Class extras for rexburgyoga.com

Another foundation for good health is living foods. A wide subject, but Leslie will focus this week on a recipe including all awesome foods but giving details about apples and soluble fiber. The recipe:

Millet Breakfast Muesli

1C cooked millet

1small ripe banana

1 chopped apple

2 TBL walnuts, pecans or almonds

sweet white grapes, halved

Mash the banana until creamy. Add other ingredients and mix well. Its nice to have the millet warm but not necessary. 2 servings
Millet cooks in about 20 minutes. (1/2C millet and simmer in 1 1/2 C water – similar to rice.)

Apples are the best source of soluble fiber. Everything in this recipe has some soluble fiber but apples are the highest. Diabetes, heart conditions, digestive diseases can all be helped with apples. Here is some info about why soluble fiber is so important.

Why is soluble fiber so special? Because unlike any other food category, it soothes and regulates the digestive tract, stabilizes the intestinal contractions resulting from the gastrocolic reflex, and normalizes bowel function from either extreme. That’s right – soluble fiber prevents and relieves BOTH diarrhea and constipation. Nothing else in the world will do this for you.

How is this possible? The “soluble” in soluble fiber means that it dissolves in water (though it is not digested). This allows it to absorb excess liquid in the colon, preventing diarrhea by forming a thick gel and adding a great deal of bulk as it passes intact through the gut. This gel (as opposed to a watery liquid) also keeps the GI muscles stretched gently around a full colon, giving those muscles something to easily “grip” during peristaltic contractions, thus preventing the rapid transit time and explosive bowel movements of diarrhea as well.

By the same token, the full gel-filled colon (as opposed to a colon tightly clenched around dry, hard, impacted stools) provides the same “grip” during the muscle waves of constipation sufferers, allowing for an easier and faster transit time, and the passage of the thick wet gel also effectively relieves constipation by softening and pushing through impacted fecal matter. If you can mentally picture your colon as a tube that is squeezing through matter via regular waves of contractions, it’s easy to see how a colon filled with soluble fiber gel is beneficial for both sides of the IBS coin.

Here’s at least one recipe that we had at our harvest brunch.

Squash or Pumpkin cornbread

prepare the squash or pumpkin.  Use a nice sweet orange/yellow winter squash or pumpkin.  Cook then mash .

• 2 tsp oil
• 1/3 C honey or sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 C mashed pumpkin or squash

Combine the above ingredients and if your squash is not fully mashed, blend these ingredients together so it is very smooth.

• 1/4 C corn flour or corn meal (I ground up popcorn in the wheat grinder to make fine flour)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 C dry milk powder

Combine the dry ingredients.  Mix the liquids with dry ingredients.  Mix.        Pour into a greased square pan or round pie plate.  Bake 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.  The top will brown slightly and pull away from the sides of the pan.  Cool then sprinkle on some cinnamon and then powdered sugar

Green drink

1 48 oz can of pineapple juice

several handfuls of spinach

other greens (celery leaves, carrot tops, alfalfa sprouts, mint leaves, dandelion greens)

Put 1 or 2 C of water in the blender and add the greens to the blender as you are blending. 1-2 min blending. You can filter out the pulp of the greens in a wire sieve or put the whole lot into a pitcher. Add the pineapple juice. Serve. Best to drink it all at one time. When its leftover, the bright green turns dark, but it is still okay to drink.

I tried sprouts of radish but it made the drink quite hot. If you think this would be ok, go for some of those hot greens, but I didn’t like it. – Leslie

Ginger-Lemon Tea

The best would be to use fresh ginger and a fresh lemon, but this would be the next best thing.

Boil some water and then in your tea jar or pot put 1/2 tsp ginger (more or less depending on how hot you like)

Let steep for 30 min or so then add 2-4 TBL Real lemon juice (this is the brand name of the best juice) Add some honey to taste.

The amount of ginger, lemon and honey is variable depending upon how much you are making and how tart or sweet or hot you like it. Ginger is a spice that brings heat. This is a good tea for breaking a fast or 30 min before a meal. It stimulates the digestive system.

Here are some links to learn more about uses of pineapple, ginger, and more tea recipes.
Buzzle
People’s pharmacy
Chet Day
Buzzle – pineapple
Natural Remedies