Dear,

First of all, wish you Happy Chinese New Year!

Feb.2nd, 2011 is the Chinese New Year's Eve.

We eat JiaoZi (Chinese dumpling) at midnight. Here is the JiaoZi recipe and why we eat JiaoZi

Would we be less overweight if there was no gum?

Overweight, diabetes, coronary disease and hypertension, etc. What caused these popular health problems? Improper diet. That means we eat too much "nutrition-rich" food. So the stomach and the spleen are too tired to work properly. What happens if you have food stagnation, or lots of heat accumulated in stomach? Mouth odor or bad breath, and later, BIG BELLY.

Recent two years I don't like to attend conferences in Shanghai. Why? If the space between the seats is big enough that's OK. But if not, I'll always suffer the bad smell from the other people's breath, next to me, back or in front of me. Don't misunderstand me. Most Shanghai people are very clean. They brush teeth at least twice per day, using dental floss pick and even Listerine mouthwash.

The first thing I thought of was gum, that they should chew gum.  But later I realized that it was not the mouth problem, it was the stomach. After 30years of economic development, Chinese people become richer and richer. We can eat fine foods, meat and fish as much as we want. And these two years automobile sales jumped up in China, which means people  walk less, exercise less. Odor, belly. If we don't control eating overweight people will catch up that of America soon   (coming up with the GDP).

I guess when the overweight boomed in the US, there must be lots of Americans felt that they had mouth odor. But the gum covered it. If there was no gum, would anyone invent a drug that could promote digestion? Or, experts set alert: "Danger! You must eat less and exercise more now!" Then would there be less overweight people now?

Cucumber and green tea can help you to remove mouth odor. The important is that these foods will help you to remove heat in the stomach and the lung as well as promote digestion. Hawthorn berry is often used in Chinese medicine when treating food stagnation. So now if you are not overweight, but already have bad breath (caused by eating too much), be careful! Often eat cucumbers, hawthorn berry and drink green tea. And eat less, exercise more. You'll keep slim and healthy.

Sincerely

Anna

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Anna's Nature Regimen and Recipe Express

-- Keep your life close to the nature

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China's five-thousand years of culture and history reserved precious regimen. I'm digging out and would like to share with you. So this website, including this e-zine is not only about Chinese recipes, it's more about healthy life style.

Visit our website: www.healthy-chinese-recipe.com

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Jan 28,2011

Issue #27

Table of Content:

1. Zangxiang theory- The Six Fu-organs - Triple Energizer(13)

The six Fu-organs include gallbladder, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, bladder and the triple energizer. While five Zang-organs store Jing-Qi(essence), six Fu-organs are responsible for transforming and transporting food.

2. How to prepare easy,quick,healthy Chinese food for the party

The main dishes - meat and fish are important
　

3. My Story: How widely a good Chinese doctor should know

According to your birth date, a Chinese doctor should know which of your organs may have problem.

4. Update of the website

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1.Zangxiang theory- The Six Fu-organs- The Triple Energizer(13)

The six Fu-organs include gallbladder, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, bladder and the triple energizer. Six Fu-organs are responsible for transforming and transporting food. That means they receive and digest food, absorb the nutrient and excrete the waste.

Six Fu-organs function well only when they are unobstructed and the Qi is descent.

The Triple Energizer:

It's not easy to understand the Triple Energizer for westerners. No such organs in western medicine.

Triple Energizer has three layers of meaning:

1st, it's one of the six organs. It's the tunnel formed among the organs, inside the organs, and among the body tissues. Its function is to transmit and transform the primordial Qi (Yuan Qi) and body fluid (Jin).

2nd, it's the summarize of certain functional system of the body.

3rd, divide the internal organs in the chest and abdomen, describe the positions with three parts:

• Upper energizer: Above the diaphragm, including the heart and the lung;
• Middle energizer: Below the diaphragm and above the navel, including the spleen, the stomach, the liver and the gallbladder;
• Lower energizer: Below the navel, including the kidney, the bladder, the small intestine and the large intestine.

The physiological function of the Triple Energizer is to transmit and transform the primordial Qi (Yuan Qi) and water.

Primordial Qi originates from the kidney, transports and transmits through the Triple Energizer, then distributes all parts of the body to nourish all the viscera and the tissues. If the primordial Qi is deficient and the Triple energizer is not smooth, it'll led to Qi deficiency of certain organs such as spleen Qi deficiency.

It's Triple energizer that organizes the lung,the spleen and the kidney into a system for transmitting and metabolizing water. If the Triple energizer is obstructed, the functions of the three organs will be affected, leading to oliguria and edema.

The relationship of the Triple energizer and the internal organs.

Triple energizer generalizes the physiological functions of certain internal organs. And it's mainly concerned with the digestion and absorption of food, distribution of food nutrients and metabolism of water.

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2. How to prepare easy,quick,healthy Chinese food for the party

A. You have to decide the main dishes- what meat you want to chose. Chicken, beef, pork can appear at the same meal, but rabbit and duck will cause diarrhea if they are eaten at the same meal. If you prepare lots of seafood, then don't choose vegetables easy to cause laxation such as eggplant,spinach,etc. And prepare some garlic and ginger. In case diarrhea happens, these food can cure.

chicken recipes

pork recipes

fish recipes

duck recipes

Typical combination is:

• Chicken + Pork + Fish + Vegetables;
• Beef + Pork + Fish + Vegetables;

B. Two days before the party.

• Marinate the beef in soy sauce and salt for over night.
• If you have vegetarian guest, you have to prepare some beans to supplement the protein. Clean and soak the beans over night.

C. One day before the party:

• Boil the beef for at least 1 hours in low heat.( Use the meat to make beef salad or stewed beef. If you want to make salad, don't need cut, just boil in big block. If you want to cook stew/braise beef, cut into small pieces to boil.)
• Make chicken soup. Or steam chicken.( Use the meat to do chicken salad)
• Make pork chop soup or stew pork rib
• Boil or steam beans till done
• Cook some Chinese steamed bun  (not all guests like rice)
• Marinate some cucumber or radish in a little vinegar and salt as appetizer

D. The day of the party, the sequence should be:

1) Steam rice, cook rice/millet porridge

2) Cook fish. If you want to put some fresh meat in stir-fry vegetables, cut and marinate the meat.

3) Wash, cut vegetables

4) Stew if you have stewed dishes.

5) 30mins before the guests arrive, take out the appetizer.

5) Heat the soup 10mins before the guests come in. ( When the dinner begins, ask the guests to drink some soup or porridge first)

7) When the guests arrive, start to cook stir-fry dishes.

Note:

a. If the fish/stewed dish is cool heat it slightly in microwave.

b. If you want to prepare dessert, you'd better make it one day before the party.

dessert recipes

c. You'd better prepare some light vegetable dishes without meat. The best is Northeast-China-style salad, mixed with sesame paste (or sesame oil), vinegar and salt. You'll surprise that your guests consume so much vegetable dishes. You know why? Because it's so greasy in festival days that everyone want to eat some foods which can make them refreshing.

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3. My Story: How widely a good Chinese doctor should know

To become a good Chinese doctor is much more difficult than to become a western doctor. I'm not saying that it's easy to become a western doctor. But at least everything a western doctor learned can be touched in the lab. While a Chinese doctor should be astronomy, geography, and all the law of this world. It's kind of philosophy, or metaphys.

A good Chinese doctor should know which of your organs may have problem according to your birthday. I talked about "Five Elements" in previous newsletter. Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water.

In Chinese lunar calendar there are 24 solar terms. If a certain solar term is due but the season hasn't arrive, it calls deficiency. For instance, the year of my birth, according to the calendar (say May), it should be in spring. But it was still cold, the spring didn't come yet. Spring is related to Wood. So this phenomenon is called "Wood Deficiency".

While Metal subjugates Wood. So Metal Qi was active and excessive on that year. Metal is related to the lung. So my lung Qi is excessive. And the  Lung opens to the nose, so I have rhinitis. The relationship between the Lung and the big intestine is internal and external. My appendix always got inflammation. I had it cut off. You know how regret now after I learned Traditional Chinese Medicine. If it was now I wouldn't do it. I'll eat some food or herbs which can purge the heat in the Lung and the big intestine. Each part of our body is the gift that God gave us. We shouldn't be so easy to go for operation.

Now I often eat pears, Job's Tears(Chinese Pearl Barley),etc. All these foods can cool the Lung while not hurt the Lung. My rhinitis is almost cured now. At least I won't feel head stuffed when talking too much.

So Traditional Chinese Medicine covers everything related to us and our life. Though it's not easy to become a good Chinese doctor, it doesn't influence us (as a normal person) to learn some knowledge about TCM. This will benefit ourselves and our families.

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4. Update of the website

1. All kinds of Chinese Orange Chicken Recipes. Steamed, stir fried, deep fry, pan fry. I didn't think of this method is so easy, quick, low fat and delicious- stir fry without cooking oil, just put the marinated chicken cubes and orange juice in a wok, stir till done. Take a look here.

2. Black Fungus. I found an article talking about black fungus. It said there is fresh black fungus in supermarket. That's so misleading. Fresh black fungus has poison. Never eat. I think what the writer saw should be the one after soaked.

Black Fungus is called "Meat-like vegetable". It helps to supplement blood. Many friends want to lose weight after long holiday. Then you can replace meat with black fungus in your dish. Here is it.

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