Can you believe the holidays have fallen upon us again? All those gyms you see everywhere, their business is built on us stuffing our faces full of food over the next month only to say to ourselves:

“I’ll join the gym for my New Year’s Resolution and lose all this weight!”

Some of us have to juggle 2-4 Thanksgiving dinners through the weekend from different sides of the family. Now lets not get too hasty and blame everything on everyone else. I know how delicious all of the food is and no body is forcing anyone to get that second platter! With 39 dishes in front of you, you have to have a whole serving of each one right? You don’t want to be rude!

Well, lets talk about some ways to help-

Obviously you can just not eat the food, but that’s probably what Glamour Magazine told you to do, so we will skip the obvious!
I posted last year some tips here:
Holiday Weight Management
So lets expand on what is already there…

Slow Down and Spread Out. This technique allows you to digest the food properly that you are taking in and give your body ample time to compute how much you have taken in and tell you are FULL! Eat slow, spread your eating out. Put only a little bit on your plate and a time and take more trips. This will allow much more time between the food intake for you know when to quit!

Don’t Skip Meals. This is probably the most damaging part of holiday meals especially Thanksgiving. You know you are going to eat a big meal so you don’t eat at all until then and you eat so much you don’t eat until the next day! So, if your dinner is scheduled at 1:00pm then make sure you have breakfast and only eat enough to make sure you eat dinner. If Thanksgiving is a dinner, then eat breakfast AND lunch. In order to prepare you body for an onslaught of food, try eating warm and easily digestible foods like soups and steamed vegetables.

Use Herbs! I am offering 3 great herb tips to use for Thanksgiving and Holiday Dinners this year.

• Shan Zha / Hawthorn Berry. This herb is in a category we call ‘Relieve Food Stagnation’. Does that sound like a good one or what? After you go full siege with the food and feel like you need to sleep for a week, this is when this herb comes in handy. There are 2 main points that make this herb great here. This herb ALSO lowers high blood pressure AND high cholesterol. This herb is readily available at health food stores in powdered drink form and already made drinks (Chinese Food Stores too).
• Chen Pi / Citrus Peel. Chen Pi promotes movement in the stomach area and prevents stagnation from happening. I believe fluid movement is a great way to help with keeping fit. If you keep movement happening you can continue to keep up your metabolism to burn in your food intake. I would suggest getting some at the herb store and taking in capsules or something before, during and after these heavy meals
• Chickweed. Chickweed does what some people imagine raw rice does when you eat it and then drink water. Eating a bunch of chickweed prior to meals will really plump up in your stomach and as soon as a little more food is added, your body is telling you that you are full! This herb is pretty easy to find and should be available at any health food store.

Let us also not forget our previous tip about eating a good source of fiber 30 minutes to an hour prior to meals. 2 pieces of extra fiber bread plain or as toast with some water before a meal will really fill you up quickly.

Keep the flow going. I mentioned some laxatives and ways to keep your bowels moving last year. This year I encourage a more natural way. Lets try flax seed for the natural oils and fiber content this year! If you would rather leave it up to some products I am recommending Dimmak Herb’s Bowel Regulator. This herbal supplement works to natural regulate the bowels and not simply just purge them!

My #1 tip this year - Daikon! Daikon is also known as Japanese Radish, East Asian Radish, Chinese Radish, and others. The flavor is more mild that regular radishes and makes a great soup. This herb is one of the greatest of all for our famous ‘Thanksgiving Carb comatose’! Simply make a soup or some other dish with a bunch of Daikon in it and eat it after these crazy meals. Feel the pain and bloating go away with each bite! There are many recipes online to try, so get what you need now! The Daikon will relieve the food stagnation and also stop any hiccup or burping you got from the large meal you ate!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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Tired? Fatigued? Low libido? Low back pain? Weak knees? Wake up in the middle of the night? Recently weak after surgery?
These are just a few symptoms of weakened kidney function. In Chinese Medicine there are many more symptoms related to this and aging alone is one of the ways that kidneys weaken. There is alot to gain from supplementing your kidneys with a really good tonic including reversing the symptoms listed below.

Well, I have the secret here, and its going to look a bit different to most people. The ‘color’ of the kidney is black, so there is no wonder all the ingredients are basically black. I asure you not only is this recipe an excellent tonic, but is very delicious!

Presenting the Ultimate Kidney Tonic, Ultimate Antioxidant Black Chicken Soup!
Here is what you need:
1 Whole Black Chicken- called Silky Chicken or Silkie Chicken (found at Asian grocery stores for sure)
1.5-2cups Black Beans - Huge amount of protien, good for kidneys
Kombu Seaweed - minerals and alkaline
Rice noodles or Bean Threads - wheat free noodles, clears body heat
Tamari (premium soy sauce) - adds fermented food to diet
1 can Vegetable Stock - vegetables
1/8 cup olive oil
4 tbl minced garlic
Sea Salt
Pepper
Large Crockpot

Herbs:
30g He Shou Wu- Kidney and blood builder
30g Shu Di Huang - Rehmannia Prepared - Kidney and blood builder
20g Gou Qi Zi - Goji berries - antioxidant, blood builder
20g Huang Qi - Astragalus (this is not a normal ingredient, but since it is approaching fall time, I wanted to add this for Immunity boosting properties)
10g Shan Zha - Hawthorn Berry - helps the properties of the soup move through normally
10g Chen Pi - Citrus Peel - allows all the building properties not cause constipation.

I am going to show you the long way to make this. I prefer the taste of soups that sit and simmer in crockpots for the 4-6 hour time frame. I will list some short-cuts at the end.

First thing is first. You MUST soak your beans over night. Place the beans in the crockpot container and cover with water well over the height of the beans. Add about 1oz of kombu seaweed. This removes all of the bad things from the beans and allows them to soak up all the goodness from the seaweed. By the next day your beans are ready and the seaweed wont taste like seaweed anymore!

The next morning empty the water from the beans and briefly wash them and add them back to the pot and cover with water again (keep the seaweed too!). Put this on high and let that go for an hour, while you let the chicken sit out. This is the time to decide how daring you can be :).

About the chicken-

The Black (Silky Silkie) Chicken is a bird that is TOTALLY BLACK! although its feathers are bright white! This chicken is incredibly good for your kidneys and blood. The meat has a bit more darker look to it, but taste BETTER than chicken. The chicken will probably come from somewhere like New Zealand. This means you are not only getting a better chicken, but the chicken was raised naturally! No antibiotics and other crap from regular chicken!
Silky Black Chicken is very high in antioxidants and carnosine. This shows bio-medically that this chicken is not only better than regular chicken but supports strong muscles, rich blood, and anti-oxidants. Again this is not new to cultures like the Chinese or Japanese, but we can see now how the ‘black’ food group can really help us out!
The chicken is going to come with the head, neck and legs/feet attached. You need to figure out what you want to keep. If you don’t like any of it I would recommend that you cook the whole chicken and when we get to the part to cut the bird up remove them then. The head can definitely be tossed but the feet are really tasty and add more bone and ligament for the soup to absorb.

Now that its been an hour, turn the crockpot to low. Add the whole chicken in there and more water to almost cover. Let this now sit for 3hours.

Now, remove the chicken and put it on a cutting board. It will need to cool for a couple minutes (try not to loose any liquid from inside the bird).
Remove the seaweed from the pot and place it in a strainer.
Heat up a wok and place your olive oil in. Heat the oil and add all the garlic. Once you start to smell the strong aroma add the seaweed. Crisp the seaweed a little bit (5-7 min) and add the seaweed AND all of the oil and garlic to the crockpot.
Cut the chicken up into 2 thighs, 2 legs, 2 feet, 2 breasts, 2 wings, 1 neck. Remove what you feel like removing and add everything back to the crockpot.
Add all the herbs now. The Goji berries can be placed directly into the pot, but the other herbs should be added in a way that they can be removed at the end. The Goji Berries will stay in the soup!
Add the vegetable stock and recover to sit for another hour. The vegetable stock is used for flavoring as we aren’t using a vegetables.

After the hour has passed your an hour away from it being done! At this point add about 1/8 cup of Tamari, and some salt and pepper. Your going to have to keep tasting and play with the salt and pepper to your tasting. Now your going to add the noodles. I added 2 of the 3 bundles that came in the package. The noodles will pick up the color and flavor of the soup and in the end, they will tune black too :). Let that all marinate for an hour.

Now your all done! Remove the herbs and turn the crockpot off. The soup is going to be 1million degrees so leave the lid off and let cool. Dish up the soup making sure to get some chicken, plenty of broth, beans and noodles in your bowl! Be careful there are still bones in the soup!

If your impatient and don’t see appreciate the taste of a beautifully simmered soup here is what you can do. After you soak the beans make 1 large pot of boiling water and a smaller pot of boiling water. Boil the beans in the water for about 30-45 minutes until tender. Parboil the chicken for about 10 minutes. Cut the chicken and add both together using the bean water in a crockpot. Add everything else talked about and simmer for an hour. You should be ready to go.

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My favorite healthy food is Congee. Congee is basically a porridge made of white rice cooked over several hours. Dispite what you think or what you have read white rice is quite good for you. The important part of white rice in this recipe is to have a soup that is as easy to digest as possible. Many things can be added to the simple medium of congee, its like a casserole add anything you want to it. Here is the basic recipe:

Add 2 cups white rice to 18 cups water in a crockpot and let slow cook for about 7 hours.  

If you are not sick in anyway, then brown rice may be substituted. Now for the additives-
Mung Beans- I always recommend these be in Congee as they are good for the entire body in any condition. Add 1/2 cup pre-soaked beans.
Immunity/Longevity/Health/Vitality: I recommend this combination be added to congee always as it is general health building and a tonic! 6g Ginseng, 12g Codonopsis/Dang Shen, 9g Dang Gui, 9g Goji Berries/Gou Qi Zi/Lychii Berries, 9g Huang Qi/Astragalus, 10-20 JuJube Dates/Da Zao, and 4g Ginger. That will make a very nice base for your congee!
Adzuki Beans: Use these beans for bladder or kidney problems including water retention. These are sometimes called small red beans.
Add barley, wheat germ, fennel, brewers yeast or anything else to get vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber!
Add any vegetable you like for vitamins, minerals, and their individual properties.

This is traditionally taken as a breakfast. Organic brown sugar may be added after the cooking process for extra energetic properties in the morning. If you are frail, weak, or sick you may take the congee through the day for several days until you feel better. You will be surprised how well you feel after you eat the congee and how easy it is to keep down. For degenerative diseases and after times of chemotherapy Add 9g of Chen Pi/Citrus Peel to the formula and take as all your meals for 7days (or as long as you can make it!)
This recipe will make a generous amount of congee for you and your family, so enjoy!

Feel free to ask any questions or get help on a congee recipe.

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