling in Chinese Medicine. Lime is also used a lot in Mexican cuisine, along with Cilantro/Coriander Leaf, to balance the intense heat of the various Chiles that were used by indigenous peoples in Mexico to stimulate...
Korean Summer Rice with Job’s Tears, Shitake, and Hijiki
Rice with Job' Tears in Summer In Korea, Rice with Job's tears "barley" (Coix lacryma-jobi in Latin, YiYiRen in Mandarin Chinese, Hato Mugi in Japanese, Uiin in Korean)-- is cooked in the summer to help relieve the effects of the hot, humid weather. Job's tears...
Rose Scented Limeade for Summer
There are so many lovely beverages to enjoy rather than drinking sodas full of phosphoric acid and high fructose corn syrup, linked in studies to lower bone density and diabetes, respecitively. Here is a very refreshing drink you can enjoy in summer that will cool you...
Lime Rose Lemonade for Summer
Lime Rose Lemonade for Summer, made from Lime juice and scented with Rose Water is a very refreshing Ayurvedic drink that's quick and easy. You can enjoy it during any hot weather, in summer or late summer, and anytime your Pitta dosha feels elevated. Lime Rose...
Provencal Style Lima Bean Summer Soup
Lima Bean Summer Soup Live with the Seasons. Summer is a time to replenish fluids and eat more cool foods. On really hot days we may not feel like hot food. Pureed vegetable or bean soup nourishes the Agni or "Spleen Qi" with healthy herbs and spices, yet is great at...
Does Cauliflower Aggravate Vatta? Creamy Coconut Cauliflower Curry for Summer
Does cauliflower aggravate Vatta?The problem with going for an Ayurvedic consultation and being handed a long list of foods that aggravate one or the other of the doshas is, that first, this is a text book list of foods that tend to aggravate, in most people, but not...
Nearly Tridoshic Cucumber Avocado Summer Soup
Cucumber Avocado Summer Soup2 cups chopped cucumber, peeled if non-organic1 cup avocado1.5 cups plain yogurt or kefir1-2 tbsp fresh bell pepper 3-4 tbs fresh cilantroSalt and Pepper to tasteAyurveda This is a lovely creamy cooling summer soup that in Ayurvedic terms...
How to Make Salad or Raw Veggies for a Vatta Dominant Person
In general, people who are Vata dominant should avoid salad or raw vegetables, especially if in an unbalanced, aggravated state. Vatta, unlike Pitta and Kapha, is rough, not smooth. Raw vegetables are also considered rough; they are made "smooth" by cooking. And since...
My Grandmother’s Jewish Spice Cake, Banana Cake, and Potato Latkes
My Grandmother's Jewish Spice Cake (for the Jewish New Year, Rosh HaShanah) Chinese Medicine observes that not only do different foods have difference "natures" (cold, cool, neutral, warm, hot), for example the heat of cinnamon or lamb vs. the coolness of coconut...
Azuki Beans in your Oatmeal!
Oatmeal with Azuki Bean (Oat and Bean Congee)Beans in Oatmeal? How is it possible?Soft, mild tasting Azuki beans have a long history of use in Japan and South Asia in sweet foods and deserts. In Chinese medicine they are considered grounding and balancing, and...
Winter Seasonal Eating
Winter Seasonal Eating In Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda winter seasonal eating is common sensical. Just as its natural to eat and drink cooling things in summer, winter is the time we maintain body heat with warming foods and herbs....
Staying Health with the Seasons: Winter
Staying Healthy with the Seasons: WinterHototogisu kata Did a cuckoo cry?Niwa no to akerya I open the doorKoyoi no sora nya And look out in the garden-- Tsuki bakai There is only the moon Translation by Kenneth Rexroth, 1958, from 100 Poems from the Japanese.In the...
Afghani Winter Turnips
Mr. Zia's Afghani Winter Turnips One of my favorite places for home cooking in San Diego years past was Mr. Zia's Afghan restaurant, on 30th St. in North Park. Mr. Zia became a friend, and even took me to the Afghani mosque during Ramadan. He served an array of...
Arame Salad for Autumn
One of my favorite sea vegetables is Arame (Eisenia bicyclis), which grows wild, in the unpolluted waters off the coast of Ise, in Japan. Arame (pronouced Ara-may), besides having a sweet name, has a mild flavor and lovely texture. It can be added to soups and...
Vegan Afro-Indian Kabocha Squash Soup for Autumn
Vegan Afro-Indian Kabocha Squash Soup for AutumnThis is a wonderful pureed vegetable or pureed veggie soup, depending on how you serve it, that is based on an African ground nut (pea nut) and squash soup I tasted way back in 1984 at The Prophet restaurant in...
Autumn Baked Root Squash Stew
Ingredients:* Butternut Squash, 1 small* Parsnip, 1* Sweet Potato, 1* Kidney beans, cooked, 4 ounces* Ground beef or Lamb or cubed Tofu or Tempeh, 8 ounces* Yellow raisins, 2 tablespoons* Turmeric, 1/2 teaspoon* Allspice, 2 tablespoons* Bay leaves, 5* White pepper,...
Balancing Vata Dosha in Autumn: Avert the Danger that Has Not Yet Come
Balancing Vata Dosha in Autumn is important because Autumn is the time of year when everyone's Vata Dosha elevates quite naturally, due to the windy, dry and cold weather that develops. Psychologically, too, Autumn is the transition from Summer to Winter, there is a...
Staying Healthy with the Seasons: Fall in Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda
Fall, the Hinge Between Summer and Winter In Chinese medicine, Fall and Spring are seen as the "hinges" between Summer and Winter. The seasons are a kind of love dance between heaven and earth. In Summer, Gaia (Mother Earth) opens like a flower, her energies are at...
Rose Water in Summer
Chill Your Mood: Rose Water in Summer. The Reason for Rose: Pitta Fire in Ayurveda and Liver and Heart Fire in Chinese Medicine Rose water and rose essence has been used for millennia to take the edge off of heat in Summer. Heat in both Ayurveda and Chinese...
Rose Water for Elevated Pitta
An elegantly simple herbal remedy for Pitta excess is Rose. Rose is cooling and relaxing; just think of your feelings when smelling a deep red rose on a late June night under the moon. If you have never had that experience, its not too late to start.Walk into any...
Burdock Root Detox Drink
Burdock Root for Detoxification in Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda Burdock Root Detox Drink is a decongesting, heat clearing, detoxifying beverage that clears toxic heat and dampness, called Pitta and Ama in Ayurveda. While cleansing toxins from the body, it also...
More on Yonah Schimmel’s Knishery on Housten St. in NYC
Best 100-Year-Old Microorganism Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. Bulgaricus Yonah Schimmel Knishes Bakery, 137 E. Houston St. (betw. Forsyth & Eldridge Sts.), 212-477-2858 From the Blog Jewniverse "Several years ago, we were privileged to overhear a conversation...
Cold Beet Borscht Soup for Summer
Cold Beet Borscht Soup for SummerLet's call this a soup, even though I grew up drinking it out of a glass, and at Yonah Shimmel's Knishery in New York (est.1910) they were still serving it on tap, for $1.25, along with home made Kefir, in little plastic institutional...
Arugala, Purslane, Mizuna Green Salad with Feta and Fava
Boy the Hillcrest, San Diego Farmer's Market has gotten better and better as more and more people are understanding the value of Organic, Locally Grown Produce. In fact, anyone with four square feet of land, or even one or two wine barrels* and some decent sun can...
Summer Raw Cabbage Salad a.k.a. Cole Slaw
I am a huge fan of cabbage. When I was a strict vegetarian it must have been its hearty quality and chewy texture that appealed. Now that I am an omnivore, I value cabbage both for its delicious, slightly sweet taste, and its high fiber low calorie ratio. In fact...
Raw Beet Salad Morrocan and Provencal Styles
Raw Beet Salad is super high in betacyanin, a phyto-nutrient associated with their deep red color. Unfortunately, according to what I have read, this anti-cancer chemical is destroyed by cooking. How To Include Raw Beets Into Salads Though Ayurveda and Chinese...
Cabbage Super Food: Cabbage ‘n Apple Salad Recipe with Nutrition Information
Cabbage Super Food We are having a bit of a hot and dry spell here in San Diego, what is dubbed a "Santa Ana" condition, where the wind comes out of the eastern desert, and the humidity drops to the low 20's. The air temp is 81. It all makes me want to eat salad. And...
Pu-erh Tea: One of Nature’s Super Foods
I think the term "super food" can be really misleading, as if something as complex as health could just come out of a bottle. In reality, "super food" is a marketing term invented to increase sales. The fact is, promoting health and wellness is a function of an...
Adventures with Nettles: Nettle Vinegar and Nettle Hair Rinse
Hi Everyone. Wow! With all the rain we have had recently in San Diego (above our winter avg.)the Nettles in the canyon have grown to the kinds of height and glory you see in the photos. Last year when I first became nettle aware, they were small and a little dry, and...
Warming Baked Root and Squash Stew: Vegan or Not
One of the things we look at in Chinese Dietary Therapy is, what are the effects of particular cooking styles on the "energetic" quality of the food; here energy refers to the warming characteristics of the dish. Whereas steaming and quick boiling are mild, and...
Beet Root and Daikon Winter Rice Pullao
Winter makes me want to cook, and brings out my love of warming spices. Today I wanted rice and vegetables, and all I had in the house was a large red beet-root, and a daikon radish. So I made Beetroot and Radish Pulao, a really simple and delicious dish. Vegetables...
Keeping Naturally Cool in Summer
Are you keeping naturally cool in summer? In Classical Chinese Medicine summer is the season of maximum "yang," a time of extreme heat, light, and activity; in summer our energy circulates centrifugally; it is closer to the surface and our radial pulse wave rises to...
May and June Gloom Vegan Odessa Borscht
Samuel Clemens' remark that the coldest winter he ever spent was summer in San Francisco, could be modified to include May and June in San Diego, when morning and afternoon cloud cover keeps the air cool and moist. The clouds typically burn off by afternoon, but...
Boosting The Immune System: Lung Qi and Yin
The Chinese Medicine view of the immune system combines notions of both nature and nurture. Jing, translated as Essence, is inherited from our parents, depleted by the very fact of living, depleted badly by bad living, added to by meditation, foodstuffs, and herbs....
Vegan Pear Waldorf Salad or Asian Pears for Dryness of the Lungs
A basic concept in Chinese Medicine is that successful medical treatment is hastened, and the patient made more comfortable, by nursing appropriate to the particular disorder. We used to have this in this Western Medicine, too, especially with infectious disease. I...
How to Harvest Fresh Stinging Nettles
Stinging Nettles: Soup and Medicine I first heard about Stinging Nettles when I was a teenager, and I read by the story of Milarepa, "Tibet's Greatest Yogi," who used Stinging Nettles as both food and medicine. At one point in his career as an ascetic, Milarepa was...
Raw Flaxseed Sprinkle
Make your own Raw Flaxseed sprinkle Raw Flaxseed is one of nature's super foods. And it has been a part of human and animal diets for thousands of years in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Why is Flaxseed so good for you? What's In Flax Omega 3 Fatty Acids Flaxseed is very...
Baked Roots and Squash Stew: Vegan or Non-Vegan
This is an excellent warming slightly sweet slightly spicy stew that can be made purely vegan, or in a traditional mid-eastern style with ground beef or lamb. Making it with meat is more warming and tonifying, suitable for Vata, but unnecesary for Kapha, or Pitta...
Teff n’ Quinoa Gluten Free Pancakes Recipe
Teff n' Quinoa Gluten Free Vegan Pancakes Recipe Autumn and Winter are ideal times for the warming, grounding quality of of pancakes. But why use pre-packaged, over-salted, sugary, low-fiber pancake mixes whose pre-ground grains may or may not be fresh, when...
Winter Barley & Bean Tridoshic Vegan Stew
Barley and Bean Stew is a great addition to your vegan diet in Winter. In Ayurveda, this is an example of how to make a dish more Tridoshic, by including all the 6 tastes. Ingredients Barley, 3/4 Cup, Cooked till Soft Pinto Beans, 1 Cup, Cooked One Head Beet...
Vegan Chick Pea Miso Soup or Its Seafoody Cousin
Of the general food remedies for winter, nothing approaches soup. Soup is warming and makes vegetables and protiens delicious and digestible. At the same time pushing hot fluids in winter keeps mucus membranes and bronchial passages hydrated, while loosening phlegm .A...
Vegan Nopalitos (Cactus Leaves) with Tofu, Shitake, and Dill
Many people are very concerned with cleansing and "toxins". Right now Whole Foods has a gigantic post-holiday display across from the dairy aisle with all the ingredients for a radical purgative cleanse. But if people ate a balanced diet, they would not need military...
Immunity Boosting Foods in Ayurveda
Immunity Boosting Foods Immunity boosting foods are those that are full of Prana-- freshly made and well prepared, organic, easy to digest, and pure. Tailored to our individual body-mind type (prakruti), age, and the season, they fill the body with Prana...