digestion

Health & Spirituality / Traditions

Belly Button Rings and Qi

Passion NavelI had a strange experience the other day. I was in the shower and suddenly got a weird metallic feeling in my belly button. It seemed to originate from my navel piercing and shot upward towards my breastbone. It felt like the sound of a fingernail on a chalkboard and sent shock waves through my cells.

I pierced my belly button the end of the summer in 1994. My friend and I had been working at a boy scout camp in Lake Arrowhead as cooks for the summer. These were some spoiled boy scouts if you ask me — they had a heated pool, we cooked them 3 meals a day 6 days a week, and on Friday they had BBQ ribs. Anyway, whatever, it was hard but fun work and we were so glad to be done for the summer that we rushed into the nearest tattoo parlor and got our belly button’s pierced. We had been warned to eat beforehand, but didn’t heed the advice so my friend passed out when she leaped from the chair right after her piercing. I took my time getting out of the chair after that and was fine – but it took a while for my belly button to heal. I was at a point where I was going to give up, when it suddenly healed up and has given me no trouble for 14 years. Part of the reason it was strange to suddenly get this nerve grating metal feeling from it.

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3 Comments
July 28, 2009
Read more about the article Mankind’s Old Friend Fenugreek
hellaD / Herbs and Spices / Our Food

Mankind’s Old Friend Fenugreek

An interesting property of fenugreek is it's affinity for certain wild yeasts, which are beneficial to the digestive tract as well as being useful in the fermenting process of making traditional dosas or idlis, by attracting wild yeasts to the batter. Fenugreek is a great adaptogen.

3 Comments
May 6, 2009
Health & Spirituality / Traditions

Symbiotic Digestion

Symbiotic Relationships are Key to Digestion on a Variety of Levels You help me and I'll help you. Like Sesame Street...co-operation. When our digestive system is operating under the right conditions a symbiotic shield is created of friendly, helpful micro-organisms and our mucous membrane. Within our digestive tract these yeasts and bacteria create a diverse garden boundary. At the same…

1 Comment
June 15, 2007
Additives / Food Facts / Our Food

Himalayan Crystal Salt

meilamu

After I contracted typhoid in 2006 at a pagoda in Yangon/Rangoon, Burma/Myanmar I was put on a course of serious antibiotics for ten days which completely wiped out any beneficial flora I had established in my intestines. Not only does it take at least three months to recover from typhoid but it takes at least a year to re-establish the proper balance of micro-organisms within the digestive tract after a course of antibiotics, therefore I have been eating very carefully ever since the experience.

Despite my careful diet I have yet to regain the full digestive abilities I previously had been so proud of. I tried various fasts and dietary regimes to try to help speed recovery, drinking raw goats milk, making yogurt and religiously avoiding processed foods.

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8 Comments
May 14, 2007