Summer Time Soup!

Now that Summer is here, I wanted to introduce some nutritious soups to nourish the body.
The great thing about these Chinese herbal soups is that we can get the great benefits of herbs while eating something tasty. These soups are great just before a meal to help us prepare our stomach for digestions and efficient absorption of nutrients. It can also help those who are on a diet to eat less and stay healthy, as the low calorie soups can fill up a part of the stomach.

Si Shen Soup (四神湯) "Four Immortal Soup"

Si Shen Soup is a soup that is composed of four main herbs and other additional ingredients. These four main herbs include:

Fu Ling (茯苓 Poria),

Yi Yi Ren (薏苡仁 Job's Tears),

Lian Zi (蓮子Lotus Seed),

Qian Shi (芡實 Gordon Euryale Seed).

These four ingredients are said to help relieve dampness and calm the mind. So for those of you who have poor appetite or are experience fatigue, it may be caused by "too much dampness." Other health benefits of Si Shen include anti-aging, improving memory, boosting immunity, warming the body, and strengthening the kidney.

If you feel like making a stronger recipe for those symptoms we can add:

Shan Yao (山藥 Huai Shan 淮山),

Hong Zao (紅棗 Jujube),

Dang Gui (當歸 Angelicae Root),

Hua Qi Shen (花旗參 American Ginseng).

These herbs help to strengthen the stomach and improve circulation throughout the body.

When making the soup of 4-6 Servings the ingredients include:
You choice of herbs from above at 10g each.
300g of Pork (the less fat the better)
3 slices of Ginger
1 Tblspn of White Pepper.
1 mL Rice Wine
Salt to taste.
5-6 Cups of Water.

Cooking Instructions:
Step 1: Cleaning the pork.
Bring a pot of water to a boil (just enough water to emerge the pork in) and put the pork in for about 3 minutes just to clean off the unwanted taste from pork. Throw the water away and rinse the pork.

Step 2: Put everything in water and boil.
Add together the 5 cups of water, herbs and pork and turn the fire on High. Once the water is boiling allow the herbs to cook slowly for 1.5 hours by turning the fire to Low.

Step 3:
Add salt and some rice wine before serving.

Step 4:
Enjoy!

Cough/Sore Throat Remedy Favorites made of Traditional Chinese herbs ready to buy and convenient to take.

1. Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa.
This is a black syrup made of honey and many herbs, some of which are on the previous post about how to keep you lungs soothed during the dry weather. This is a very popular syrup used in Asia for people who sing, do public speaking, work in an environment with bad air, and just for people who need to soothe their throat or lungs due to being sick or just dry weather. When you pour it out onto a spoon its a thick black syrup. Some people don't like it so thick so they dilute it with hot water
 (a 1tblspn of syrup: 4tblspn of water ratio). How liquid-y you want it is up to your liking, but you won't feel the effects as much if you dilute it too much.

When you drink it, you can feel your throat soothe instantly. When you inhale you can feel a cool rush in your throat as if you ate a mint candy. But the wonderful thing about it, to people who don't like mint because it's too spicy, is that it's not spicy!



 2. Tong Ren Tang Fritillary and Loquat Syrup.

This is also a black syrup similar to the syrup above but this one has a very famous brand name stuck to it. Tong Ren Tang is a very famous Chinese medicine company from Beijing and they have brand power. Some people believe that this one works better than the one above but at the same time the syrup from the brand above, "Nin Jiom," is the signature product of the "Nin Jiom"brand. Thus these two always come in fierce competition.

                         

         3. Poon Gor So Natural Herb Loquat Extract.                                                                      This is a black liquid herbal extract with ingredients like almond, licorice, and                mint which are very commonly used cough suppressants in Traditional Chinese              Medicine. People use this a lot to help with cough from a common cold or an                  unhealthy respiratory system.

                     4. Orange Peel Powder (Chen Pi Mo).

                 Sometimes when people get a cough, their chest is congested with phlegm that they                        cannot cough out. Orange peel powder helps to loosen the phlegm so that you can                          cough out all that yuck. Adults should take 1 vile twice a day with warm water.

                     5. Tendrillead Fritillary Powder (Chuan Bei Mo).

                 Fritillary is a very commonly used herb to suppress cough, and this is it in powder                          form. This powder helps with suppressing cough and keeping phlegm from forming in                    your lungs. In China, people give these to their babies be it 3months or 6months. When                 my 6 month old was coughing and wouldn't stop hacking up phlegm, my pediatrician                     wouldn't give me any medicine and I gave her this. I gave her half a vile a day mixed                     with some warm water and I saw results within the next day. I would use this again for                   my next baby in the same situation but then again, if you use it on your own baby, use it                 at your own risk.

6. Watermelon Frost Powder
This is the ultimate sore throat reliever. They say it's a "spray" but there isn't really a spray, just an open hole. The powder is so fine that if you just squeeze the bottle the powder will come out. When using this, you should be very aware of when to breathe and swallow so that you don't choke.
This product also works great on canker sores and other sores in your mouth. Just take a q tip, dip some of the powder, and apply it to where ever doesn't feel good in the omouth.







To all you readers out there, I was conveniently able to find all these items at one online store: happycontainers.com


Happy Holidays! And prepare for the flu season!

Moisturizing naturally under extremely dry weather.

I would like to blog about how we can maintain our bodies and stay our best with nature made remedies in the Winter and Summer or under extremely dry weather.

Instead of changing our environment with humidifiers to relieve cough and a runny nose, there are things we can eat to help "moisturize" our lungs and body. These things do not harm our bodies nor does it damage our wall paper.

During the cold winters of San Francisco, many customers come in with a dry cough or a runny nose, but they aren't sick, just dry and uncomfortable. Many Chinese grandmothers know about this formula but most people don't. What is it composed of?

From left to right:
1. Xing Ren/Bei Xing/ Ku Xing Ren/Bitter Almond (Semen Armeniacae Amarae) 9g
2. Mi Zao 2 or 3 depending on how sweet you want it.
3. Chuan Bei Mu/ Bei Mu/ (Bulbus Fritillariae Cirrhosae) 9g (powdered) (Makes sure to ask for it to be packaged separately as it should be cooked in the last 10 minutes only.)
4. Long Li Ye 15g
5. Nan Xing ren 15g (Nan Xing Ren should always be three times more than Bei Xing Ren.)

1. Xing Ren or Bei Xing Ren or Ku Xing Ren is also known as Bitter Apricot Kernel. The warm,
bitter and slightly toxic herb has been used in TCM to treat coughing and asthma, enhance bowl movement. moisten the intestine, etc, as it calms cough and asthma, enhances expelling of phlegm, stop constipation, etc., by enhancing the function of lung and large intestine channels.(1)
2. Mi Zao or  Shelled Chestnut is usually added to soups and teas just to make things a little sweeter, naturally, because sometimes the medicine can taste real bad and Chinese people like their soup with a hint of sweetness.
3. Chuan Bei Mu is capable of clearing and resolving stagnant heat and resolving phlegm and dissipating nodulation. (2)
4. Long Li Ye nourishes the lung and relieve cough, relax the bowels. (3)
5. Nan Xing or Nan Xing Ren is another almond from the south, which is always combined with bei xing ren, with bei meaning North.


This formula not only helps relieve cough, but also moisturizes the lungs and intestines. Wonderful isn't it?

Cooking Directions:
1.Put 4 cups of water in a stainless steel pot.
2. Pour in all herbs except for CHUAN BEI MU.
3. Turn fire on high and bring to boil.
4. Once boiling turn fire to low and let water simmer down to one 1.5 cups or simmer for 45 minutes.
5. Pour in CHUAN BEI MU and let it simmer for 10 more minutes.
6. Enjoy and feel your lungs moisturize!!

Doctors, tell me something I don't know.

Patient: "I have a headache"

Doctor: "Take tylenol,  consume lots of fluids and rest."

Patient: "I get really bad cramps during my period."

Doctor: "Take tylenol, drink plenty of fluids and rest your body.

Patient: "I'm itching all over my skin."

Doctor: "Take this anti-histamine and use this steroid cream. Most importantly get some rest."

Patient: "I can't sleep at night."

Doctor: "Take a sleeping pill so that you can get more rest at night."

Why do we pay doctors so much money just to have them tell us something that we would probably already do if there was no doctor around?

We all know that tylenol takes the pain away..... only temporarily.

We all know that sleeping pills knock us out.... but we become dependent on it.

We all know that steroids fix almost any skin disorder but weakens our skin forever.

Doctors, we don't want temporary relief! We want our problems to be gone!

Growing up in a Chinese herb store, I was always around Chinese doctors and herbs.

When women came in with head aches, they were not recommended tylenol and rest. The Chinese doctors would first ask questions to better understand their patient. Next he would check their pulse to see if the organs were working well and to find out the natural characteristics of their body. Lastly, patients would be asked to stick out their tongue so that the doctor can more accurately diagnose the patient. Then the doctors would write a prescription just for this patient. Every single herb in this formula would be chosen to target what ever was wrong and be tailored to fit the patients physical and internal nature. There was never the same reason or the same cure for a headache in patients within one day.

There was always a reason to a problem. The reasons that Chinese doctors come up is not something we hear everyday. Neither is it something most people can easily understand.

What were usual causes of headaches in the Eastern method of medicine?

Wind, too much heat, lack of sleep due to anxiety.

What were common causes of skin problems in the body?
Heat, Dampness, weak liver (does  not mean you are close to liver failure)

Causes of menstrual cramps?
Weak stomach, dampness, cold, lack of blood circulation in the body (but it doesn't mean you have high or low blood pressure)

It's interesting yet confusing isn't it?