Category Archives: Conditions

Healthy Orange Chicken

Chen Pi Ji (Chicken)

This popular dish can be found all over China. Ji translates to Chicken while Chen Pi translates to strips of dried orange or tangerine peel. Chen Pi is classified a herb in the same way as garlic is a herb. It has wonderful benefits for health. You can find more about Chen Pi here. Orange peel or sauce is used to flavour chicken. This recipe can be grilled, roasted or barbeque.

A lazy way of kinda enjoying Chen Pi Ji, is to order it from your local Chinese restaurant. The ‘orange chicken’ dish is commonly offered in many Chinese restaurants in the West, which is cooked in orange sauce. The sauce is often made from orange peel too. Its not as healthy as this home cooked recipe.

Ingredients:

4 chicken pieces (thighs, drumsticks or breasts)
1 tablespoon shaoxing rice wine (or dry sherry)
2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon soya sauce
1 tablespoon chen pi, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed
clump of root ginger, very finely grated

Directions:

Mix everything together n a large dish. Make sure that the chicken pieces are covered evenly. Leave this to marinate overnight, no hurry.
When you are ready to eat or cook for later. Grill, roast or barbecue, until the chicken is cooked with the juices running clear.
Eat with some rice another great energy booster.
You can also eat this delicious dish cold.

Chinese Medical Benefits:

Chicken is considered a great Qi tonic and nourishing food. The chen pi, ginger and garlic are warming and promote smooth flow inside to help to clear Phlegm. This dish is a great general tonic dish with warming and strengthening nature. It is recommended for conditions like Qi stagnation and Phlegm.

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Strengthen your Back and Knees Soup

This is a soup to strengthen the knees, spine and back.

The lower back and knees are the areas of the body related to the Kidneys according to traditional Chinese medicine and as such when suffering from chronic pain and weakness of these areas can indicate a disharmony in the Kidneys. This traditional soup recipe contains ingredients used to strengthen the Kidneys, and reinforce the knees and back. It also helps to resolve Damp which slows healing in the back and knees. It also helps to circulate Qi and Blood, and is high in silicon which is essential for the strength of the bones and connective tissues.

This soup can be used to aid healing after an injury or surgery, or to maintain health of the lower back and knees.

Ingredients:

1 litre chicken stock, made from broken chicken bones
2 small handfuls Pearl Barley or Coix Seeds (yì yĭ rén)
2 small handfuls black beans (cooked)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 sticks celery
1 large carrot
Black pepper
Dash of rice wine

Note: Coix Seeds or Chinese barley are used in Chinese herbalism for clearing dampness, especially when this relates to joint pain, and can be cooked in the same way as pearl barley. Shaoshing rice wine is a popular Chinese cooking wine. Both are available from Chinese supermarkets.

Instructions:

Prepare your stock. Add barley (or coix seeds) and celery and simmer for 45 minutes. Add chopped onion and garlic and cook for another 10 minutes. Add carrot and cook for a further 5 minutes, or until all ingredients are cooked. Add the cooked beans, a dash of rice wine and a good amount of black pepper. Cook for another couple of minutes, then serve.

This soup can be frozen for later use.

Ginger Soup

An excellent Tonic for Colds and Flu

Ingredients:

Clump of fresh ginger as in picture
2 litres of water
Rock sugar or honey (to sweeten)

Simple Instructions:

Release all its natural strength of your ginger by grating or you can break fibres of ginger with a kitchen mallet or rolling pin. Place in a medium saucepan, with the 2 litres of water. Bring to boil and allow to simmer until liquid is reduced to half. Use a yogurt strainer or coffee filter to strain the ginger-infused soup. Add a small amount of water if the stock has reduced very much.

Drink 1 cup at a time as required until soup is finished (approx 1 day).

Add rock sugar or honey to taste.

Repeat as often as you need.

Health Benefits of Ginger article here…

Preventing and Fighting Flu

Flu season arrives during the coldest months of the year and is never easy to cure. However, a few simple tips may help you keep the flu at bay.

Wash Your Hands

Most people know that washing their hands regularly is an important part of staying healthy. During the cold and flu season, this is even more important because flu viruses can live long enough on surfaces for you to pick them up on your hands. Wash your hands using warm water and soap and make sure to scrub gently. When water and soap are not available, you can always use sanitizers containing 60-90% ethyl alcohol.

Get Enough Sleep and Manage Your Stress

Lack of sleep and high levels of stress can reduce immune functions, thus lowering the body’s ability to fend off colds and flu.

Maintain a Moderate Exercise Program 3-4 Days a Week

Exercising for 15 minutes per day helps strengthen the immune system and increases the body’s natural ability to fight infection. That’s a 7 minute walk in either direction.

Keep a Healthy Diet

Remember to eat fruits and vegetables daily to ensure enough essential nutrient, vitamin, minerals intake.

Avoid Contact with Sick People

Colds and the flu spread between people in different ways. Try to stay far enough away from people who are already sick so they don’t cough or sneeze on you.

Flu Defeating Ginger Soup

This is my favorite way of dealing with colds and flu. Its best to start this treatment as soon as you feel those first signs such as tickly throat and sniffles. It uses the almost magical herb, Ginger which has been used for centuries to defeat invading pathogens. Recipe for Ginger Soup here.

Tuina Acupressure

You can stimulate these four immunity super booster points while you are healthy to improve and enhance your immune system. If you have a flu stop stimulating the Zu San Li (St-36) until after your Cold or Flu goes away.

Striving not just Surviving Stress

Develop good habits instead of allowing bad habits develop without our permission.

Fill up on delicious foods that are rich in fibre, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phyto-nutrients. Start your day with a big bowl of whole grain cereal and fresh fruit: eat a juicy orange or grapefruit (no juice means more fibre), a banana, or a fresh pineapple. Later in the day enjoy a variety of crunchy raw vegetables and fibre-rich cooked vegetables, whole grains, and beans.
Enjoy a variety of fruits to satisfy your sweet tastes. Eat an apple, pear, grapes, kiwi, orange, mango, fresh pineapple, or banana. Sweeten your cereal with dried fruit such as raisins or dried cherries.
Choose healthily nutritious fats such as walnuts, pecans, Brazil nuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, olives, and avocados. When you use oil, choose olive, soy, or canola.
Satisfy your thirst with clean, cool and clear water. Drink at least 8 cups of water a day.
Enjoy eating your meals at scheduled times. Start off your day right with a good, robust breakfast.
Get your vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phyto-nutrients from tasty foods; this is your first line of defence. If you want to supplement your essential nutrients, it is safest to choose a multiple vitamin and mineral supplement that provides 100 percent or less of the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) of each nutrient. Overdosing can cause stress. Take iron and calcium supplements at separate times.
Get enough rest, sleep, and relaxation. Get to bed on time. Take time to meditate and relax each day and each week. Take a mini restful holiday. Meditation can mean sitting still in a crowd just observing non-judgmentally as well as a quiet place.
Nourish your relationships. People who have close friends are healthier and happier. Take time to be with your family and friends.
Manage your time. Organize your day to include what’s important. However it’s not important enough for it to control you.
Maintain an attitude of gratitude. Keep a gratitude list to count the many ways you are blessed. Sometimes just being able to open your eyes in the morning can be your greatest blessing.

Place everything in perspective. Remember, “It could be worse.”
Live one day at a time. If you’re finding it difficult, then try to live one minute at a time. It is possible, you’re already doing it just become aware of it.
Non judgemental respect…, “Do to others what you would have them do to you.”
Connect the people who you admire, who respect you and offer you real friendship
Remember that Nature is a fine balancing act and when we acknowledge and respect this, we usually get to enjoy the wonderful beauty and strength it offers.
Set yourself a goal to smile at least once everyday
Keep Smiling……………………