STAYING HEALTHY FOR THE FALL SEASON

Autumn is the season of gathering nature’s products such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains before winter’s rest. This also marks the beginning of a cycle of personal reflection and nurturing within as the nights become longer than days.

Like early spring, early autumn represents seasonal change around the equinox and is a perfect time to cleanse the body. If you adapt yourself to the changes that come with the seasons, you will maintain health. Maintain a healthy balance of outward activities, such as physical exercise with regular, inward-directed activities such as contemplation, reflection, writing, reading and nurturing family. This balance can facilitate the creation of a more open, resilient, and supple body as well as a mentally and physically relaxed state and hence a stronger resistance to illness and disease.

The Metal Element: Our Lungs and Large Intestine

In the Chinese medical system, the Metal element is associated with the lungs and large intestine. This is a good time to keep these organs strong and healthy. If you have a history of digestive weakness, or immune weakness, this is the time to prepare yourself for staying well this fall and winter.

Our lungs communicate between the inner and outer atmospheres and is a key organ for our existence. The lungs exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide through the pulmonary (lung) capillaries where blood and air meet. We take in and use oxygen and eliminate carbon dioxide. Deep breathing and good air are vital to life. Lungs do not like a cold, damp climate so keep your chest, neck, head, and feet warm and dry to help you to prevent common colds.

The large intestine is another important organ and is one of the most overstressed ones. Its main function is the absorption of water, but also completes the absorption of nutrients, and houses friendly bacteria, which help break down food and synthesize vitamins.

The liver and gallbladder oversee the digestion of food and are important to the smooth function of the intestines. Dietary overindulgences as well as the ingestion of poorly digestible substances such as alcohol, fatty foods, fried oils, and chemicals/preservatives are common and can create an overburdened, sluggish liver, causing even more toxins.

Colds and Poor Digestion

Do you experience frequent colds or flus? Do you have difficulty eliminating waste or have poor digestion resulting in constipation, gas, bloating, or diarrhea?

The common cold is often expressed from the sinuses and lungs, but the problem lies in poor digestion related to the large intestine. The colon is one of the main organs of elimination, clearing toxins from the body, helped by the lungs, kidneys, and skin. A slowing down of the intestines may result if the diet is high in unnatural, preserved, or processed foods; or high in mucus-forming foods such as meats, dairy products, sweets, and starches like bread and noodles; or if you are nervous, stressed, and “uptight.” When one is “blocked up” the fermentation of foods and toxins creates even more toxicity in the system leading to not only poor assimilation, but provides a site for bacteria and viruses to grow. Excess toxins and mucus may begin pouring out through the sinuses.

How To Boost And Support Your Immune and Digestive System

Cleanse. A week or so of juice cleansing in early to mid-autumn will give you a boost of energy and may eliminate any potential illness, either by flushing out excesses or by improving organ functions.

Autumn Cleanse. For autumn, a 5-7 day grape juice cleanse or eating only grapes for a week complemented with a couple of glasses of lemonade each day (to balance the flavors can help). Take 1 tablespoon of cold-pressed olive oil twice daily and one cup of an herbal laxative tea upon waking and before bed will help keep the intestines moving.

Skin Cleanse. Be sure to brush and bathe your skin daily with a loofa sponge or skin brush to remove dead cells and to stimulate the clearing of toxins. Your skin’s health is important to the lungs and its regular care will help general elimination. Exercise and promoting sweating is great to facilitate skin and body cleansing before you bathe.

Garlic. This is another important lung aid that facilitates cleansing and healing. It contains protein, calcium, potassium, and phosphorus and vitamins B and C. It’s main action is to kill germs.

Meditation and Breathing. What happens in your mind affects how you feel emotionally and physically. Moreover, how you breathe determines how well you can center yourself and thus, relax. Breathing is the basis of meditation. Physiologically, meditation lowers the respiratory rate, increases the frequency of alpha brain waves, and facilitates muscular relaxation. Moreover, many studies have shown the benefits of meditation to include: increased sense of intelligence, better performance at school and work, increased productivity and job satisfaction, stress reduction, improved quality of sleep, and regulation of blood pressure.

Autumn Diet. For omnivores, it includes more meats and dairy products, while vegetarians will eat more grains and nuts, beans, and seeds as well as dairy and eggs. Fruits and vegetables are body cleansers. Meats, fish, dairy, nuts, beans, seeds, and grains are body builders but also create varying degrees of congestion. The quantity and ratio of foods in your diet are important.

Exercise. Concentrate on staying loose and relaxed. Stretching, running, and hiking can complement other rigorous forms of exercise. A strengthening program such as using weights will build more muscles from your higher protein meals. Exercise can also help to balance weight gain.

Autumn Recipe: Pumpkin & Water Chestnut Risotto

This recipe is warm in nature and helps to strengthen digestion as well as the respiratory system (especially for the dry fall weather). Specifically, pumpkin and water chestnuts strengthen the digestive Qi and thyme is also good for the lungs and coughs and aids in the digestion of fatty foods and meat.

Serves 4

• 1 small pumpkin
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 liter vegetable stock
• 2 oz unsalted butter
• 1 leek, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 10 oz risotto rice
• 8 fresh water chestnuts, peeled and sliced or
• 8 oz canned water chestnuts, drained and halved
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme

Remove the skin and seeds from the pumpkin and cut the flesh into small chunks. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a frying pan and saute the pumpkin for about 15 min or until it is soft.

Meanwhile, heat the vegetable stock in a separate saucepan so that is gently simmering.

Melt the butter in a large pan, add the remaining oil and saute the leek until it is soft. Add the garlic and rice and cook for 2 min, stirring until the rice is sticky and coated with the oil and butter mixture.

Gradually add the hot vegetable stock, while stirring the simmering rice mixture. Keep the stock hot.

After 15 min, add the cooked pumpkin chunks to the risotto and continue cooking until all the stock is absorbed. Add the water chestnuts for the final 6 min of cooking and heat through.

Serve sprinkled with fresh thyme.

*Source: Ody, Penelope. The Chinese Herbal Cookbook: Healing Foods For Inner Balance