Dear,

Let's together cook a set of dishes for Mom, and wish her healthy and happy!

Wish all the moms healthy and happy forever!

Anna

>>========================

Anna's Nature Regimen and Recipe Express

-- Keep your life close to the nature

>>========================

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

>>========================

May 8th,2009

Issue #15

Table of Content:

1. Zangxiang theory(viscera and their manifestation)(I)

Zangxiang theory holds that Qi, blood, Yin and Yang are essential substances for constituting and maintaining the physiological functions of the Zang-Fu organs. All the pathological changes result from deficiency or disturbance of these substances.

2. Clean out rubbish,increase Qi and blood to improve anti-disease ability

The temperature in spring changes big. Our emotion also changes with the weather. So our blood pressure fluctuates easily......

3. Recipes for Mother

a. Steamed Chicken
b. Asparagus with Potato Salad
c. Pea Cake

4. Dream and disease

Different dreams reflect the changes of our body's Yin and Yang, Qi deficiency or Qi excess of body organs...

5. Update on our website

>>========================

1. Zangxiang theory(viscera and their manifestation)(I)

Zangxiang refers to internal organs and external manifestations of their physiological and pathological states. Zangxiang theory is very important in TCM. It studies Zang-organs and  fu-organs, also call" Zang-fu" theory.

Five Zang-organs are heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney. Their function is "to store Jing-Qi(essence)" which is refined food nutrient responsible for maintaining life activities.

Six Fu-organs are gallbladder, stomach, small intestine, big intestine, urinary bladder and sanjiao(the triple energizer) which is to transport and transform food. This means they receive and digest food, absorb the nutrients and discharge the waste.

Extraordinary Fu-organs are brain, marrow, bones, vessels, gallbladder and uterus. These are  similar to the Zang-organs in function and the fu-organs in form.

Zang-Fu is the core of life activities. The substantial bases responsible for the physiological functions of the five Zang-organs and the six Fu-organs come from two aspects: one is morphological structure in anatomy, the other is the refined nutrient like Qi, blood, Yin and Yang.

In TCM, anatomy was done over two thousand years ago. However, TCM pays more attention to the synthetic manifestations of the holistic functions of the body, and is more sophisticated in cognizing the intrinsic nature of life from external manifestations. Zangxiang theory holds that Qi, blood, Yin and Yang are essential substances for constituting and maintaining the physiological functions of the Zang-Fu organs. All the pathological changes result from deficiency or disturbance of these substances.

So, Zangxiang theory focuses on the study of physiological functions and pathological changes of the Zang-Fu organs, somatic tissues and organs as well as the mutual relationships among them. It's the core of the theoretical system of TCM. It was established mainly on the basis of life experience and clinical practice.

In Zangxiang theory, some organs have the same name with modern medicine, but the functions of the Zang-Fu organs are extensive. They are not just the conceptions of anatomy,but synthetic functional units.

>>======================

2. Clean out rubbish,increase Qi and blood to improve anti-disease ability

Mad Cow disease,Sars, Bird Flu, Swine Flu... Don't know what kind of epidemic disease will threaten us next. Plus heart disease,diabetes,obesity,etc. always around us. We human is so weak and small in front of all these disease. For an individual, what we can do is to improve anti-disease ability. Here are some diet methods to improve your anti-disease ability:

a.If you don't have gout. Drink a small bowl of beef broth before each meal, especially before breakfast. The doctor for emperor in ancient China tested this method. A small bowl of beef broth before each meal can recover your energy very fast. The beef broth should decoct at least 5-6 hours. You can add some vegetables in the broth when drinking. Note: If you never drink broth before, you should only drink at breakfast at the first 1 or 2 month.

If you feel cold and not overweight, you can drink a small bowl of chicken soup at breakfast in winter.

Soup is easier to be absorbed than meat blocks. Drinking before meals(when your stomach is empty) also made soup is absorbed easily.

b. Drink a cup of fresh fruit juice in the morning. Here the fruit juice is not bought from the supermarket. You make at home without adding any sugar, honey,etc.

70-80% nutrition can be absorbed if we drink fresh fruit juice while only 20-30% can be absorbed if we eat raw fruit. Further more, fresh fruit juice can be absorbed well in the morning. Morning(eating) fruit is gold, afternoon fruit is silver and evening fruit is copper. A cup of 100% pure fresh fruit juice in the morning can make you feel full of energy in the whole day.

c. Eat some foods which can improve Qi and blood. In TCM, enough Qi and blood means you are healthy and strong. Foods that improve Qi and blood are Chinese date, longan, black sesame seeds, walnut,black fungus, Ginseng, E Jiao.

However, some people ate too much and accumulated lots of waste inside body(intestine), they lost the ability to absorb nutrient. So they need to remove all those waste. Here is a way to remove them.

This diet plan is: only eat vegetable and bran rice paste, 2 meals a day,continue to eat 7 days. If you can stick the waste inside your body will be removed out on the 4th day.

Plan Menu

Breakfast: Don't eat.

Lunch:

500g Raw vegetable(250g leafy vegetable, 250g root-stalk vegetable). Mashed into paste, or make into juice.  

70g bran rice, cook in water into paste.

1/4 teaspoon salt.

Dinner: Same as lunch.

Drink 2l water or warm green tea each day.

Note: To make sure the bran rice and all vegetables are easy to be digested, you must cook/make them into paste(or juice), otherwise your stomach may get disease.

>>======================

3. Recipes for Mother

It's Mother's Day again. Let's prepare a set of dishes for her.

a. Steamed Chicken

Steamed Chicken

Ingredients

1 chicken,small,chop

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon rice wine

2 scallion section

2 ginger flakes

Procedure

1. Buy a small chicken in supermarket, ask them to chop into small blocks. Bring home.

2. Wash by hot water. Rub salt, marinate for 15mins.

3. Add chicken blocks in a big bow, add soy sauce, scallion section and ginger flakes, stir well.

4. Place the bowl on the drawer of a steamer. Steam 40mins.

5. Turn off heat, let it stay 5mins. Take out bowl, serve. You also can serve with sauce that you like.

Note: It's delicious to serve with steamed rice.

This dish doesn't add too much dressing. It's original chicken flavor. So it's very helpful for those who are weak. But don't eat when getting fever.

-------------

b. Asparagus with Potato Salad

Ingredients:

1 potato, big

4 pieces asparagus

1 slice whole wheat bread

1 egg, boiled

Dressing:

2 tablespoon sesame oil(or olive oil)

2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon garlic,chopped

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon rice wine

1/2 teaspoon salt

Procedure:

1. Clean potato, peel,cut into strips.(if you don't know how to cut,use some tools to cut) better not too thin. Clean asparagus, cut off hard root.

2. Add 2 cups water in a pot, add 1 teaspoon, bring to a boil. Add potato strips,3mins later, add asparagus. Continue to boil for additional 3mins,or until potato and asparagus done.

3. Take out potato strips and asparagus,put in cold water.Drain well, place in a big bowl.

4. peel the egg, cut into small cubes. Cut the bread into small cubes. Add in the above bowl.

5. Mix the Dressing, add in the above bowl,stir evenly. Arrange on a plate,serve.

Note: Asparagus ranks the 1st on the anti-cancer food list by WHO. And it's the right season for asparagus harvest.

----------------------------------------------

c. Pea Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup pea powder

1 tablespoon agar agar powder(or a few strips)

1 tablespoon maltose

Procedure

1. Put pea powder in a bowl,add on the drawer of a steam. Steam for 20mins.

2. Add boiling water�i1 1/2 cup water) in a big bowl, add agar and maltose, stir till agar melted.

3. Add pea powder slowly while stir till become a paste,cool. It'll become solid after cooled.

4. Use cookie mold to make good shape, arrange on a plate.

Note: Pea helps to clear way heat. May 5th is the beginning of this year's summer in Chinese Lunar Calendar. People in some area of China have the habit of eating pea cake on this day(May 5th). It is said if eating pea cake on this day you won't get disease caused by summer heat.

If you don't know where to buy pea powder you can make it yourself. Clean peas, add in a pot,add water, bring to a boil. Continue to cook over low heat until peas mushed. Stir during cook to avoid burned. Remove peel.

>>=====================

4. Dream and Insomnia

Recently our website added new contents which is about insomnia. Some people think that they get insomnia if they always have dreams at night. It's not true. Not all dreamy sleeps show that you got insomnia. 

However, in TCM dreams are related to the changes of our body's Yin and Yang, and Qi excess or Qi deficiency of our body organs. Below is some introduction.

Qi excess		Qi deficiency
Dream	organs Qi excess	Dream	organs Qi deficiency
cry,fear	lung Qi excess	white,miserable things,killing,bleeding	lung Qi deficiency
laugh,cowardly	heart Qi excess	fire fighting,Sun,thunder	heart Qi deficiency
anger	liver Qi excess	all kinds of flowers and grass,mushroom	liver Qi deficiency
song and music,feel heavy	spleen Qi excess	hungry,not enough food	spleen Qi deficiency
waist separate and connect	kidney Qi excess	ship sinking,drowning	kidney Qi deficiency

>>=====================

5. Update on our website

 We added new contents about insomnia diet, here it is:

http://www.healthy-chinese-recipe.com/insomnia-diet-cures.html

>>============= Hi, ,any suggestion,idea to my newsletter? Welcome and appreciate

>>================