Digestive Disorders
Breakfast Congee Ideas
For anyone who is vegan, sensitive to eggs, or just dislikes them, here is a breakfast idea I’ve been experimenting with, both for the sake of variety and, well… experimentation.
In China, (white) rice congee is a common breakfast, often with egg and pickled vegetables, although I realize in the States rice is rather vilified for being a simple carb and high on the glycemic index. While this might be the case, it is also a food that is very gentle on the stomach and internal organs, which from our perspective aids in absorption and digestion, and in the proper dosages can be beneficial. However, for those who can’t get past the glycemic index, I recommend using quinoa, millet, or amaranth.
1 cup of your grain of choice
5 cups of liquid (if you’re going to make the sweeter, I recommend some kind of dairy-free milk—if you’re going for the probably healthier, more Oriental style I recommend just water or either vegetable, beef, or chicken broth) Oils don’t mix as well with the sweet flavors so if you’re making the sweeter version be sure to stir often so as to avoid sticking to the pot.
Boil and simmer about 15-25 minutes, or until it is the consistency of porridge.
Treat the sweet version like you would oatmeal: Top with berries, granola, as little maple syrup as you can discipline yourself to, cinnamon, and/or nuts if you like.
For the Asian version I recommend leftover vegetables and/or pickled cabbage or kraut. Plus, an over-easy or boiled egg if you want the best of all worlds.
Enjoy warm if possible! For those of us with babies or toddlers, we long for the days when we will return to eating hot food.
Whatever you eat, EAT BREAKFAST. I cannot stress this enough. They said breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it is, not because grandma said it, but because science and biology do. Here is a link to an NIH study correlating the skipping of breakfast with increased insulin resistance and risk for diabetes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246451/
I like coffee as much as anyone, but coffee alone (or with a piece of toast) is not breakfast. Protein and/or fat should be consumed, preferably in great quantity.
Nor do I doubt the potential benefits of intermittent fasting, but it is more biologically aligned to skip dinner—not breakfast. If this is impossible, maybe a later breakfast, like 9am? Supposedly, any longer than 2-3 hours after waking constitutes “skipping breakfast,” which is to say the insulin resistant mechanism is set in motion by that time.
If you have no appetite for breakfast this probably indicates your dinner being not fully digested and some metabolic syndrome at work. Please reach out—or try licorice and/or ginger tea 🙂
Tom Brady & Nightshade Vegetables
If he isn’t universally considered the greatest football player of all time, he’s at least objectively the most successful. Supposedly, one of Tom Brady’s secrets to success was an extremely strict diet, which was about 80% plant-based, organic, paleolithic, with abstinence from sugar, alcohol, soy, condiments, frozen foods, gluten, and nightshade vegetables.
Nightshade vegetables include white potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, and bell peppers, and although all of these contain nutrients, they also contain a compound called solanine, a natural pesticide that can be toxic in high concentrations. People with irritable bowel, autoimmune, and/or arthritic conditions can be more vulnerable to solanine’s adverse effects—in Chinese medical terms, it creates dampness, or inflammation in the gut, which gets sent “outwards” to our joints. As someone who has battled gout disease off and on for twenty years, I’ve recently decided to experiment with nightshade abstinence. When it comes to self-experimentation, I generally recommend and adhere to the rule of the life cycle of a red blood cell, which is 120 days, or about four months, so I’ll let you know how things are when I reach the finish line.
Potatoes are an easy workaround, since sweet potatoes are safe, not to mention healthier overall, and delicious. I’ll miss French fries, but I’m an adult, and let’s be honest, they’re probably one of the worst things we can possibly eat. Eggplant and peppers are generally easy to avoid, but tomatoes will be tough. I love sauce and meatballs, not to mention a good caprese salad as we approach the season, however I do not love any of these things as much as I do my internal organs. Potential workarounds in said Italian realm are sauceless meatballs (+olive oil), pesto sauces, or garlic and oil primaveras, the latter of which sans peppers of course.
In playing with diet, I’ve found the same benefit I once did when imposing creative restrictions on myself as a comedian many years ago. For example, at one point I chose to not do or write any jokes about race anymore, simply because they’d become so ubiquitous and hacky on the circuit. I got so bored of hearing them that I couldn’t bring myself to perpetuate the problem, no matter how unique I thought a particular idea of mine was. By “censoring” myself in this way I think I became a superior writer, forced to think harder and write more imaginatively. Similarly, when we omit certain foods from our diet, we might be forced to broaden our horizons (just use Google!), expand our minds and at-home menus, and probably discover new foods that we love, and more importantly love us in return.
If you suffer from any chronic joint pain, autoimmune, or intestinal condition I would invite you to join in my self-experiment and see how your body feels. You/we don’t have to commit to forever. Just four months to intelligently reassess. If you prefer to wait until after tomato season you can enjoy throughout the summer, begin after Labor Day, and resume nightshade indulgences again for the winter holidays. As humans go, it seems the second most common time of year to clean up our acts after New Year’s is the end of summer, in the wake of vacations, ballgames, beers, and barbeques.
None of us can become Tom Brady on the football field, but it would be nice if our internal organs and systems could be as close as possible to the Tom Brady’s of our bodies. As we weaken with age, I believe the most logical antidote is strength in discipline, in hopes of maximizing physical freedom through restrictions or subtraction. Less is more, as they say, a fine maxim to default to under the spell of American food.
Is Green Tea Healthy (for you)?
In the western world we are often guilty of over-polarizing and labeling. This political viewpoint is good, that one is bad, this diet is healthy, that one is not. Further on that point, one food is healthy—while that one is not.
While there are many foods that can be oversimplified and universally agreed upon—refined sugars are pretty much always bad and steamed vegetables good—most others depend on the dose, the patient, and time of year. For example, red meat in the winter for an anemic girl trying to conceive is eons more advisable than it is in the summer for an overweight male alcoholic trying to tame his heartburn. Also from a Chinese medical perspective, eating 5-6 ounces of red meat 1-3 times a week alongside vegetables will have an infinitely different systemic effect than 16 ounces 3-5 times a week alongside bread.
Green tea and kale have earned great reputations in the west, polarized as “good,” labeled “healthy,” and presumed to help anyone who consumes them, no matter the body type or time of year. From a Chinese medical perspective: False.
Almost anyone who’s ever drank green tea on a completely empty stomach has experienced the nausea or queasiness its bitter properties can induce. Bitter foods and herbs, while integral to a healthy diet and our pharmacopeia, are harsh on the stomach and less advisable for “Tai Yin” patients—those with weaker, more vulnerable stomachs. Such people generally do better with hot black teas, such as pu-erh or Earl Grey.
When written into herbal formulas, bitters are generally dosed lower and balanced with acrid and/or sweet-flavored herbs. This doesn’t mean to always consume your green tea with sweets, but it is that much more encouraged to never be drank cold or on an empty stomach. In fact, green is the one kind of tea we might encourage to take with honey—that is as long as you’re not the snob that I am, in refusal to corrupt any tea (or coffee) with outside flavors.
The same principle applies to kale. While undoubtedly possessing of all the literal health benefits it claims to, kale is a bitter green, therefore a bit more difficult to digest than other veggies. For this reason, it is important to always consume cooked, with warming spices, such as garlic, onions, or ginger to aid in proper metabolism. I’m not sure about honey on kale—maybe in the context of a salad—although in that case the raw food might cancel out any benefits of the honey. Better to have it with rice or yams to balance your “formula.”
According to teachers, green tea is best taken hot, more in the summer than winter, and more after a night of red meat and/or alcohol to sort of “drain” the heat that these foods create in the gut. Personally, I almost always drink green tea the morning after I go to baseball games! In these instances, the benefits far outweigh its “side effects.”
Please fall victim as infrequently as possible to the idea that certain foods are always healthy or unhealthy. This is rarely the case, also rare that the opinion of the general American public on anything health-related is accurately informed. If you have any questions about a particular food, please don’t hesitate to ask. And don’t take too much kale or green tea.
Tips for Resting & Digesting (food)
It’s nice to eat nice foods—expensive and high quality foods—organic foods, locally grown, homemade, etc. But it isn’t just about what we eat, but how we eat, that will maximize the conversion of our food into nutrients, which will convert into globally good health.
Whether you use your hands or utensils is up to you and your social circle, but across the board everyone advises chewing our food until it is liquefied in our mouths. This is for the same rationale that Eastern medicines recommend warm and cooked foods—they are easier to digest. Whenever I bribe my toddler with dark chocolate, cheese, or bread, she’s suddenly lightning fast at shoveling two handfuls of vegetables into her mouth in anticipation of her treat; my wife and I have to remind her, almost like a cheerleading chant: “Chew, chew, chew!” “Mastica!”
Each organ channel has its many correspondences, to particular seasons, colors, of the five elements, as well as shapes. The spleen and stomach are ruled by circles (and the color yellow), which means the ideal way to eat and digest is at a roundtable (of loved ones), I suppose with a yellow tablecloth. Ironically, such interior design would likely make my wife vomit.
The point is, we supposedly metabolize our foods that much better when seated surrounded by the company of loved ones. This might explain why many cultures that are known more for their tight-knit communities than their health-conscious diets, live late into life before experiencing any ailments or disease.
Finally, and most importantly in my opinion, is the parasympathetic nervous system cliche of “rest and digest.” It’s not in our power to have a big family meal 21 times a week. Most of us are super busy, eating on the go, if not at least shoving the last bite of food into our mouths like my daughter, before standing up to pay the check, throwing our coats on, and rushing back to work. Unfortunately, in such cases, one will likely absorb only about half of the nutrients they otherwise would have had they just sat for 10-20 minutes after finishing. Needless to say, over time this can be dangerous.
My understanding is it should take at least 15 minutes to eat our food, plus 15 minutes afterwards to sit and digest. Depending on our energy levels, this can be followed by either a 15-minute walk or a 15-minute cat nap, as they do in Europe (though theirs’ is more like an hour). My wife told me about a study that contrasted the blood sugar levels in two groups against one another after eating identical meals, where the one that took 20 minutes to eat it showed a much lower glucose spike than the one that ate the same food rapidly.
On my busy days, which is every day, I try to make a habit of looking at the clock after my last bite and not allowing myself to get up until at least 15 minutes later. Although the general consensus is it is bad to look at screens while eating, my opinion is it is better to use the phone for a few minutes to bide the digestive time window than it is to get up and physically rush out.
Work-induced stress and anxiety compromises our health enough without allowing it to directly interfere with our organs and metabolism. I encourage everyone to take the 30 minutes three times every day to properly rest and digest!
Sweet Potato Congee for Winter
Happy New Year, all! As we continue through one of the worst cold and flu seasons in recent memory, 2020 notwithstanding, I’ll begin with a recipe.
Sweet potato congee with red dates, honey added if desired (and who won’t?):
1 large chopped sweet potato
1 cup of rice, rinsed please
8 cups of water
10-30 grams of red dates sliced open (closer to 10g if you have a “damp heat” body type or pathology—closer to 30g if you are the frail and pale type with tendency to insomnia and/or heart palpitations).
Bring to boil and simmer uncovered for about 40 minutes, or until the consistency is as above, like a porridge. In Asia most people take it a bit more watery than this, but either way is fine. Plate and drizzle honey on top to taste.
Although white rice is mostly vilified by Western dietitians, in Eastern Medicine we believe that the gentle support it provides to the internal organs is imperative for optimizing the absorption of all accompanying ingredients, also at generating the healthy stomach fluids needed for digestion. Without strong metabolism we cannot build blood or create nutrients. Without blood we cannot live—more relevant, with subjectively deficient blood all of our parasympathetic functioning may weaken and we may flirt with anemia.
If you are strongly averse to (white) rice, you can absolutely try making this with quinoa, millet, or farro. Risotto or orzo, unfortunately, will not work.
The Eastern Medical diet is somewhat diametrically opposite to that of raw vegans. Besides encouraging at least small amounts of animal protein, we believe the best way to optimize health is through low, slow, and long cooking of foods to extract all nutrients into the dish and make them easy for our guts to process. Anything cold or damp, such as ice, sugar, or alcohol should at least wait until after the food has been consumed and processed for at least 15-30 minutes whenever possible. Which means all of our mothers were correct in echoing the concept of not “spoiling our dinner” by having sweets first. The adult parallel to this might be cautioning to limit drinks before dinner.
Sweet potatoes are an excellent “tonic” for the stomach qi in Winter, and red dates are actually one of the most important herbs in all of Chinese Medicine, appearing in a large percentage of classical formulas, with the intention of protecting the healthy stomach fluids and nourishing blood of the heart. I recommend making this recipe, storing leftovers in the fridge, and eating 2-3 times a week in winter. To reheat just add plenty of water to keep consistency.
Hope all are warm and healthy!
