There isn’t a lake of information on the web about green tea and I usually try to post about unique things. However, Green Tea comes up quite a bit and I just can’t help but to put more education about it up here. I am writing quite a bit about it in order to help you find what info you may need without needing to jump to very many sources to get what you need!

Green Tea has long been the coveted ‘secret’ of the Asian population. We tried to research the key to their longevity (for their  conditions), and resistance to cancers. We couldn’t really find anything exotic as we realized it came down to diet and Green Tea.

History of Green Tea.

Green tea has countless health benefits and was used in ancient Chinese Medications to cure and prevent dangerous diseases. Green tea has been used in China as a healthy, healing drink for around 5,000 years. Green tea was the preferred drink in the privileged and the well-off. The tea leaves were used fresh from the plant for tea preparation, lightly heat processed. Sometime people used to eat fresh leaves of Green Tea for its beneficial affects. During that era it was considered an expensive drink that can only be enjoyed by rich and famous.  Nevertheless, after the collapse of the Mongolian Empire, entire population of China began to practice the magnificent consumption of tea, including green tea.

Green Tea Benefits.

The medicinal benefits of green tea have in the spotlight these days. Green Tea is known for its resourceful and optimum properties benefiting entire body. It Improves blood circulation with added oxygenation and boosts the body’s natural immune system. In fact it is scientifically proven that Green Tea is Best Alternative Medicine and it attains greater harmony and enhances your ability to keep up with the external and psychological pressures of life. Green tea also averts tooth decay and makes teeth more resistant to acids. It improves digestion and cleanses the body from within. Green tea is flash-steamed for about 20 seconds to retain the maximum amount of active properties. Green tea includes vitamin B, as well as C and E. Many tea drinkers say that they actually feel less tired and brighten as this marvelous Alternative Medicine changed their entire personality.

Green Tea, Antioxidant Features.

At the moment Green tea is turning as one of the popular and desired drink of America. Green tea is identified as alternative medicine for its taste and health benefits far and wide, including weight loss assistance, reducing cancer risks and adding antioxidants to your diet. For its amazing heath benefits, Health and fitness conscious people around the world turning towards green tea. If you want quick and permanent weight loss start taking it regularly and in short span of time you will find instant weight loss. Green tea not only gives you the much desired weight loss but it also insures that your metabolism increases and you feel better and fit. There have been endless claims of the advantages of green tea as a best alternative medicine. Because of elevated levels of antioxidants, studies have recommended that green tea might be gifted to stop diseases and even to fight cancer. If you drink the tea regularly, you will have advancements that lower cholesterol; help you lose weight, and much more. Green tea is sometimes also used in moisturizers and skin care beauty products.

Preparing Your Cup of Green Tea.

Preparation for the green tea cup is as enjoyable experience as the real taste and Aroma itself. Brewing for green tea is completely different from regular Black tea. For the best results in green tea, the one thing you must to keep in mind is that the tea leaves require room to develop and put in their health benefits to the water. To the flavor of the consequential tea can be slowed down by tea bags or tea balls. Let the tea leaves to sit lose in the water and steep for a few minutes is the best way to brew green tea and then is should be strained, if preferred.

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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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Geri asks me: “Hi, I have been constantly sick for years, catching everything going. Immune system shot. Started Miso soup 3-5 days a week and didn’t get sick for months. But, gained 15lbs. Dr. advised i stop it, and lost 6 pounds within a week.
Would the miso have any benefit to me if i drank just 2 tablespoons a day instead of small bowl? Small amounts of vitamins and medications suit me, and am always told take the least of anything due to reactions.
What do you think?
Thanks very much. Geri “

So, lets see if we can’t help Geri and others raise their immune system in a healthy way. Hopefully we can do it in a way where no one is going to have a reaction!

I would like to start with the Miso Soup. Good job on picking up the miso and sticking to it. Well, gaining 15 lbs in a few months isn’t a medical problem so I don’t know why your doctor would intervene in this when you clearly made a good change and have not gotten sick! Seaweed and the minerals in miso soup are truly miracle workers in themselves. Seaweed is very alkaline which works to balance your body’s pH. Its a fact that people with higher acidic pH levels are more prone to getting sick. Seaweeds also balance your thyroid and metabolism as well. A problem I am seeing is the amount of salt in the miso soup! My suspicions here seem to be confirmed based on the fact that you lost 6 pounds in a week by not eating the miso soup. The saying goes like this “where sodium goes, water follows”. You have clearly built up quite a bit of water weight and your body has been able tore-balance itself when you stopped taking in the miso. You have taxed your kidneys a bit at this point in filtering the sodium out, but now you should be okay.

At this point lets talk about increasing immunity. In Chinese Medicine people don’t ‘catch a cold’. We believe that we are exposed to pathogens (germs) all the time. These external pathogens want to invade us all the time. It depends on the person and their defense system (wei qi or immunity) if they get sick or not.  This old Chinese Medicine way of looking at this has been proven by Western Science. In recent studies on ‘common cold’ or ‘rhino virus’ patients were planed with the rhino virus directly in thenostril . About 60% of the patients got sick. This study was used in very different ways, but as far as Chinese Medicine is concerned- What Happened to the Other 40%? Simply they had defense high enough to dispel the virus!

There are many herbs when used together to supplement the system they can raise your immunity! However, alone there is one that stands atop these called Astragalus or Huang Qi.  Huang Qi is well documented for this task and is recommend for everyone. This is a typical herb used through the Fall and Winter season. I would also note that Echinacea is also used to raise white blood cell count, but this herb should be used in no more than 10 day increments.

Immunity is best done by eating soups and such. Foods like Congee or Kicharee offer foods and herbs that are already cooked down. This allows your body to easily digest and assimilate the nutrients and foods. This really gives your body a break from working so hard on the foods we take in all the time. Also, making a soup or other food like this allows you to add herbs. Herbs for medicinal purposes need to be decocted down. Being in a crockpot and slow cooking for a few hours, you are also decocting these herbs!

Here is a recipe I would like you to switch to:
http://blogofherbs.com/herbs/energy-weight-maintenance-congee-recipe

This Congee recipe has many great herbs and is very uplifting to your energy and immune system. I want you to pay special attention to use the herbs Huang Qi and Dang Gui. If you can’t or aren’t able to source the other herbs that is fine! Huang Qi and Dang Gui together is going to supplement your body and immune system.

For ongoing immunity supplementing you can take pills for this as well! Lung Tonics, Yin Tonics, Immunity Tonics and such are essential here.
Dimmak Herbs sells a formula called ‘Immunity’. These pills contain Ginseng, Huang Qi, Dang Gui, Goji (Gou Qi Zi) Berries, Licorice Root, and about 5 other herbs that synergistically are used to raise your immunity to these external pathogens!

I think between alternating these other foods and maybe eating Miso once a week should be great. Also note the usage of seaweeds in the Congee recipe, add more if you like!

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Hana asks “I’ve problems with arthritis in my hands. What can help me because it is painful and I must do everything because I’ve take care of my husband that passed 3 strokes and hardly can walk. I’ll be very obliged if You can suggest some herbs or something else.”

Arthritis can manifest in 2 ways, either with or without inflammation.
In Chinese Medicine this is an obstruction syndrome called Bi Syndrome. This is characterized as, usually, wind/cold/damp invasion of the joints. More often than not you need to dispel the cold/damp from the area by warming and dispeling.

There are a few herbs that are quite specific for the job here. Yu Jin / Turmeric Rhizome, Du Huo / Angelica Dahurica, Qiang Huo / Notopterygium, and Fang Feng / Siler are some of the main herbs for this condition. Normally these herbs are pretty easy to source, but you may not necessarily be able to get all or some of these.

Take these herbs and some fresh ginger and make a strong decoction in equal amounts. I would say about 10 grams of each into 4 cups of water and reduce into 2 cups.  Take half of the decoction and apply to your hands using some flannel cloth and keep reapplying and keeping warm. Take the rest of the decoction and drink warm in two parts that day.

If you don’t know how or can’t source some or any of these herbs then put 8oz of fresh ginger in 2 cups of apple cider vinegar. Shake that up for 3-10 days and apply that to your hands 3 times a day.

The best solutions to a complicated problem like arthritis is the application of Liniments. Liniments are very potent extractions of herbs in alcohol. The liniments are applied directly to the area and allow for quick penetration of the herbs. The herbs listed above can make a good liniment, but good liniments take some time to make. Some very specific top of the line liniments made are Dimmak Herbs Liniments. For arthritis the Joint Renew Arthritis Liniment would be appropriate and it includes about 15-20 herbs and essential oils including Tea Tree Oil. If your going to pick up some products there for arthritis you should also take Blood Purifier, as this has herbs that would be called upon for fighting arthritis internally!

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