Recipes and Medicinal Foods

This section does not purport to be "complete" much less authoritative.  My goal is to stimulate interest in potentially useful concepts, foods, and herbal products that are both nutritional and therapeutic.  I have two web sites that are much more comprehensive.  Kitchen Doctor and Dosha Balance. 

	Introduction to Food Section Eating habits are deeply affected by cultural and family traditions, aesthetic and taste preferencies, efficiency measures most of us rely on to one degree or other, finances, and increasingly what we have come to learn or believe as a result of spiritual and health consciousness.
	Taste and Constitutional Balance According to Ayurveda, each food has a particular taste that correlates to its digestive action and that has a bearing on the balance of the elements. This taste is not a coincidence but is a direct result of the biochemical traits of the food and therefore also of its pharmaceutical properties. There are six tastes: sweet, sour, pungent, bitter, salty, and astringent.
	pH and Terrain The food that best seems to help eliminate ammonia is asparagus. I stumbled on this by engaging in wild experiments on myself in my own kitchen. It led me to take a hard look at shatavari, an Ayurvedic rasayana herb belonging to the asparagus family. Naturally, someone else has already researched this and found that shatavari does indeed possess anti-carcinogenic properties.
	Goji Berries In vitro studies suggest that goji berries kill many kinds of cancer cells. The mechanism whereby this happens is believed to involve some factor that inhibits the ability of the cell to divide, thus lowering its reproductive capacity. A large study in Japan suggested that tumor growth was inhibited by 58% among the patients eating goji berries as compared to the control groups. A study in Mongolia showed that patients eating the goji berries had a significant increase in lymphocyte activity and that their blood began to resemble that of much younger persons.
	Lycium Berry Smoothie Lycium berries are a delicious liver and blood tonic. Milk thistle seeds are liver protectors and regenerators. For best results, this recipe or something comparable should be used regularly for about two years until the liver and blood are regenerated. Note that goji berries are a type of lycium berry.
	Chyawanprash Besides being an excellent antioxidant, chyawanprash has shown to confer some protection during irradiation.
	Kicharee This delicious traditional Indian dish can be used by convalescing patients as well as those who are trying to promote pH balance and/or reduce the stress on the digestive system by providing an easy to digest, tasty, and wholesome meal.

This is a big web site and is offered to those who are interested in dietary approaches to wellness.  It covers a wide range of topics that support detoxification and/or regeneration of different systems of the body.

Dosha Balance complements both astroheal.net and kitchendoctor.com.  It is an Ayurvedic site with emphasis on constitutional typing and the measures that promote balance.

 

Ingrid Naiman
9 April 2006

 

 

Sacred Medicine Sanctuary

Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2001, 2006, and 2014