Remembering Herman This Father’s Day

Remembering Herman This Father’s Day                    

by Cynthia Briscoe
 
On Father’s Day, we honor the men in our lives who lifted us up when we fell and raised us with the hope we would grow to be strong, happy, resilient functioning adults. These values and more were centerpiece in Herman Aihara’s teaching, and for that reason I celebrate Herman this Father’s Day. Through his dedication, hard work, wise counsel and thought-provoking teaching style, he helped raise many of us “macrobiotically”. Generationally, Herman was a key link in carrying forward the lineage of macrobiotic teaching for future generations.

     For those of you who spent time with Herman, I hope these words bring smiles of recognition to your face. For those of you who never met Herman, I hope these words bring smiles to your face as well and convey something of Herman’s teaching spirit.
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The last evening of every two-week program at the Vega Study Center, Herman and his wife, Cornellia,  made it a point to join students and staff for the farewell celebration dinner. Many students passed through the Vega doors and many asked the same questions. Even though a hundred different students had asked Herman the same question, he still enthusiastically launched into an explanation as if this was the first time someone had posed this most interesting question.

I don’t exactly remember the preceding conversation, probably some question about insomnia or kidney health. All I remember is Herman’s response: “Night time, I go Infinity. Morning time, I come back.”

Herman had this way of understating something profound. He could ‘haiku’ a complex thought in very few words. He also had a habit of wrapping the words in a space large enough to magnify the thought. His teaching style was not one to aggressively launch into any immediate extrapolations. He would simply unmoor some dirigible thought and give it ample time to float around freely, watching to see where it might travel.

During this silent intermission, Herman passed his attention around the dinner table as generously as the food. Each person’s eyes were a destination along the way as his gaze travelled around the table, his eyes inextricably lit like a smile tickled free from some child within.

Next, he would typically lean back, peering skyward into some far off place like a fisherman who had cast his line and hooked a star. Then he would reel that thought back in and repeat the same question: “Night time, I go Infinity. Morning time, I come back.”

Sometimes, a brave soul would offer his or her reflection on his statement. Whatever the response, Herman considered it “veery inter-resting.” Even if it the response was way off the mark, he would simply say, “Aah. You think so?”

Revisiting that evening dinner and reflecting on it, Herman”s words still inspire me years later. I set forth these notions as an ongoing student with the caveat being that there is no solitary “correct” interpretation. I love it that Herman’s idea is still alive in its movement and evolution. So please carry your own thoughts forward.

At night, when we pull down the shades on our windows, we also pull down the shades on our active daytime mind. When we sleep, our minds rest in the infinite field of conscious vibration letting rest the waking consciousness of everyday living in the relative world – the world of me and mine, everyday worries, the concerns and doubts born of the bifurcate world.

At night, we lie in bed flat, receiving greater charge from the heavenly bodies. Our kidneys recharge. Our organs’ functions in general slow down to rest, cleanse and repair. Our discerning brains take a rest from daytime problem solving and logic. We exist more closely to our universal state of non-differentiation.

As the sun rises, so do we. We stand up vertically like a pole. This position inherently creates a greater polarized charge. The greater the polarization, the greater movement between two poles, stimulating activity. Consequentially, we are more physically active during the day. Our brain is more activated as well. We function more so from our ego state as a separate human entity rather than collectively.

Just to give a visual analogy, think of a vial filled with oil and water. Oil and water separate. In a vertical position, the demarcation of oil and water is very apparent. In a horizontal position, the oil and water separation is not as noticeable.

In the illustration to the left, the yellow and blue are the same in square area pixel size, both in the vertical and horizontal representations.

The Macrobiotic Guiding Principle is based upon the interplay of opposites. This interplay on a large scale originates from the influx of cosmic waves moving toward our planet, interacting dynamically with the energetic force spiraling outward from the earth’s rotation. Mixing up this energy in differing proportions of expanded and contracted energy waves gives rise to all phenomena as more dense physical form as well as non-physical form such as thoughts and feelings – indeed the whole playfulness of creation and consciousness.

This exquisite notion of playful awareness perhaps best describes Herman’s countenance when he posed thoughts or questions. His smile transmitted a child’s wonderment at the playful miracle that we even exist. His eyebrows would lift higher on his forehead like the tops of two question marks facing off with eyes completing the dots.

No doubt Herman resides in the infinite world

. Perhaps now though, he leans forward gazing from Infinity to this finite world, bemused and still smiling. I like to think he still enjoys fishing, casting a line of thought in our direction. I’m certain that he comes to visit now and again in the minds of his students where his poignant questions and sage humor still live. He visits particularly when one is needing counsel. Or when one is searching for a guiding principle larger than oneself, or maybe just exploring the next bend in the river. I feel that little tug and smile.

 “Life is veery inter-resting. You think so?”

Kukicha: Ya Gotta Love it! by Cynthia Briscoe

Ya Gotta Love It!  by Cynthia Briscoe

•  calcium                           
•  magnesium
•  potassium
•  phosphorus
•  iron
•  zinc
•  selenium
• copper
• fluorine
• manganese

• Aids digestion and helps prevent gastric ulcers.
• Slows aging.
• Improves skin health – acne, psoriasis, skin cancer, sun damage.
• Soothes the nervous system and enhances brain function.
• Prevention of certain types of cancer.
• Assists weight loss and weight management.
• Helps the liver and kidneys detox and eliminate waste.
• Lowers blood pressure, hypertension
• Heart health.
• Lowers cholesterol.
• Contains 2 ½ times more vitamin C than oranges.

Tis The Season: Persimmons

by Cynthia Briscoe

Yesterday I visited the persimmon tree in our back yard to perform what has become a winter welcoming ritual. I greet her with an upturned face, “Hello. Indeed you are breathtakingly beautiful today!”

She wears an exquisite sky-blue kimono patterned with crisscrossed bare twigs, like the leaded veins of a stained glass window. The twig and sky pattern compliment an overlay of deep orange fruit suspended like glowing ember-lit lanterns.

She welcomes my adoration with generosity, offering a jewel-ripe fruit. This is her custom to all who come to admire her, birds and beasts alike. I snip the fruit free. Her apparel now has one less persimmon adorning it.

The first bite of sweetness is always a little shocking, like jumping into a cold mountain stream. Her laughter reminds me of a wind chime, and we exchange pleasantries in a language consisting primarily of vowels and consonants that express throaty satisfaction and enjoyment like, “Aaah,” “ooh” and “mm.”

One should note, however, that as well as being so elegantly sweet, she also has a bit of the prankster in her. Without proper introduction, she tempts the initiate persimmon sampler to bite one of her unripe offerings. The astringency has the unique ability to temporarily pucker one’s mouth like gray flannel and cause the tongue to scrape the roof of the mouth like scraping muddy shoes onto a bootjack. This time, “persimmon-ese” vocabulary is limited to vowels and consonants that shape the mouth into a pucker and close off the throat: “Wow!… Aaugh…Oh no!”

The funny facial contortions elicit her laughter as well. She usually plays this joke only once. The initiation is well worth it though, as one quickly learns to read fully ripe signs and be rewarded with the delicious sweetness of her affection.

Birds have no problem reading the signs. They know to peck at only the very softest fruit. All sorts of birds flock to her branches to feast on ripe persimmons, adding and subtracting elements from her ever-changing kimono.

My favorite, though, are the hummingbirds’ darting beaks needling the ripe fruit like a delectable pincushion. After so many punctures and feedings, the fruit loosens from its mooring and splats on the ground below. None is wasted as the insects take over.

How to Choose a Persimmon

The two most common varieties of persimmon are the Hachiya and Fuju. The tree we have is a Hachiya. To enjoy those fruits fresh, one must be patient for the full ripening. The Hachiya should feel squishy like an under-filled water balloon. They are deee-licious eaten fresh or incorporated into cakes, cookies or pudding. They will become sweet when picked firm, peeled and dried.  The Fuju have a sweet, crunchy texture and may be eaten raw when still firm. The Fuju variety is more commonly available commercially

Because the persimmon color is such a rich, warm orange, one might think the fruit itself would be warming to eat. If you pick a soft, ripe persimmon from the tree, it is delicious indeed. However, you might curiously note that the fruit seems colder than the surrounding temperature. That’s because persimmon has a “cold” energy signature.

Cornellia told me once that the emperor’s courtesans were forbidden to eat persimmon, especially when pregnant

.  She said the reason was because the cold energy of persimmon cools ‘the womb’ and if eaten in excess, could cause miscarriage.

Does this mean that one should never eat persimmon? No, not necessarily. Just don’t overdo it. Eating more than two or three fresh persimmons could give you diarrhea! However, the cooling energy of this wintery fruit can be beneficial to ‘hot’ conditions like hemorrhoids, a hot, dry, barking cough, for dissolving internal blood clots, or treating hiccoughs and hangovers.

The cold energy of persimmons can also be balanced through cooking and combining with warming combinations of ingredients. For example, cakes or cookies made with persimmon may be seasoned with warming spices such as cinnamon, clove, ginger or nutmeg. This is a delicious combination.

In the fall, Cornellia would dry persimmons to use throughout the year. Some were used for cooking, some for pickling and some for medicine. Cornellia often kept me in supply of dried persimmon when our children were young, as she recommended dried persimmon tea for fevers in children. For New Year’s celebration, Cornellia frequently made a pressed salad with thin matchstick daikon and dried persimmon.

Wild Shiso “Guerilla Gardening”

Wild Shiso “Gorilla Gardening”
    by Cynthia Briscoe

My friend, Cynthia Vann, inspired the following plot, actually two plots. The first is a lush plot: a plot of shiso. And secondly, is a totally different kind of plot, a plot to counter pharmaceuticals. The guerilla gardener in me stirred and then with hairy knuckles began beating her chest and bellowing out a mighty Tarzan yodel.

You might ask how Cynthia Vann inspired such a response.   Cynthia Vann is a longtime friend, cookbook author, and  currently a student in our Healing Chef Training Training  Course. One of the course projects is to research a
macrobiotic food product and share the results with the
class.  She chose to research shiso and sent a photo of her  successful garden bed of purple shiso.

I must admit that I was a little jealous of her shiso success,  as many of my attempts to grow shiso in our tiny yard have  been thwarted by the searing summers of northern California.

My shiso plants have been small, and they bolt  when the heat hits triple digits shortly into the growing  season.  Every year I have big dreams and high hopes for  lush shiso plants. Each year I learn a new gardening lesson  in growing shiso here in the Sacramento Valley.

Two years ago I had semi success when another friend, Keiko, gave me some 6-inch shiso plants from her yard, both the purple and the green varieties. The plants grew large enough to supply shiso for some meals, but not enough to add to the large crocks of umeboshi in the basement longing for purple shiso. (Purple shiso is what gives the umeboshi its red color.) These plants grew nicely during our short spring, but as soon as the heat turned up, the plants bolted, flowered and busied themselves producing seeds. The leaves grew tough and not viable to add to the umeboshi.

I saved seeds and tried again the next spring. Zillions of baby shiso “dicot” sprouts sprouted. However, when I checked them the next morning, there were none to be found! What happened?

Like a good detective, I followed nearby pearlescent slimy trails to discover fat, satiated snails and slugs snoozing during the day in beds of shady vegetation. These ravenous, nocturnal stealth-grazers had acquired a gastronomical affinity for the complex flavor bouquet shiso offers with its bright minty/anise flavor. I couldn’t fault them for their good taste.

I tried all kinds of snail foils – buried cans filled with stale beer, upside down flowerpots covering the baby shiso, and diatomaceous earth. I even had neighbors saving eggshells to crumble and surround plant perimeters. I began a campaign to catch and release buckets of snails collected during flashlight night patrols or after a rain.

All these snail foils foiled. The snails tunneled under flowerpots, even when weighted with rocks on top. This was a lot of work because the pots would have to be removed during the day and replaced at night. I cut the tops off plastic pots thinking to avert their tunneling and pushed the pots deep into the soil. These acrobatic snails still managed to infiltrate.

Eggshells and diatomaceous earth did not deter them. Relocating buckets of snails was not enough to counter their fertile reproduction. Maybe they were just extra healthy snails due to consumption of shiso!

Here are some of the impressive health-giving qualities Cynthia Vann noted in her research. As you can see, shiso is a valuable medicinal food.

• Shiso is antiviral and selectively anti-bacterial. It eliminates pathogenic bacteria, while supporting commensal (beneficial) bacteria.

• Shiso protects against food poisoning. That’s why shiso leaves often garnish the plate for sashimi, just incase the fish is not the freshest. In some Asian countries, shiso is used to preserve food.

• Shiso has anti-inflammatory properties and protects against atherosclerosis and stroke.

• Shiso suppresses coughs, eases cold and flu symptoms, headaches, general nausea and morning sickness during pregnancy.

• Shiso reduces the severity of allergic reaction.

When David and I lived in Kansas City before moving to California, Herman and Cornellia Aihara would come to Kansas City to teach and stay in our home. One morning, very early I went outside to find Cornellia with the cuffs of her Japanese trousers rolled up higher than the dew-ladened vegetation. She was happily picking a bouquet of something from one of the wooded areas of our yard.

She was very excited and thrusted the plants toward my nose, shouting, “Shiso! Shiso! Lots of!” I had never heard of shiso. My first taste of shiso was what Cornellia served with breakfast that morning. She placed a small bit of white miso in the center of a shiso leaf and deftly bundled it into a neat little package. Then she sautéed the bundles to be eaten with bites of rice. So yummy!

Here we had about a half-acre of shiso growing. I had walked over the plants for many years, because I had grown up in that house, as had my mother. But where did the shiso come from? If my grandfather had planted it, my mother would have taught me about it, as she loved to do with every other plant and tree on the property.

Then someone told me that the many Chinese workers who had helped build railroads often planted, or scattered seeds along the railways to insure the availability of fresh shiso for their use. Indeed there was an abandoned railroad rite-of-way that traversed one side of the property. How amazing! This railroad was put in around the turn of the century and the shiso still lived on, having reseeded themselves after nearly a century.

Last summer, I visited a dear friend who lives in a rural area 35 miles from Kansas City, near a small town named Tonganoxie. One day we went for a walk in the town park, as she wanted to know if I could identify a plant growing wild there. Lo and behold, it was shiso! The same rail line that once ran through my family’s property also continued on to run through Tonganoxie.

Carol and I were both deeply impressed by the generational longevity of this plant with its quiet and determined strength to survive. The local rail line that once connected the dots of small rural towns surrounding Kansas City, Kansas for travelers to conduct business, visit relatives on the farm, or just go for a picnic in the countryside was long gone. A few curious linear segments of mounded earth that once supported timbered ties and steel rails and where coal cinders still wash up to the surface, remain in undeveloped areas such as our old home or the park in Tonganoxie. “Stronger than a steam-powered locomotive”, these surviving naturalized colonies of shiso plants bear witness, connecting the dots of history and this plant’s connection to humans. Perhaps that is why Asian culture also attributes this plant to longevity along with appreciation for its healthful qualities and culinary value.

So when, Cynthia Vann offered to send me a package containing thousands of seeds from her shiso, it inspired the two-pronged plot mentioned earlier. To fulfill the first plot of growing shiso locally, I can now grow shiso in my garden to my hearts content…and even have enough for the snails to enjoy! And like the Chinese railworkers of bygone days, I’ll distribute some seeds along the railroad tracks or along the riverbanks here in Oroville. Then, if someone suffers a headache, nausea or food poisoning, they can simply take a walk along the river and pick their ‘food medicine’ and cook it up in a delicious meal. Thus, the second plot, the one to counter the pharmaceutical industry, might also succeed.

Seed of a Seed article Life Lessons Taught by an Umeboshi Pit

The Seed of a Seed
     Life lessons taught by an umeboshi pit.

   by Cynthia Briscoe 

                            

     There’s a tiny spark, a potent intelligence that lies dormant, indestructible, despite all logic. It lies patiently coiled until the awakened moment when the serpent springs forth. I witnessed this phenomenon this spring – a lesson taught firsthand by an umeboshi.

      “What?” “Huh?” “What on earth are you talking about?” These might be some common responses to what I’ve written so far. Bear with me, and please be as patient an umeboshi, because you carry that same ‘Seed of a Seed’ that an umeboshi carries.

Late winter-early spring 2017 erupted in chaos as the teeter-totter of extremes rebalanced. The past 5 years here in Northern California have been a period of extreme drought. Lake Oroville, that normally holds 3 ½ million cubic acres of water, had wasted to practically nothing. Then the drought ended with record rainfall. The 800-foot deep lake swelled to overfull, and the world’s 2^nd largest earthen dam (2^nd only to the Aswan Dam in Egypt) became compromised. The force of water released at 100,00 cubic feet per second tore loose the lower half of the aged main spillway. The lake filled beyond capacity and water gushed over a second, auxiliary, spillway (a non-reinforced hillside), washing away soil and threatening to unleash a 60-foot wall of water over the town below where we live.

Mandatory evacuation was ordered. Folks had a frantic one-hour notice to locate family members, load up pets, valuables and emergency supplies. Evacuation routes were clogged with crawling traffic. Some poor souls were walking, carrying a few belongings in plastic grocery bags. No government plan was in place to assist elderly or disabled persons to leave. Emergency information was disorganized, unreliable and incomplete. The town once full of activity emptied. There was a palpable, eerie atmosphere of apocalyptic abandonment. A few bewildered cats left behind meowed in alleyways. Even the sound of birds was silenced. Folks clung to any local news conferences for information as to whether their homes would be safe or not. You could leave town, but not return, as incoming roads were blocked. It was an atmosphere of fear and shock.

     Unbeknownst to me, at the same time we were all caught up in the evacuation, a contrasting story of nature’s order and quiet strength was at play. Amid all the chaos, umeboshi pits were calmly swelling and sprouting, breaking free from their hard shells, in our backyard garden. These were no ordinary seeds. They had been pickled in 18% salt by weight and preserved since 1999!
 
…to be continued in part 2

The Seed of a Seed, Part 2
Life lessons taught by an umeboshi pit
by Cynthia Briscoe
For those readers who have never heard of an umeboshi, let me briefly explain. Umeboshi is the very salty, very sour pickled fruit from an ume tree. Ume trees are highly respected and cherished in Eastern cultures. The trees flowering in spring are celebrated with the same admiration as we view the cherry blossoms in Washington, DC.

The small apricot-looking fruit never becomes juicy or sweet. Even at its ripest, ume fruit remains very sour. Ume is harvested while still green, before it turns a blushing yellow. To make umeboshi, the fruit is layered with a whopping proportion of 18% sea salt to ume by weight for a minimum of 2 years.

The resulting pickle, called umeboshi, holds great healing power. I sometimes refer to it as a “macrobiotic medicine cabinet”, as umeboshi remedies such a broad spectrum of ailments such as indigestion, diarrhea, hangovers, arthritis, headaches, shortens cold and flu cycles, sore throats, bladder infection, insomnia – the list goes on and on. George Ohsawa called the umeboshi “the King of Alkaline” and that perhaps is one of the main chemistry factors of an umeboshi’s outstanding healing capability.

At the Vega Study Center, we had an u
me orchard. Every year Cornellia Aihara and the staff would pickle a hundred pounds or so of umeboshi. At two stages in the two-year process of making umeboshi, the umeboshi are removed from the crock and spread single layer across flat baskets or bamboo mats for three days. Each individual umeboshi is hand-turned daily to further dry and concentrate the salt before returning to the crock. If some of the fruit used was a little overripe, the umeboshi meat slides off the pit. Those pits were discarded into the garden. Even though these pits were heavily salted for anywhere from 3 months to a year, we had umeboshi seedlings coming up around the perimeter of the property that escaped the lawnmower.

Cornellia told me that these seedlings had grown from the discarded umeboshi pits. I was skeptical and cautiously withheld amazement. Was this really possible for the salty pits to sti
ll be viable? Experience has proved this to be true on two additional occasions.
I dug one of the Vega saplings and planted it at our home to honor the birth of our youngest daughter, Ana, in 1991. Cornellia told me that an ume tree grown from seed would take 15 years to bear fruit, while a grafted tree would take 8 years. I waited patiently as the years passed. The tree produced beautiful dark pink blossoms each year in early January, but has only produced a single ume fruit in 26 years.

In 2008, I began making my own umeboshi. I too, discarded the salty pits from damaged umeboshi into the compost bin. The next year after distributing the compost in various flower beds and flowerpots, many ume seedlings began to grow. Even though I had my doubts whether any of these saplings would ever produce fruit, however I gave them free reign to grow wherever they chose. This was the second time I had witnessed pickled umeboshi pits sprouting.

This year, to my great excitement, one of these 9 year-old trees flowered for the first time: a dancing petticoat of abundant white blossoms. I marveled and then forgot about it as the urgency of a flood evacuation took my attention away from ume blossoms.

Sometime after returning home, I passed by the ume tree. It was now bare of blossoms. Wait! What? Can it be true? Yes! Tiny ume fruit had formed! I was beside myself after waiting 26 years for “Ana’s ume tree” to set fruit. Yet here it was. Finally I had my own fruit-bearing ume tree. Somehow, even with all the constant rain, the bees had managed to pollinate the flowers and at last there were fruit!
I bubbled, danced and immediately called David, who was working in Texas. I sent pictures as proof. I texted group announcements to our kids like a proud parent who had just given birth, as if I had anything to do with it.

Then I noticed something else. What was that? Is it possible?

There were about a dozen baby ume sprouts. To me, they looked strong and very proud of themselves. In my imagination they were ‘flexing their muscles’ after laboring to crack open the thick, hard shell in order to be born. Half shell casings littered the ground around the small trees. The smooth interiors of their half cradles now lay like empty sockets looking up to the sky. Each tiny tree stood with half an almond-like ‘placenta’ still attached on either side like saddlebags on a Harley.

Then it dawned on me. These seedlings hatched from umeboshi made by Cornellia in 1999! Those were the only umeboshi we had eaten for the past 6 years. Someone had tossed the contents of the kitchen compost bucket over the garden fence rather than walking a few extra steps to empty the bucket into the main compost bin. This area of the garden had not been turned or worked for a few years. These particular umeboshi pits had sunbathed and baked in the hot sun during the drought.

How could it be that 18-year old umeboshi pits hold their vitality and still sprout? What is the potency of a “seed within a seed” that brings forth new life?

To be continued in Part 3.

Raspberry Sorbet with Heart-Shaped Chocolate Chip Cookies

Raspberry Sorbet & Heart-Shaped Chocolate Chip Cookiess

SORBET INGREDIENTS

3 cups frozen raspberries
a small pinch of lemon zest
1 1/2 cups brown rice syrup (or 1 cup amber agave syrup)
1/2 cup water
(if using the 1 cup of agave, use 1 cup water)

INSTRUCTIONS

(Prepare your ice cream maker in advance.)

1. Combine rice syrup (or agave), and water in saucepan over medium heat. Cook over medium heat until flavors blend – about 10 minutes.
2. Strain and set aside to cool slightly

   You want it to be warm, but not boiling.

3. When cooled, combine your liquid and frozen raspberries in a blender or food processor.
4. Pulse until the mixture is very smooth.
5. Strain the raspberry mixture through a fine mesh strainer to get out all seeds and remaining solids. This will take a little effort. It helps to push mixture through with a rubber spatula.
6. Mixture should be cool from the frozen raspberries, but if it is warm, put in the the refrigerator to cool for an hour.
7. Once the mixture is cooled, start up the ice cream maker and add in the mixture with the pinch of lemon zest.
8. Once your sorbet becomes the consistency of soft serve, you’re done.
9. Serve immediately, or freeze overnight in an airtight container for a more solid sorbet.

Heart-Shaped Chocolate Chip Cookies

There are dozens of vegan cookie recipes on the internet, including chocolate chip ones. Just shape each into a heart before baking.

Here is one of our chocolate chip cookie favorites, with a shout out of thanks to Christina Pirello….

Fermentation + Macrobiotic Principles = Eat Local & Seasonal Microbes by Cynthia Briscoe

Fermentation + Macrobiotic Principles =
Eat “Local & Seasonal Microbes”

by Cynthia Briscoe

Macrobiotic guidelines are founded upon natural order. One such guideline is to eat local and seasonal foods. The premise is that food produced in the area in which you live is inherently synchronized with the climate zone,  weather patterns and soil matrix. By ingesting local foods, we align our health with these particulars. To me, there is additional unsung benefit of eating locally and seasonally grown foods: We also partake of the indigenous microbes of the region.

The majority of food consumed is a jumble of cross-country products shipped east to west, north to south, and from different hemispheres. The modern profit-drive food industry entices everyone to join in the grab-bag chaos of processed convenience foods, mass produced sterile foods, fragments from whole foods, and even so-called “frankenfood” chemically constructed in laboratories. Unwittingly, people are constructing their cells, tissue and organs from this food removed from its natural origins. From these deconstructed foods, we attempt to put back the missing pieces with supplements and repair the damage with pharmaceuticals. Also damaged within the chain of modern food supply are health-giving microbes.

Within the last 15 years, technological advancements in DNA sequencing have exploded microbe identification and the mapping of the human microbiome (the composition, diversity, and ecology of microbes in and on the human body) previously not possible. The relationship of our health to the health of our human microbiome is unfolding as this unseen world is now being observed. Microbiologists believe that of the 100 trillion cells that compose our body, only 10% of those cells are human. The rest is all microbes! It only seems logical that that the healthy ecology of our personal microbes would benefit our individual health.

Who are we really if 90% of our DNA is microbial DNA? How does the health and diversity of our microbe community affect our health? This is certainly an interesting question. The microbe mapping is well underway, but the relationship of the human microbiome to human health is yet in the frontier stage of data collection and interpretation. Down the road, science hopes to connect the dots between diet and a healthy human microbiome. In the future, scientists predict that when we go for a medical checkup, instead of drawing blood, we will have our microbiome analyzed and adjusted.

Regardless of where you live, what nationality, or occupation, if you compare yourself to another human, you share 99.9% of your human genetic DNA. However, if you compare yourself to another human in terms of your microbiome, you share only 10% of your microbes respectively. As individual members of the human race, we are practically identical in our DNA composition. However, perhaps our unique individual identity lies within the composition of microbes that we host. Respectively that composition is greatly influenced by what kinds of food we choose to eat and how and where that food was produced.

Family members that live together and eat together share greater commonality in their microbiome. The air in our home, touching the food while preparing it, and even our pets contribute to the unique collective microbial ecology that family members share

By cooking together and eating together we may be sharing a whole lot more than conversation.

One significant way to increase your microbe health and diversity is to prepare your own fermented foods, in your own kitchen, from local organic produce. How much more “local and seasonal” can that be? Regular consumption of these naturally fermented foods, paired with a whole food diet can reverse a plethora of current health patterns such as inflammation, gluten sensitivity, heart disease, diabetes, depression, arthritis, diabetes…the list goes on and on.

Watch for the new online version of our “Make Your Own Fermented Foods Course” coming soon! If you’d like to be notified when this online course is available, email us at  info@macroamerica.com.

“Peach-boshi” (Part 2) by Cynthia Briscoe

“Peach-boshi” (Part 2) by Cynthia Briscoe

In a previous post, we discussed the idea of substituting green peaches to replace the ume fruit traditionally used to make umeboshi. Not too many folks have an ume tree growing in their yard, but they might have access to an apricot tree or a peach tree. A few Japanese-specific grocers may sell fresh ume fruit in June, but again, this proves to be an exceptional find and is most likely not organic.

When David and I lived in Kansas City, I ordered three ume trees from a nursery in Washington. The Midwest is actually not conducive to growing ume, but in my youthful enthusiasm, I planted them regardless. The trees will live, but very rarely do they bear fruit. Late frosts, common to the region, freeze the blossoms and consequently, no fruit will be produced that year. I found a good rule of thumb before planting an ume tree is to find out whether apricots grow locally, since apricots are the closest relative to ume. Also check with your Agricultural Extension Service concerning the growing success for apricots. Much to my chagrin, I discovered that in Kansas City, apricot trees bear fruit once every 7 to 11 years! So much for growing and making my own umeboshi in Kansas!  Perhaps though, if I had been more creative, I could have made “peach-boshi”.

Here in California, our ume tree blooms in January. Our peach tree blooms later in the spring. It has never failed to produce fruit, but even here, the ume blossoms sometimes receive frost. Often the ume blossom time here corresponds with many solid days of rain, making it impossible for the bees to get out and pollinate.

Due to my love of summer peaches, it seems a little sacrilegious to pick all the peaches green.  So I plan to pick some of the peaches while they are still green to make “peach-boshi”, and leave the rest to mature and ripen.  Then I can enjoy “peach-boshi” and fresh sweet peaches, too!

Another necessary component in making umeboshi or “peach-boshi” is an herb called shiso. Shiso is also known as perilla or beefsteak. The purple shiso is the variety used to impart the red color to umeboshi. Shiso is very rich in iron and calcium. It also boasts anti-bacterial properties

Traditionally, fresh shiso leaves are served as a garnish with sushi containing raw fish, as it protects against fish poisoning, just in case the fish is tainted.

     Shiso is easy to grow your own shiso in any climate. Seeds can be ordered online. Once you establish a patch of shiso, it reseeds itself and will return year after year. Plant in the spring and it will be ready to harvest in August.

Simple Qigong Exercise For Cooling Down

This simple qigong exercise can be done at home
It’s can cool down an over-heated heart on a hot day.

How To Begin Macrobiotics

Through macrobiotics you can take daily steps to transform your life into a celebration and an adventure, doing what you want to do,  on a stable foundation of physical health and mental clarity. For the one who really wants an adventurous life,  macrobiotics awaits you.

There are five steps we want to suggest as follows:

1. Study macrobiotic principles to see if they make sense to you and if they are something you want to use freely and creatively in your own life.

2. Supply your kitchen with macrobiotic food.

3
Prepare macrobiotic meals daily.

4. Eat your macrobiotic meals with appreciation while also practicing good chewing.

5. Live the life you want, creatively, adventurously, with gusto and without hesitation, using macrobiotic principles as your guide.

The above five are the foundation of a macrobiotic practice.