Apr 24

According to this article, Asian herbs can help you fight diabetes, cancer and other illnesses

For centuries, it has been common knowledge that Asians have one of the longest life expectancies in the world, and for decades, researchers have been searching for the reasons behind that phenomenon.

Many believe the secret lies in their diet, which consists largely of fish, poultry and the vegetables grown in the region, but Dr. Nathalie Valkov — an expert in Oriental medicine and author of the book “Cordyceps: Treating Diabetes, Cancer and other illnesses” (www.ttphc.com) — believes the secret lies in an Asian herb that is just now getting noticed by Western medicine.

“While it is commonly acknowledged that some of the best medical care in the world can be found in the United States, we have to remember that our medical culture is barely a couple of centuries old,” Valkov said. “Asian medicine has been around for thousands of years, and since people from the Far East tend to live much longer than we do in the West, it’s not a stretch to say that there may be some ancient secrets hidden in their diet and medicines that may help us unlock the keys to longevity and good health.”

Apr 22

In Central California coast, there is a dramatic meditative Chinese garden along with other gardens open to the public starting this week.

A drought-tolerant Japanese-inspired garden. A meditative Chinese-influenced garden. Dramatic succulents in a Mexican-themed garden.

These gardens — and more — in Los Osos, Morro Bay and Cayucos will be open to the public Sunday at the 24th annual “Gardens of the World.’’ The Morro Bay branch of the American Association of University Women sponsors the self-guided tour of eight gardens. Light refreshments will be served in one garden.

One of the Los Osos gardens is owned by Maude Leslie and Marty Martinez, who live in a former barn that was converted into a stylish home. Painted barn red, it lends an agricultural ambience to their acre-plus property beside Los Osos Creek.

A master gardener, Maude began in 2003 developing the garden along the driveway. Then, expanding as her energy and budget would allow, she created free-form beds in a former artichoke field. Adept at propagation, she started with 10 plants each of iris and society garlic, and now has hundreds of both. Three young olive trees, two pears and a grapefruit mingle with the flowers. More fruit and nut trees are scattered throughout the property.

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Apr 20

Using a combination of Chinese herbs, yoga and other therapies, the individual profiled in this articule was able to get a better night’s sleep and a healthier life.

When menopause robbed Gail Jones of a good night’s sleep, she reluctantly tried drugs to boost her hormones.

The prescription soothed her symptoms for a time but ultimately couldn’t convince Jones that pharmaceuticals were the best companion on the midlife journey of menopause — and beyond.

Pericardium 6: two thumb-widths above inner crease of right wrist
“I just didn’t want to be on it the rest of my life,” says the 61-year-old Medford resident.

Taking a cue from her mother — hale at age 93 — Jones turned to alternative therapies and exercise, namely acupuncture and yoga. While traditional Chinese medicine improved her sleep, yoga eased the aches and pains of menopause and restored a “certain presence” to her body, Jones says. Regarded for thousands of years as the foundations of health, the Eastern disciplines merged for a March workshop at Medford’s Rasa Center for Yoga and Wellness

Apr 12

There are weeds in your garden that can help with coughs and colds to other symptoms.

A weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place — a plant which, in many cases, could be used ease indigestion, fight the flu, treat poison ivy rashes and even make a tasty meal. They may mar otherwise perfect mats of green grass, but many weeds are chock full of vitamins, minerals and surprising healing abilities. So why throw away the medicine cabinet and free food in your yard? Check out the benefits of these 10 weeds including yarrow, purslane and kudzu.

(Of course, don’t consume any wild plants if you’re not 100% positive you’ve identified them correctly. This article is not a substitute for a good plant identification book.)

Dandelion

With its long, strong taproot, the humble dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is no favorite of those seeking a weed-free lawn. But not only does it have rather pretty little yellow flowers, it’s a nutritional and medicinal powerhouse. When young, its trademark saw-toothed leaves are a delicious addition to spring salads and can also be sauteed as a vegetable. They’re rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, folate and calcium. The flowers are also edible.

If you let your dandelions grow strong and proud, you’ll end up with large roots that can be harvested and dried as a medicinal supplement. Used commercially in many detox formulas, dandelion root acts as a powerful diuretic and kidney and liver cleanser.

Chickweed

Starry white flowers with cleft petals, dainty pairs of fuzzy green leaves and purple stems identify the star chickweed plant, which — along with its relatives common chickweed and mouse chickweed — is a great source of vitamins A, D, B complex and C. It’s also packed with minerals like iron, calcium, potassium and zinc. Chickweed (Stellaria media) has a delicate cornsilk-like flavor when eaten raw, and tastes like spinach when cooked.

Chickweed can also be finely chopped and applied externally to soothe irritated skin. An infusion made by steeping ¼ cup in a cup of boiling water for 15 minutes has benefits similar to dandelion root.

Yarrow

Tall and stately, yarrow (Achillea millefolium) bears fuzzy fern-like foliage and bouquets of tiny white or yellow flowers. Some of its other names, including Nose Bleed, Staunchweed and Bloodwort hint at one of its most prized abilities — slowing down bleeding. Found in meadows, pastures and roadsides across America, yarrow has long been used in herbal medicine not just for wound care but to increase appetite, ease indigestion and fight colds and flu.

The fresh leaves can be used as a compress with a little warm water, or even chewed up and applied to wounds if you’re out hiking or camping. A teaspoon of the dried leaves, added to a cup of boiling water and allowed to steep for 10 minutes, is said to reduce fever and help clear the sinuses.

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Apr 11

Food obssessed Singaporeans are flocking to try the latest food trend-combining Chinese herbs and Japanese cuisine.

Featuring two local obsessions – Chinese herbs and Japanese cuisine – it is no surprise that the 2010 World Gourmet Summit’s Eu Yan Sang Experience is selling out fast, very fast.

But this is not the only partnership making the news at this year’s dinner event. To be held at Capella Singapore’s Grand Ballroom, the one-night-only six-course feast, paired with wines from Grand Vin (April 21, $228+), will feature the clever culinary handiwork of both award-winning chef-owner Ronnie Chia of Tatsuya Japanese Restaurant and Capella’s executive chef Jakob Esko.

Think, for example, foie gras with pork belly, caramelised plum and tangerine peel paired with a homemade plum wine tipple made with soda, honey vinegar and Chinese wolfberries. Or soup of double-boiled tuna belly infused with mitsuba, Solomon’s seal, ophiopogon, lily bulb and American ginseng, to name a few herbs.

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Apr 11

Herbs can provide essential nutrients that are good for the body and the mind, as this article explains.

Herbs are a powerful and effective remedy for just about every type of ailment or malady you can imagine. Your local health food store is full of them, but which ones are right for you?

Everybody knows about certain herbs, like Gingko Biloba for better memory, Ginseng for stamina and the like but there are hundreds more you may never have heard of. If you walk into anyvitamin store, you will find herbs are mainly in pill form. While convenient, they do not give anywhere near the benefit of the actual herbs themselves. Most health food stores sell them in liquid form, which is both a convenient and effective way to administer the remedies.

You won’t get recommendations for herbal remedies from your doctor or clinic. Holistic medicine is not something they want to promote. They are looking to cure you pharmaceutically, which sometimes is not the best choice for your greater health.

A few essential herbs to keep on hand are:

American Ginseng which is good for energy and stamina. It is much more effective than the other varieties of Ginseng from abroad.

Gingko Biloba which is great with Gotu Kola for memory, concentration and mental focus.

Arnica in liquid form is not for ingestion as it is poisonous but when placed on a wound will heal it up very quickly. It’s been called “Soldier’s Root” because they used to put it on wounds in wartime.

Saw Palmetto promotes urinary health.

St. John’s Wort is an effective mood enhancer and will bring balance and harmony.

Apr 07

A recent research has identified vitamin D and Chinese herbs can help with preventing asthma.

Researchers have discovered that African American children with asthma in metropolitan Washington, DC, are significantly more likely to have low levels of vitamin D than healthy children.

This study supports recent research that suggests vitamin D plays a greater role in the body than just keeping bones healthy. Vitamin D deficiency has been recently linked to a variety of non-bone related diseases including depression, autoimmune disorders, and now asthma.

The research team found that 86 percent of the children in the study with asthma had insufficient levels of vitamin D, while only 19 percent of non-asthmatics had these low levels.

Only 5 to 37 percent of American infants meet the standard for vitamin D set by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Although breast milk is the perfect food in every other way, it’s often low in vitamin D. Since humans originated in equatorial areas with year-round sunshine, babies in the distant past wouldn’t have needed to get vitamin D from breast milk. Many mothers also are vitamin D-deficient. Based on these facts,researchers now recommend that most babies should take a daily vitamin D supplement, reports USA Today.

In addition, Mothering Magazine offers several tips on how natural medicine can strengthen immune function to prevent asthma attacks.

Oriental medicine and Chinese herbs have the ability to directly strengthen immune function. The disadvantage of herbs is their bad taste, and the most effective strategy for children is to mix liquid extracts of herbs with juice to improve their taste.

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Apr 05

How Chinese tea can bring coolness and calmness to your life and provide vitality and energy.

Even with such a whistle-bait figure, Bianca Gonzalez has never actually gone to the gym to workout. For most of her 27 summers, the bubbly TV personality actually admits to eating anything, has never been weight conscious and admits to running in their village and occasionally engaging in yoga as the only things that passes for a workout regimen for her.

That was until recently.

“I don’t think it’s in my genes to gain a lot of weight no matter what I eat,” she says. “But that’s also the case for most young people. No matter what I eat, I never get sick, I never get fat. But as I get older, I realized that I eventually start feeling the effects of what I’m eating.”

Gonzalez admits to a certain feeling of “heaviness” after eating certain kinds of food. The way she tells it, she seems to be experiencing something that the Chinese traditionally believed to be a condition called “internal heat.” This is what happens when hot, fried and spicy food causes imbalance in the body that eventually results in sickness.

To counter this and other health ailments and conditions, the Chinese came up what is now known as traditional medicines based on the primary guideline of the yin yang concept. The way the Chinese believe it, yin yang is based on complementary opposites within a greater whole as manifested in natural dualities like dark and light, female and male, low and high, cold and hot.

In other words, it’s all about balance. And because yin yang is also a central principle of different forms of Chinese martial arts and yes, exercise, the Chinese do believe that good health begins by maintaining balance in the body.

“To control internal heat in the body in particular, the Chinese drink what is called a cooling tea,” adds Dr. Homer Lee-Lim. “This counters the bad effects of all the hot food that we eat.”

Apr 03

Chinese wolfberries are used by a Kansas State University research for type-2 diabetics.

A Kansas State University researcher is exploring the use of Chinese wolfberries to improve vision deficiencies that are common for type-2 diabetics.

Dingbo “Daniel” Lin, K-State research assistant professor of human nutrition, is studying wolfberries and their potential to improve damage to the retina. His findings show that the fruit can lower the oxidative stress that the eye undergoes as a result of type-2 diabetes.

“I would not say that wolfberries are a medicine, but they can be used as a dietary supplement to traditional treatments to improve vision,” Lin said. “Wolfberries have high antioxidant activity and are very beneficial to protect against oxidative stress caused by environmental stimuli and genetic mutations.”

Lin has experience in biochemistry and eye research, and he wanted to bridge his current work in nutrition with vision. In a conversation about the eye and phytochemicals Lin had with his father, a traditional medical doctor in China, Lin decided to explore the use of wolfberries for vision improvement.

Mar 21

There’s a new trend in the world of cocktail, and that new trend is to add Chinese herbs according to a bar manager in Vancouver, British Columbia.

There’s nothing like a spring tonic to get you energized. And it’s all the better when that tonic comes in the form of a cocktail based on ancient Chinese herbal medicine.

That’s just what bar manger Danielle Tatarin is shaking up at the stylish cocktail lounge and Asian tapas bar at the new chic-boutique Keefer Hotel in Chinatown, which opened just before the Olympics started.

“Chinatown has elements of rawness, realism and history all wrapped into one,” says Tatarin. “I think the Keefer Bar squeezes in quite nicely.”

The neighbourhood’s traditions were also an inspiration when it came to creating her drinks list. In her past gigs — most recently at DB Bistro Moderne — the talented Tatarin has developed an expertise in classic cocktails and played with trends like molecular mixology. But the Keefer gave her an opportunity to try something completely fresh.

“Incorporating Chinese medicine into cocktails is pretty out there and some people are, like, really?” Tatarin says. “But to me it was a no-brainer. I found that the herbs used in Chinese medicine are often incorporated into teas and tinctures and that made it easy for me to work with in my cocktail formulas.”

While it may seem unusual to mix health and alcohol, in fact, that’s exactly how the original cocktails came about.

 
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