As a teenager, I remember observing my mom and her news consumption. She would walk out in the morning to get her newspaper, then read it through the day, clipping articles that she felt were interesting to keep. Then, every hour she turned on the radio to listen to the hourly news bulletin while still reading her newspaper. Then when the news broadcast appeared on the TV, she would turn that on too. She was what we would define today as a "news junkie," an addict of news and she is not alone. In fact, we, the humans living in this time and space of 2021, have become a society of news junkies. 
 
We in the modern world have perfected the art of receiving news by introducing TV news networks that play 24-hour news with second-to-second updates moving below the screen, the internet, push notification on our mobiles phone for the newest, most important news of the minute right at the tip of our fingers, delivered directly to us. I get to the tram station and there is a dispenser for a free newspaper, which many do not think twice to take along to read and leave on the seat of the tram as a service to the next person. I sit on the tram and I am bombarded by the news on a screen, which is extremely hard to avoid because it's right next to the screen displaying the next tram stop. I, like many in our society, was taught to stay informed of the news, as it meant that you were a well-read, aware, educated individual. But is this really true?
 
I believe that one of the questions should not be "what" is the news but "how" is this news. Over the years, I realized that the news being broadcasted/ published has become increasingly negative and bleak, about some event like an earthquake in some part of the world that I have never been to or a plane crash that killed a whole lot of people. If you know how many earthquakes occur in a day, which according the US Geological Survey happens 50 times a day, or that the number of commercial plane crashes in a year in the world is between 0-2. I ask myself sometimes why we don't hear of the thousands of flights daily that landed safely and didn't crash, as well as the information that earthquakes happen on a regular basis because our Earth is a living entity. How is my knowing of this event going to change anything? Many of us just read, listen, watch and do nothing about it except maybe to feel a little depressed or fearful for a moment until the next tragedy occurs. Who defines what news should be? This is where I question the intentions of news providers. Are they reporting this news because they have a genuine intent to aid society or living beings or is it just gaining profit by provoking some sort of emotional reaction in us through sensationalize information reporting? When I consider the "why" I am being provided with a free newspaper at my tram station every weekday morning, I observe that the paper is in fact NOT FREE, as it is filled with advertisements paid for by companies wanting to sell something to the readers. When we get news on the internet or push service, our data is being collected, possibly sold, to companies that are once again trying to sell or get something out of us. We are not benefitting from these but being sapped of our time, energy, attention and mental health.
 
What can we do so that we are getting news that we need and want? We have to be mindful and to search for it ourselves, if we want to. We will need to stop consuming the "media diarrhea" that is being projected on us.  As neuroscientist Beau Lotto describes,
 
"While we still know very little about attention [...], it seems that the power of attention is not in doing the looking but in the ability to stop looking..., to look away, to move your eyes to the less obvious, to stop a cycle of thoughts and perception. (Lotto, 2017, 264)
 
We can consciously look away and fill our space of attention with thoughts and ideas that we ourselves deem important. If you are really in need of news, historian Rutger Bregman suggests:
 
"My rule of thumb? I have several: steer clear of television news and push notifications and instead read a more nuanced Sunday paper and in-depth feature writing, whether online or off. Disengage from your screen and meet real people in the flesh. Think as carefully about what information you feed your mind as you do about the food you feed your body." (Bregman, 2020, 392) 
 
  

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Reference
Bregman, Rutger (2020): Humankind - A Hopeful History. London: Bloomsbury Publishing
 
Lotto, Beau (2017): Deviate - The Creative Power of Transforming your Perception. London: Orion Publishing
 
 
 
 
Image by _Alicja_ on Pixabay

When I was in my Chinese Medicine studies in San Francisco, I had a classmate who was of Japanese ethnicity but grew up in Hawaii. We laughed about how we thought that Pears were meant to be eaten crunchy. Where we both grew up, Pears were imported so when it was shipped to us, they were not yet ripened. This is how I got to know Pears as a child, as sweet, juicy, crunchy beings.
 
The Pear is called 棃子 lí zi in Mandarin. There are 3000 known varieties of Pyrus around the world. We have come to know Pears as "pear-shaped," but there is also the Nashi Pear which is rounder. In Chinese Medicine, Pears are cooling in temperature, with sweet and sour flavors. They enter the channels of Lung, Large Intestines, Gallbladder and Spleen. Like Apples, Pears are from the Rosaceae family, the same family of the Rose. Their main function is to tonify Yin and moisten dryness, especially in relation to the Lung with symptoms like thirst, dry throat as well as skin. They may also help with constipation, specifically when the stools are hard and dry, indicating a Yin deficiency, which can often happen when we get older. Another function of Pears is to cool heat in the Lungs and dispel phlegm. Here we have once again food that is medicinal. One of my teachers in Chinese Medicine school gave us a recipe for a lovely dessert with Pears for the Autumn to help moisturize the Lungs that tend to get irritated in this season. Simply steam the Pears on a plate for 15 minutes and then remove from heat. Then drizzle a teaspoon of honey over the steamed Pears to enhance the Lung moisturizing effect. Definitely drink the juice that has been released from the steaming process. 
 
I have a Pear tree growing in my garden, which my husband and I planted when we moved into our home a few years ago. Last year, as the Spring and Summer were warm and sunny, our young, tender-branched tree bore an incredible amount of fruit, something like 30. Its branches began to bend from the load of the fruit, we had support them with sticks. This year was a totally different story; it was raining in Spring and the Summer cool, as such, we had ONE Pear growing, which has already been harvested. The fruit harvest was meager but the life lesson rich. I learned that Nature is intelligent, a lot more intelligent than us humans. When it produces too much in a year, the next year's harvest will be milder. Sometimes even no fruit. In this way, the being, whether plant or animal, will be able to conserve its life energy for a longer period of time. Thus, ensuring a higher chance of survival for the coming years. We humans, unfortunately do not understand this concept of respecting limits and Nature's rules. We push things to extremes, "bigger and more is better," making bigger cars, buildings, cities and even more as well as bigger humans. We don't just want a 100 percent, we want a 110 percent! So, what happens then is that we overdraw on our resource account and then we have a deficit, which we will be paying back for generations or even the possibility of not surviving. It is simple math that even a primary school child can solve but we adults just can't seem to figure it out. 
 
The answer is simple, USE LESS. Find balance, just take enough and put back what we take. Treat every being with respect, even the common Pear. It has many lessons to teach us.  


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Image by Elaine

Many years ago, as I was reading books on Chinese Nutritional Therapy, which is a big part of Chinese Medicine, a "lightbulb" moment occurred. One book was about treating children's issues by Bob Flaws and how about 90 percent of the time children's ailments have to do with digestive/ nutritional issues. This by the way, in my experience with working with children over the years, is true. The author stated, and I may be paraphrasing it, that "cooking is the beginning of the digestive process." It sparked an awakening in my understanding of food and its transformation within our system. I had never thought about cooking as being food digestion before we ingest it inside us. 
 
In Malaysia, possibly most of Asia and many other parts of the world, food is more than just eating to get energy. It is culture, identity, a socially-binding force, the joy of life...the list of descriptions goes on and on. People in Malaysia talk, cook, eat, breathe and live food. Food is boiled, steamed, braised, stir-fried in a wok, deep-fried, baked in clay...you name it, it gets done. I was exposed to this creativity in cooking early on in life and I too enjoy cooking, as well as eating. But I had never thought of cooking as digestion. What a revelation! But it makes sense! Take rice for instance, if you just took raw grains of rice into your mouth and chewed it, it would be hard and arduous, probably crack your teeth, before you could even swallow a few grains. Would it even taste good and could our digestive system even be able to break it down for energy?
 
The process of cooking is not just a hobby, it is an essential part of life as a human being in order to survive. It goes even further when you look at the theories that have been suggested over the past few years. One such hypothesis was proposed by biological anthropologist and primatologist Dr.Richard Wrangham. He suggests that the human brain evolved to its current size as we began cooking our food. As heating/ cooking what we ate, whether meat, grains or tubers, breaks-down starches, denatures protein and helps kill pathogen, the human body began having more energy to develop other body parts, such as the brain. Through this evolution came other changes in human development and social structure. Crazy to think that something so normal and under- appreciated as cooking could have such an impact on a whole life species and also the whole of the living world since our brain development led us to create a more complex style of living. I watched a documentary on the evolution of the digestive system. Part of Dr. Wrangham's research is featured at the end of the documentary.
 
One of the trends that we have at the moment is the Smoothie/ Juicing trend. I hear and read of many who swear by these methods of obtaining nutrients. As with many things in life, what fits some may not fit others. In Chinese Medicine, we have the view that some individuals tend to have heat in their system and others cold; these individuals who tend to heat may benefit from smoothie/ juice drinking, as most fruit and vegetables that have not been cooked have a cooling nature. From the Chinese medical nutrition perspective, this time of year requires us to eat warm food; one aspect is to have food in a certain temperature that our bodies do not have to expand more energy to warm the food further in order to digest and another aspect is that we receive warmth that will help our bodies stay at the ideal temperature of ca. 37 degrees Celsius. This is not to say that we do not eat any fresh vegetables and fruit, but that our food should be predominately warm and then supplemented by raw produce in winter. This will change as the season changes and the temperature warms up. If we look at the nature surrounding us right now in Switzerland, we will notice that there are little to no fruits growing on trees. They have all been harvested before the end of autumn. What fruit we have that are still fresh here, such as apples and pears, are harvested and stored in special conditions to last through winter. Tropical fruits or citrus fruits that we get from the supermarket are imported from places that are still having warm/ temperate climates currently. Therefore, it is best to eat these sparingly, like 1 to 2 fruits a day. Too many will cool our systems down too much and we will either feel cold often or be unable to digest the fruit well, leading to loose stools or diarrhoea.
 
One of the most beloved food for the Chinese is Congee, Bái Zhōu in Mandarin, Jūk in Cantonese or just simply rice porridge. It's rice cooked in a lot of water over a longer period of time. When I was ill as a child, this was the food my mother cooked for me, as I do for my children. But we cook a hardier version with meat in regular life in winter. It is easy to digest, yet very nutritious, providing enough fluids and nutrients. I have fasted on just water and plain Congee over a span of a week, and felt that I could actually perform everyday activities, including working, without feeling drained. It is simple, wholesome and easy to incorporate into your diet, even and especially if you are not used to cooking regularly but want to begin. Be creative, use the classical recipe as a base and then modify the ingredients to create your own personal Congee. Try it and start enjoying the warming nourishment!

Congee Recipe as pdf in English  

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Image Chicken Congee by Maria & Elaine  

I grew up in Malaysia, in the suburbs of the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. Malaysians, who are of different cultural backgrounds like Chinese, Malay, Indian etc., come together for food. They might have many differences but what connects them is food and their love of it. One of my favorite is Dim Sum, a meal, often a brunch, where different types of food, vegetable, meat, bread, rice, which are steamed, fried, boiled, are served in small portions in bamboo-steamed baskets or plates. A little bit like Spanish Tapas but different. Dim Sum originates from the southern part of China, Hong Kong is very well-known for it. Often in a traditional Dim Sum restaurant, one would sit at the table with an order sheet, your pot of Chinese tea and carts with fresh-made food would be rolled around by servers, shouting the dish's name, and you would just have to call out, tell them how many portions you wanted, they would serve it to you and mark it on your order sheet. Then, the next server would come by and the process continues, until you decide that you've had enough. A very lively atmosphere. It brings people together: families, friends, business meetings, workers, anybody. The meaning of Dim Sum, which is in the Cantonese dialect, is "Touch the Heart." I find that incredible, a meal that touches the heart. So often we think of food as just for the stomach but this one is meant to touch the heart as it brings people together and guess what? In Chinese Medicine, the tongue is the orifice of the Heart. It is all starting to make sense, food that touches the heart by nourishing the receptors of the tongue and bringing people together. 
 
Since the whole quarantine process has been in effect, I have been home with the whole family. Our children have been home-schooling and we have had a lot of time to do things we normally don't get to do. We often cook most of our meals at home normally but now we can take more time, experimenting new recipes. We have made meat dumplings, gnocchi, cakes, smoothies, lemon meringue pie and raspberry tiramisu. It has actually been pleasant to have time. There is a popular American saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." In my case, lemon meringue pie. I may not agree or like the situation but it doesn't help if I grumble about it, so I am making the best of it. I am using this time to "touch the heart" of my family.
 
Another effect of the quarantine/ isolation is that we have been called to practice "social distancing," avoiding all physical contact with people, including shaking hands, hugging and definitely not kissing. We have been dictated to stay away from our elderly family and friends, as well as keep a 2-metre distance from everyone in public. 
 
Since I began studying Chinese Medicine, I have become aware what different body parts represent and how they affect our health. For instance, the shaking of hands, which is very prevalent in many places in the world is the connection of 2 points of the palm of the hands which are on the Heart and Pericardium Meridians, both of Fire element. So, when I shake your hand, I connect my heart with yours. Similarly, when I hug someone, I meet my heart with yours. In Malaysia, there is a tradition, especially among the ethnic Malays where they shake hands with both hands and place both their hands right after onto their chest, emphasizing the Heart connection. This I find beautiful. The lips are a little different from the Chinese Medicine and meridian view, they manifest the Spleen and Stomach, both of the Earth element. The cheeks also manifest the Stomach meridian. Of course, the Spleen and Stomach are organs of digestion but in Chinese Medicine, they produce Qi and Blood, the essentials for life. These are greetings with the touch of the skin and there are many more greetings that do not require touch. For instance, in India and in many places in Asia, they place their 2 palms together in front of the heart to greet each and/or they bow their heads to each other, both are as signs of respect and to honor. I am finding these to be very valuable at the current time.
 
So much of how we communicate with each other is the "touch of the heart." Real connection to each other is from the heart. Even if we aren't allowed to touch or be close to one another, we can still touch each other's heart in simple things like greeting and smiling at each other from afar. This current situation is challenging but it also gives us a chance to evaluate what really is important in our lives.   


Image Dim Sum by Alice Cheung from Pixabay

"An apple a day, keeps the doctor away," is a common English adage. I recall as a young student in school, where the girls used to pass on friendship books to write details of ourselves as a remembrance and this was one of the little adages included. I thought it funny and cute. We don't have apples growing naturally in tropical Malaysia; all our apples came from China, Australia, New Zealand or USA. They weren't always the crunchy, juicy, sweet apples we have here in Switzerland. Sometimes, they were soft and powdery on the inside but outside was bright red. No wonder, as they had to be shipped a couple of thousands of kilometers to get to me. The first time I saw an apple tree laden with fruits, ready to be plucked and crunched into, it felt like a dream, like something from a fairytale. What I did not realize then is that apples are very special fruits and symbols of life and bearers of nourishment, holding the power of spring and summer in its flesh.
 
Malus domestica, is the Latin name for the fruit we now know as apple. It is an ancestor of Malus sieversii, which is a wild form of apple native to the mountains in central Asia, in countries like Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Malus sylvestris, European crabapple, found all over Europe. Apples appear to have been around for over thousands of years and have over 7500 cultivars. What also is amazing about this fruit is that it comes from the family of Rosaceae, the Rose. All the relatives of plants that we had no idea of, native to an area and migrating from one place to another and then becoming almost natural to that place over a period of time, as we humans. Have you ever cut an apple horizontally? I normally don't but when I did, this is what I found, a star with five points. Wow! What a revelation for me! The pentagram is sacred in many cultures, the Celts, the ancient Greeks, Romans, Jewish tradition...to name a few. It is also relevant in mathematics and geometry. In Chinese Medicine, it represents the 5 Elements (refer to the diagram in my first post in February 2019). All these years, I have been eating my apple and was never ever aware it had this form within it.  
 
Now is the time of the apple harvest, late summer into autumn, the time of Earth and Metal in Chinese Medicine. As such, the apple affects the organs of the Spleen, Stomach, Lung, Large Intestines and also the Gall Bladder, by nature of its medicinal properties. All herbs and foods in the Chinese Materia Medica, have organs associated with it, a temperature, tastes, which also have connections to organs and its specific functions. Apple is cooling, as most fruits are, and has a sweet, sour taste. This means that apple will cool down warm conditions or heat in the body, its sweetness will nourish Qi and the sour will astringe fluid. So, when we look at its functions of reducing and clearing heat in the body, moistening dryness, stimulating digestion, as well as tonifying Qi and Blood, it all makes sense with the tastes and temperature. It also will cool down heat in the Lung, protecting it from cigarette smoke, stimulate appetite, help lower cholesterol and toxic metal levels in the body. You can grate apple and make a poultice for sunburn and conjunctivitis. Of course, be aware that if you have a tendency to feel cold and have sensitive digestion, like loose stools, you should not overeat apple. Cooking it may help that it be absorbed better, like in the case of babies, who have weak digestive systems. 
 
Remarkable isn't it?  Something so common, found in every grocery store at the moment, or somebody's yard falling to the ground as no one had time to pick it, can do all that. We take too many things for granted. Maybe the simple things in life, right in front of our eyes, hold the magic and the miracle of healing and health. For us in Chinese Medicine, we take the perspective that "Food is Medicine." What you eat in the everyday, affects how your body and mind functions.  Don't just eat apple, because someone told you it's good for you, eat it and sense how it makes you feel, in mind and body. With this, I propose a new adage,
"If you want to stay healthy, listen to your body (and mind ;-))".


Image: apple by Pixabay user bernwaeltz
Image: 5-pointed-star apple by Elaine