Zĭ Hé Chē is well-known for its restorative function. The obvious application is recovery from childbirth, in which a woman would consume her own placenta to regain her strength, manage hormonal changes and promote lactation.

Many mammals consume their own placentas raw directly after birth. In Chinese medicine, the placenta is first lightly steamed, then sliced thin and dehydrated. When fully dry, it is ground into powder and encapsulated. Alternatively, steamed and sliced placenta can be tinctured in Everclear. This makes it more suitable for longterm storage, in which case a mother can preserve her placenta to be used for menopause or for herself or her children in the event of recovery from serious illness. Finally, some women choose to

cook their placenta into broth to enjoy as a side soup with meals. There are many recipes. I’ve heard of placenta broth, jerky, lasagna, ragu and roast placenta with onions.

Due to its warming, potent nature, caution when using Zĭ Hé Chē in cases of heat and longterm. With the current craze in raw foodism,encapsulating raw placenta has become fashionable. Be aware that consuming raw (even raw dehydrated) placenta would have a more cooling energetic, not typically what a woman’s GI tract needs immediately postpartum.

Preparations: Process placenta immediately after the birth, preferably fresh, never frozen. Best to take precautions from blood-borne illness when working with human placenta.

Encapsulation:
This method is not as lasting as tincture, but preserves the heavy, moist, gooey, yin-essence better.

1. Wash placenta well under running water until the water runs clean and there is no more blood. Be sure to turn the sac inside-out to expose the side of the placenta that was attached to the uterus to remove coagulated blood. It is most convenient to work with to wrap it back up in the sac before cooking.
2. Layer sliced ginger in the bottom of a pan. Add a layer of sliced lemon. These carry the practical function of elevating the placenta and keeping it from sticking while also acting as harmonizing, regulating digestive aids to balance the heavy nature of Zĭ Hé Chē. Pour in some water and bring to a simmer. Place placenta directly on the lemon, cover and steam, 10-12 minutes per side.
3. Remove placenta, allow to cool. Slice thin and arrange on parchment paper. Dehydrate at 110 for 8-14 hours, depending on thickness of slices.
4. Grind in food processor or in batches in spice grinder. Note: this is more difficult than it sounds. It is extremely hard to break down to powder and a very dusty endeavor. Not only that, but it is time-consuming. It took my kinda fancy Breville 30 minutes. Use a wet towel wrapped around the seal to catch escaping placenta dust.
5. Encapsulate!

Tincture: 
This method lasts longest. Some say you can top it off with more Everclear to keep it going, but some potency would be lost.

1. Prepare placenta as above, but do not dehydrate.
2. Place in a glass jar and cover placenta with vodka or everclear by at least one inch. Higher alcohol content will keep longer.
3. Allow to sit in a cool, dark place for at least 6 weeks.

Growing up, even my devoutly allopathically allegiant family would pour out a little hot-lemony-honey-tea-with-whiskey on occasion as a cold cure.

Ok, let’s get real: we all know that was just an excuse to open the liquor cabinet. But, they would make a fresh ginger tea for an upset tummy or throw a handful of fresh field mint in the summer iced tea.

What I’m trying to say is that even when we suspect that our culture has become hopelessly bland and homogenous and we think our cultural connection to natural wisdom is lost or gone for for good, it turns out that a connection to our cultural roots is often hiding in sneaky little herbal tricks that happen in the kitchen when you’re not feeling good.

They come in the strangest forms:

Once when I was riding out the late stages of a cold and getting a cough, Sasi introduced a particularly weird one. He hollowed out a black radish and carefully pierced a thin hole down through to the pointy tip. He set it over a jar and filled the top with raw honey. After a few hours, enough honey had trickled through which he then fed me by the spoonful to stop the cough. He claimed it was a piece of his cultural inheritance. I was sure he was pulling my leg.

Here’s another:

Last year in Russia, we were out in the wild woods mushrooming. I was in unfamiliar territory and way off trail (because how else are you going to land the mother lode of porcinis?!). I must have strayed into territory the local spirits didn’t want me or something–whatever that means–because I suddenly came down with abdominal cramping, fever and nausea. I was quickly brought home, tucked under covers on the couch and served the local medicine, tried and true: a generous double-shot of slightly warmed vodka with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Oy.

But it hurt so good.

And I recovered quickly.

Anyway, NPR just did a piece called “Horseradish Tea and Other Quirky Cold Cures.” Click “Listen to the Story” to hear the full piece. Then, come back over here and post yours!

We will be discussing Ayurvedic and natural approaches to preparing for the postpartum period.

I’ve heard so many postpartum women say, “I can’t believe nobody ever told me x!” In this workshop, we will explore ways to get ready for what happens AFTER the baby’s birth.

Focus will be on strategies to create ease and comfort for the perinatal mama and integration of the new little family member. Included will be guidelines for herbs, natural cures for common complaints, food as medicine, recipes, when to call your doctor, ways to utilize and build community support, even ideas for what to do with your placenta.

Please join us! Pregnant and newly postnatal moms welcome. Bring your partner for free.

Register here:

http://bit.ly/SriAnneCrutePreparingForPostpartumJuly28Telegraph

Join us for a delicious prenatal yoga class followed by a lecture about herbs and food cures for expectant mothers and ending with a relaxing yoga nidra meditation practice. Participants will engage in a channel-opening yoga asana class, after which Sri will discuss ways to optimize maternal health and comfort during pregnancy while boosting fetal health. Home cures for morning sickness, heartburn, water retention, bladder infection, stretch mark prevention, stress and common complaints will be discussed, as well as when to call your doctor. Prenatal nutrition guidelines, tips and tonic tea recipes will be given. Finally, a luxurious and restorative yoga nidra meditation for expectant moms will close the special day.

Cost: $40 in advance, 45 at the door

Partners are welcome to attend. Bring your mom for free!

Pre-register at http://www.yogatreesf.com/workshops-retreats/workshops.html

I can’t say enough about the efficacy and safety of Ayurvedic herbalism for enhancing family health and infant care. Kids can benefit from the gentle approach to boost the body’s natural systems in acute and chronic concerns. This baby was recovering from a fever which turned into a lingering cough. She is doing very well now. Her parents gave her just a few days of safe herbs at home.

Back in America at the clinic, in addition to general health we also work a lot with families, too. We have great strategies for enhancing prenatal health all the way through the postpartum period, plus helping babies. We do a lot of education to help families assist their kids through colds and fevers.

It’s out there: a natural system to lean on when you want to work with the body’s innate healing mechanisms. It is just about trusting the body and weaving holistic protocols into ones life. What better gift can we give our children but helping them understand that they are a part of nature by helping them to understand how to trust the body and go with nature.

It’s not my first time here, but I can’t help but be wow-ed again and again. Everything is a ceremony. The cows in the street, the clanging of bells at dawn, midday, dusk. Why, even the treatment table for oil massage is shaped like a yoni in the temple. You can see that Ayurveda recognizes the interconnection of all things. It gently teaches us that the mental constructs we hold affect our health the just as food we eat.

In fact, when Vagbhata, author of the classical text I’m studying, wants to remind us to eat right and take care of ourselves, he tells us poetically so as to emphasize the point. He tells us to imbibe of only that which is pathya — meaning, that which is healthy, or ‘suitable’–and avoid apathya– unhealthy stimuli. Just prior to this, he’s been talking about food and drinks, so the reader knows that’s what he means.  Still, Vagbhata chooses these beautiful words, ‘pathya’ and ‘apathya’, when he could have simply said ‘foodstuffs’.

With two words, Vagbhata broadens our idea of what we consume, taking it beyond the gross level. In asking that our choices be ‘suitable’, he gives us a picture of nourishment beyond a rulebook of right and wrong. Instead, he wants us to contemplate our individual needs, the season, place, even our personal preference. He wants us to investigate what we eat with our minds and hearts as well as our tongues, but he graciously leaves it up to us to draw the lines outward from there without inserting a limited dogma.

It is as if he joyously proclaims: Do healthy stuff! Do it your own way! (Just, y’know, listen honestly and carefully to nature an’ all.)

What are we eating? At home, at work? What are we eating for pleasure? Television, radio, the book on our nightstand are consumed. Relationships, power dynamics, the feeling of the dinnertime conversation, all must be digested. Every sensory stimulation in our daily routine makes up our diet, our minds, our lives.

Ayurveda asks us to live in accord with Nature and points us toward self-reflection, but it does so in the most spacious and gentle way. It shows us a picture of personal health integrating activities body, speech and mind, while its technical theory offers a seamless connection between practical application and higher philosophy. In this way, Ayurveda is truly holistic, serving anyone who recognizes their basic identity as a part of the web of life.

Studying Ayurveda again is rich. There’s my teacher Dr. Ashwin. There’s the 1,400 year old Sanskrit text I am plodding through. Then, the inpatient AND outpatient Ayurveda clinics. I’m watching the good doctor treat disease with great effectiveness using theory developed and refined literally thousands of years ago.

I’m seeing acute as well as chronic disorders: hypertension, diabetes, asthma, migraines, and country stuff like thorns in eyeballs, cuts to the bone, falls from great heights. All cared for using natural, holistic methods.

How beautiful! The tradition of Ayurveda is simply unparalleled. All of this against the backdrop of India …which shouldn’t matter, of course, but makes it so fun.

Ayurveda is transferable to anyone, anywhere, in any culture. Dr. Ashwin has highlighted the point, telling me, “Summer is summer here, and summer is summer there. We may look different, but on the inside, we are all the same.”

Ayurveda is Ayurveda in India, at home or wherever we may find ourselves. It is not a Hindu thing. At its root, it is not even a vegetarian thing (unless of course a person requires it for his constitution, imbalance, whatever). Ayurveda is not hocus-pocus faith healing, either. It is an ancient, yet rigorous science based on unchanging principles of Nature employed with a sophistication that boggles the mind. That’s how Dr. Ashwin is able to successfully treat complicated disorders, even those which allopathic medicine cannot help.

I look forward to sharing more soon!

Milk thistle is well-known as a wonder herb for all ailments of the liver. It is safe for general use as a basic liver tonic, though it is specifically indicated in cases of hepatitis, jaundice, cirrhosis and liver congestion. It helps regenerate the liver and even reduces fat deposits on the organ. If you do anything that may be considered taxing to the liver–live in a polluted environment, eat processed, fried or fatty foods, drink alcohol, etc–then milk thistle is a good, safe herb to know.

On top of that, milk thistle grows practically everywhere. If you are a die-hard, you could probably don some heavy-duty gloves and go harvest some for yourself. Me? Nettle is one thing (read about my nettle noodles here), but milk thistle? Ouch.

This version of Furikake is an enjoyable way to boost liver function. My Ayurveda teacher, Dharmanidhi, used to say, “Your liver is you.” Which is funny, come to think of it, because my TCM teacher used to say, “Your spine is you.” I can see both perspectives and when I can connect to reverence for my liver and spine, it is easy to eat fresh and homecooked and then treat myself to the delicious but difficult discipline of a good yoga session or workout.

Do something nice for your liver on a daily basis. The liver likes bitter. Drop bitter watercress into your soup. Hide a pinch of turmeric in your meal or chai. Simply eat yummy bitter greens regularly. But, I like to make this Gomasio Furikake recipe because it is always around to liven up a less-than inspiring meal while reminding me to think about the wellbeing of my largest internal organ.

This liver-supporting version of Furikake has as many uses as you have imagination for it: a topping for rice, baked on fish with a layer or miso paste, or popcorn.

My favorite: top a batch of homemade fresh french fries. How’s that for taking care of the liver? Ha!

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Milk Thistle & Sesame Gomasio Furikake

.5 oz wild nori (or seaweed of your choice)
1 1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup milk thistle seeds
1/4 cup salt

Preheat the oven to 300 and arrange nori flat on a cookie sheet. Cook until it looks toasty, about 10-15 minutes or when it looks done to you. Pulse in a spice grinder.

While nori cooks, dry-roast sesame seeds in a skillet over medium-high heat, turning frequently. They are ready when they are fragrant and slightly darkened. Allow to cool.

Pulse milk thistle seeds in grinder until very small. The outer portion of the seed is rather course must be broken down. The medicinal component of the herb is not usable by the body unless is is ground well, otherwise the body sees it as just roughage.

Combine toasted, ground seaweed, toasted sesame and ground milk thistle with salt in a medium bowl. Take care when filling spice jars that the salt is heaviest ingredient and tends to fall to the bottom while seaweed rises to the top.

Store in jars with tight-fitting lids and consume within a month or two for best results. Unless you are putting a shaker on the table that will be eaten quickly, store in a cool, dark place as all seeds and oils tend to become rancid in extended storage.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions from people recently remembering the following post, originally released in April, 2010. Then, a friend sent this youtube video (warning: funny) and couldn’t resist reposting.

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Last week, I went to a party and this guy and I got into a lively conversation about…neti. You know, the yogic practice where you run a mild, warm saline solution into one nostril and out the other using a little neti pot?

Yes, at a party. It’s Berkeley, people.

Anyway, somehow I started to wax on about my newly acquired giant neti pot which I got about 6 months ago and how much the larger size neti pot has changed my life. I mean it. Changed. My. Life. I swear by this thing. The wild part is, he responded with equal enthusiasm! He had recently gotten the big kind, too, and couldn’t believe the difference. I’m not alone on this one.

Again, it’s Berkeley, people.

I’ve been using neti pots for years. I mostly used what I had access to: cute little ceramic numbers from the generic yoga studio or health food store that hold maybe a cup or two of water. This small amount of water, split between both nostrils, makes for a paltry jala neti experience. Still, even with the tiny pot, I was pretty excited about jala neti when first discovered it and I practiced it regularly for a time. I was impressed with the results. I even gave my family members little hand-thrown ceramic neti pots one Christmas. Poor guys.

Enter the new giant neti pot. I got it about 6 months ago for my birthday and it has been an amazingly different experience. The big neti is where it’s at. I even took a picture. That’s big neti across the table from me at a candlelight dinner. As you can see, it’s getting pretty serious.

It’s made by healthandyoga.com and I even tried to get a discount code for y’all, but I have been reticent about making this forum commercial in any way, even if it saves YOU money. So, just submit a comment here or on fb if you want me to do it to save you 15% or something. (UPDATE: DUE TO READER RESPONSE, THERE IS A DISCOUNT CODE HERE.)

Anyway, this pot. I feel like I want to tell you guys about this pot the way I used to want to tell a girlfriend about a new guy. This neti? I mean wow. Shiny and nice and new, but what it comes down to is that…it’s big.

Size matters.

And it can go again and again and again. I usually fill it twice in a session–once for each side. It’s incredible.

What more could any girl ask for?

[Note: it's a great idea to talk to a qualified yoga instructor if you are interested in starting a jala neti practice. Despite what you'll read on the internet, it *is* a practice, not something to take up now and then when you're feeling congested. It does so much more than 'clean the sinuses' or whatever they say. And, if you're a renegade and are gonna watch youtube and try it anyway, please please PLEASE use good, filtered and boiled water and dry your nasal passages gently and thoroughly afterward. Your head will thank you.]

I’m always talking about plants. Today, I want to speak in defense of art. If human health is about achieving balance, let’s please put art somewhere on the scales.

Please, please make something. You don’t have to be an artist. So often, we get an image in our heads of what an “artist” is. Black beret and canvas in Paris? Suspender-clad metalworker in Oakland? Activist guerilla-knitter in NYC? Noble images of the artist, but please.

People use stuff, make stuff–all the time. So, if we gotta make it, why not make it beautiful? Take, for example, dinner.

Or, craft. Sewing, home repairs and decoration, even gardening, maybe. Craft is such a practical way to bring art into daily life. It can build community. Without craft, life can so easily slip into a very dull and stressful cycle: work> sleep> repeat, peppered with (often unfulfilling, often kitchy, often commercial) entertainment. So, please, please make something.

More than that, craft can be thrifty. It keeps it local. It’s a way to stop the crazy shopping.

In the spirit of the holidays, here’s something seasonal that makes a great gift: homemade advent calendars. If there are kids in your life, these are such a treat and they require really no sewing skill. You can make them in any color combination to suit any occasion: the countdown to vacation, a birthday, the last day of school, visit from Grandma and Grandpa. Best of all, you can fill them with anything you like. (Bye bye to crappy tasting, non-fair trade chocolate.)

This set was made in red and white for my sister last year for Christmas. She just sent me pictures of it all strung up in her house. So cute. She filled the envelopes with little special toys and tree ornaments, instead of sugary sweets. Silver bells can be placed in a bowl on the hearth. After an envelope is opened, the kids can hang a silver bell up so that they see how many days are left and know which envelope to open next.

There are thousands of pictures of different varieties of advent calendars online and probably some good tutorials. Look around. Use your creativity. If sewing is not your thing, I bet you could figure out how to do it with glue if you’re clever, skipping the button. Mine are pretty Berkeley: recycled red felt from a support a local, mom-and-pop fabric shop.

I hope you find a way to get your craft on, too. Happy holidays, from Sri.

Advent Calendars

recycled felt
yarn
buttons
contrasting thread
silver bells or other item to hang on the button after opening

Cut 2.5in x 6.5in rectangles out of felt.

Measured down 1.5in from one end and affix a button loosely. Here, I used an assortment of various shades of green in slightly different shapes and sizes. Don’t make it too tight or it will be hard to wrap the yarn around it as a closure.

Then, fold at 2.5in from button end to make a pocket and a 1.5in flap. Blanket stitch around pocket sides and flap.

Sew a length of yarn to top center of flap. Wind yarn around button to close. Hang envelopes around a length of yarn over the mantel, down the staircase, etc.

I sewed on little numbers cut out of matching felt to count the days. Or, as a visual cue to know which envelope is next to open, hang something on the button, such as a bell or printed card.