Lent, the long fasting period, usually comes before Easter. But this year, it comes after the holiday for me.
You see, we organized a Russian Easter for our Russian friends – with all kinds of strange foods: Naturally dyed eggs, of course, pickled herrings, smoked sturgeon and smoked eel, red caviar, red herring salad, sheika (a pork sausage), pashka (an impossibly sweet farmers’ cheese with butter, raisin, orange peel and almonds), kulitch (a cake similar to the Italian pannetone). You get the idea: Delicious but deadly.
And I haven't even mentioned the vodka ... which I left out, it being brunch time. I also didn't cheat on gluten - it just makes me deathly sick. But the rest was enough to do me in: Fatigue and arthritis are hampering me now.
So, this week after the feast I am indulging in three cleansing modalities:
1. Sauna
2. Garden tea
3. Fasting.
Garden tea, so far, has been mostly been made with stinging nettles, chives and dandelions – not much else being available. And fasting works best with a vegetable broth, made from whatever was in the fridge (with the exception of nightshades).
In Germany, we have a saying that you have to celebrate as feasts come along – and I couldn’t agree more. But then, you have to pay the price, roll up the sleeves and clean up the mess. Especially the mess inside your body. Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Bitter Medicines
May 26, 2010
Life was never supposed to be sweet. We ate bitters all the time, from prehistoric times, plucking green leaves right and left as we roamed the savannah, until only a few generations ago when the home-made herbal bitter (an alcoholic extraction of bitter herbs) was always brought out after a big meal.
But in our modern times, we think we deserve better than bitter – we like sweet above all other tastes - and consequently, digestive problems are increasing.
Bitters stimulate the appetite (not that we really need it – I always wonder why a hundred years ago loss of appetite was a major problem, and nowadays my patients rarely ever complain about it). Bitters increase digestive juices, thus helping to digest heavy meals. By digesting faster, we feel earlier relief in our overstuffed stomachs (for the same reason - to get relief after a too-big feast - a family walk after the big Sunday midday meal is a beloved practice in Europe).
Bitters shorten bowel transit time, alleviating constipation.
What goes into bitters? The recipes are often family, factory or monastery secret, but there are some staples like artichoke, dandelion, yarrow, cinchona bark (quinine), ginger, orange peel, cassia, angostura bark, and lots of bitter roots like angelica, gentian, goldenseal. The recipes are legion, and every country has their specialties.
It helps to have Swedish Bitters (or any bitter) at hand when indigestion strikes (beware – they all contain around forty percent of alcohol – some even more). However, incorporating more dark greens and roots into you food is equally - or more - important. And so is eliminating the sweet taste from our foods so predominant now. Don’t use sugar, don’t even use sweeteners – come back to the healthy bitters! Let your taste buds rediscover the real world of tastes.
In the long run, your life will be sweeter with bitters: more health, more joy, more sweet life. Read More