5E

FIRE - The Energy of Summer

Here we are in Summertime, with a blurb about what the energy of the season is, that resonates within us:

SUMMER
Fire, the energy of summer; gives us warmth, and the capacity to love and be loved. It enables us to mature and blossom. Its function is to relate.

Seasonal Cooking for Spring -- Nina Simonds

Nina Simonds can always be counted on for some great recipes, and in her groundbreaking book, A Spoonful of Ginger, she shares some wisdom about the seasonal diet for spring:

"The spring season signifies rebirth and renewal and it is traditionally a time for cleansing.  Some Chinese doctors recommend a fast, consuming only fruit and vegetable juices.  Foods considered particularly appropriate for this season (apart from seasonal specialties) are: grains like wheat, barley, oats and rye; beans like lentils, kidney beans, and green peas; vegetables such as bean sprouts, carrots, celery, salad greens of any kind, broccoli, green peppers, shiitake mushrooms, sweet potatoes, and green beans; all types of citrus fruits and apricots; chicken, pork, duck and beef."

Her wonderful book includes some "sample spring menus" for "spicy stir-fried chicken with fresh vegetables;" "basic cooked white or brown rice;" "cinnamon-honey orange slices;" "vegetarian egg-drop soup;" "barbecued pork brown rice;" "coconut rice pudding with berries;" "braised duck with tangerine peel and sweet potatoes;" and "flash-cooked bean sprouts."

Five Element Cooking -- for Spring

The book, "Feng Shui and the 5-Element Kitchen," talks about spring as "the dynamic energy of new beginnings!"  "Sour-tasting foods refresh and revitalize.  Tension, irritability and anger subside, your muscles relax, and you are able to take deep breaths and find new solutions to your problems.  The recipes of this element feed your liver/gallbladder system.  This, in turn, activates your metabolism and awakens your vitality.  If you feel drained or fatigued, you should serve salads and fruits lightly warmed to assist the body with their digestion."

They suggest some interesting recipes to support and nurture (or enhance!) the energetics of spring, including: sorrel soup; arugula soup; stuffed tomatoes; refreshing green salad; roasted bulghur with parsley; shrimp skewers; celery and tomato ragout; green beans with cherry tomatoes; tomatoes in walnut vinaigrette; chicken livers with braised greens; duck breasts in red currant sauce; fresh raspberries with creme fraiche; vegetable terrine with smoked salmon; sour cherry compote with cream; and hot spiced grapes.

Eating with the Seasons: Spring

Paul Pitchford, writing in the classic, Healing with Whole Foods: Oriental Traditions and Modern Nutrition, writes about suitable foods and their preparation for this time of year -- spring.  He writes:

This is the season to attend to the liver and gallbladder.  In spring we naturally eat less, or even fast, to cleanse the body of the fats and heavy foods of winter.  The diet should be the lightest of the year and contain foods which emphasize the yang, ascending, and expansive qualities of spring -- young plants, fresh greens, sprouts, and immature wheat or other cereal grasses.  Salty foods such as soy sauce, miso and sodium-rich meats all have a strong component of sinking energy and are best limited during springtime.  Too many heavy foods clog the liver, resulting in spring fits and fevers.

He adds,

The expansive, rising quality of sweet and pungent-flavored foods is recommended by the classics as a means of creating a personal spring within.  For this effect, one can use a little concentrated sweetener with pungent herbs, such as honey/mint tea.  The pungent cooking herbs -- basil, fennel, marjoram, rosemary, carraway, dill, bay leaf -- are desirable at this time.  Most of the complex carbohydrates such as grains, legumes and seeds have a primarily sweet flavor which increases with sprouting.  Young beets, carrots, and other sweet starchy vegetables, thinned from the spring garden, provide a refreshing sweet flavor.  Certain intensely pungent flavors are traditionally employed in the spring by Western folk healers as medicine: a week-long daily dose of raw onions and garlic acts as a vermifuge to rid the body of parasites.  A traditional Japanese parasiticide is the sweet-pungent combination of mochi and mugwort -- pounded sweet rice with mugwort.

WOOD - The Energy of Springtime

Here's a brief blurb that describes the energy of Springtime:

SPRING
Wood, the energy of spring, gives us the power of birth, growth and renewal. It enables us to move forward with vision and determination. Its function is to structure.

The Mainstreaming of Acupuncture

The Washington Post has an article today about leading American acupuncture school, Tai Sophia Institute, based in Laurel, Maryland.  (TAI SOPHIA offers graduate programs in acupuncture, herbal medicine, and applied healing arts.)  The article is fairly general, and somewhat focused on herbalism, but it's always interesting to see coverage of acupuncture in the mainstream press.  It definitely speaks to its growing acceptance among patients and even, gratefully, some other healthcare practitioners, including more conventionally-trained M.D.s.  The article does not particularly discuss five element acupuncture, a focus of the training at the Institute.  Click here for a link to the article, called "New Respect between East, West," by Cheryl Lyn Dybas.  Click here for a link to TAI SOPHIA itself.

Item about Five Element Healing in the News

The Knox Village Soup, of Rockland, Maine, has a news item about an acupuncturist giving a presentation about Taoist healing and the five elements at Camden, ME library.  Her name is Amy Jenner, and she's apaprently studied herbal medicine as well.   Here's the link to the news item.

Seasonal Cooking for Winter -- Nina Simonds

Nina Simonds can always be counted on for some great recipes, and in her groundbreaking book, A Spoonful of Ginger, she shares some wisdom about the seasonal diet for winter:

"Winter is the season when the yin element controls the climate; darkness and cold are the pervasive influences.  Foods that are particularly suited to this time of year are: brown rice, wheat, barley, millet and oats; kidney beans, adzuki beans, black beans, and pinto beans; carrots, onions, potatoes and seaweeds such as kelp and nori, lettuce, and bitter vegetables including endive and escarole; cranberries; halibut, bluefish, salmon, swordfish, claims, crab, chicken, beef and lamb; garlic, ginger, pepper and other pungent spices."

Her wonderful book includes some "sample winter menus" for "wilted spinach and mushroom salad, vindaloo lamb, and basic cooked white or brown rice;" "spicy fish stew, scallion pancakes, and two-spice vanilla tapioca pudding"; and "Chinese cinnamon barley soup, hot and sour cabbage slaw, curried tofu, and basic cooked white or brown rice."

Editor's Note: the photo is of cioppino, a spicy Italian tomato-based fish stew, with seafood.

Five Element Cooking -- for Winter

The book, "Feng Shui and the 5-Element Kitchen," talks about winter as "gathering forces for a new beginning  The recipes of this element nourish and strengthen your vital water energy." 

They suggest some interesting recipes to support and nurture (or enhance!) the energetics of winter, including: "calamari salad with zucchini and carrots," "adzuki bean salad with smoked salmon," "chestnut puree with cabbage," "miso soup," "carrot salad with oragnes," "mussel soup with barley sprouts," "seafood omelet," "soybeans with red peppers," "noodles with sprouted garbanzo beans," "smoked trout with potatoes two ways," "sushi with sole and cucumber," "sea bass with wild rice," "stuffed squid," "turbot with fennel gratin," and "saddle of venison with red wine shallots."  Are you sensing a theme here?  Most of these recipes seem to combine seafood with some other mild-flavored dish.  The flavor associated with the water element is "salty," so it's no surprise that seafood, much of which is caught from salt water, takes such prominence on this seasonal menu.

Note: In the cookbook, they also suggest ways in which each of these dishes is somehow enhancing the energetics of the season.  Cool!  This book and Nina Simond's book seem to be the only two that even make reference to the subject...

Eating with the Seasons: Winter

Paul Pitchford, writing in the classic, Healing with Whole Foods: Oriental Traditions and Modern Nutrition, writes about suitable foods and their preparation for this time of year -- winter.  He writes:

"Both the salty and bitter foods are appropriate for winter, since they promote a sinking, centering quality which heightens the capacity for storage.  Such foods also cool the exterior of the body and bring body heat deeper and lower; with a cooler surface, one notices the cold less.  However, use salt with care: an excess tightens the Water organs (kidneys and bladder), causing coldness and overconsumption of water, which weakens these organs and affects the heart as well.  Providing protection for the heart-mind in the winter is important can be accomplished with the addition of a few bitter foods, since their flavor is said to 'enter the heart'."

He adds,

"Most common bitter foods are not wholly bitter, but combinations of bitter and other flavors.  These foods include lettuce, watercress, endive, escarole, turnip, celery, asparagus, alfalfa, carrot top, rye, oats, quinoa, and amaranth.  The bitter flavor is also part of the protective coating of some foods, e.g., citrus peels and the outermost leaves of cabbage (seldom found on cabbage in supermarkets).  The strongest bitter qualities are in the herbal realm.  Common examples are chicory root, burdock root, horsetail, and chaparral.  Roasted, ground chicory is available as a major ingredient in many coffee substitutes.

Salty foods include miso, soy sauce (or the wheat-free version, Tamari), seaweeds, salt, millet, barley, plus any food made salty by the addition of salt.  Salt is over-used in the typical diet, while the bitter flavor is under-represented.  However, strong doses of bitter food are not needed except in the cases of certain imbalances, but small, regular amounts in winter nurture deep inner experiences and preserve joy in the heart.

He also cautions,

"After acclimating the body to winter with appropriate cooking methods and more salty and bitter foods, the cold person may still feel cold because of a lack of warming potential (yang) in the body.  In this case, add more warming foods (such as those listed later in the chapter under "kidney yang deficiency".)  Subjecting the healthy body to a little cold nourishes the kidney-adrenal function, but excess cold weakens it."