Tuning in with the natural outside is not easy, less so in recent years of whirlwinds and screens. The Chinese medicine therapist and specialist in food and plants, Erica Díaz, assures us that we have many tools to be able to adapt and that “medicinal plants are wise teachers who can guide and accompany us, strengthening the most active organs in each cycle, improving their functions. , cleaning and bringing calm to our mind and heart”. In this note, we talk about the kitchen-medicine and about his math booklet for each season, and we share illustrations from “El Verde Sentir”, the fanzine of the Cordovan artist, Salvador Pérez.
By Soledad Sgarella for Ink
The “pharmacy” was a segment of Argentine Cooks -on Public TV-, I loved it. Erica Diazresponsible for that little while, invited a way of seeing food that today, perhaps, has been installed a little more: the possibility of finding qualities in fruits and vegetables that are not only nutritional, but also medicinal, to help improve our quality of life. life.
With the migration of many contents and the boom of social networks, I found Erica on her Instagram profile. The Chinese medicine therapist and specialist in food and medicinal plants tells me that she started this path almost 20 years ago. And how did you get there, I ask him. “On the one hand, because I had become a vegetarian in the 90s, when I was 13 years old, and I needed to investigate and learn to cook… since, at that time, there was not much information, so I read every natural cookbook and I was taking all the classes, workshops and training that I was able to do up to today”, she says and adds: “On the other hand, as I progressed as a therapist in Chinese medicine, I learned the great influence that food has on the physical body and on the spiritual plane. subtle of each person. After some years of delving into this medicine, I also got closer to the original worldview, participating in its ceremonies, learning the language Quechua (Quechua) and traveling to some communities. The importance of medicinal plants and food for these peoples is transcendental, they are not only medicine, but they are also sacred and are present in their rites, arts and festivities. They are a powerful medicine, available to everyone, popular, ancestral and everyday”.
(Image: Salvador Perez)
(Image: Salvador Perez)
(Image: Salvador Perez)
The kitchen is medicinal
As Erica explains, different peoples understood that people are an internal landscape, everything that happens in nature is a reflection of our own functioning. “When we lose our well-being, food and plants are the first medicine, they will help our body to recover, improve the functioning of the organs, remove toxins, calm the mind, unblock the emotions or boost our energy, among so many other virtues that they offer us”. In addition, she says, it is medicinal because each flavor has a therapeutic effect on our organs and on our minds.
“If we understand the body as a territory, as many women leaders, environmental activists and feminists maintain, both our bodies and mother earth are being polluted, devastated by monoculture, violated, injured, loaded with toxins and subjected to extractivism, in the case of the earth, exploiting its natural resources and, in the case of most people, exploiting its vital energy. Therefore, food and the way of producing it is what produces many diseases today. Going back to the kitchen, choosing the ingredients and avoiding ultra-processed foods is a way of practicing medicine in our daily lives”.
For Chinese medicine, expresses the therapist, the essence of the food and drinks that we consume are transformed into our blood, which is what will carry the nutrients to each tissue and each cell of our body so that they function. “But in addition to nutrients, it also transports the spirit, that is, our consciousness or the most subtle part is rooted in the blood and will then depend on what we consume, the quality of that precious support.”
The mate booklet and the seasons
Although surrounded by the Taliban of mate and the conservative resistance of bitter, in recent times, I have been dabbling in all kinds of integrations to my beloved matecito. What a coconut, what a chamomile, what a burrito, what a mint, what a ginger. Many tastes.
Last week, Erica shared on her networks a free download booklet that she shares via email to those who request it and that she proposes as “an invitation to cycle with nature, to orient the internal radar towards the changes that occur abroad, because During the year the energy changes and that has a strong impact on our physical and emotional state”.
The proposal is to understand that there is a rhythm, that there are cycles, that there is a moment of rest and internalization that occurs in winter; cleaning and expansion, which occurs in the spring; exteriorization and a lot of activity, which occurs in the summer; to go stopping and warming up the body, which happens in the fall; it is also a guide to maintaining health. “Because we are an internal garden, what happens in our environment also happens inside us. In this way we are adapting to external transformations and, at the same time, we take advantage of the available energy. So, the booklet proposes paying attention to what happens out there because things will also be happening inside, for example, two different organs will be active per season and we can strengthen, cleanse and improve their functions with certain foods and medicinal plants”.
The specialist emphasizes that we have many tools to be able to adapt fluidly to each change of season and that medicinal plants are wise teachers who can guide and accompany us, strengthening the most active organs in each cycle, improving their functions, cleaning and bringing calm to our mind and heart.
The booklet invites the mixtures proposed for summer, autumn, winter and spring. In relation to the latter, the blend for a spring mate is:
—Dandelion: eliminates toxins – drains excess liver that can manifest with anger and aggressiveness – helps liver functions – indicated in: anemia, dermatological, hepatobiliary and genitourinary disorders.
—Mint: activates the free circulation of the liver, gallbladder and blood – clears and decongests the head and eyes – neutralizes toxins – indicated for: gases, hepatodigestive disorders, abdominal swelling.
—Carqueja: tones the liver – improves the function of the gallbladder – diuretic – depurative – helps calm the spirit – indicated in: liver disorders.
—Green tea: clears the eyes and the mind – drains the liver – indicated for dizziness, headache and eye pain – prevents liver Qi stagnation – indicated for: abdominal distension, eye and head congestion.
—Turmeric: activates the circulation of energy – disperses heat and stagnation – tones the blood – anti-inflammatory – indicated for: stiffness, heat in the blood, alterations in menstruation.
(Image: Salvador Perez)
(Image: Salvador Perez)
(Image: Salvador Perez)
A recipe for these times
In addition to everything you share on your networks and all the information in the booklet, I ask you for more: a recipe for a sometimes complicated time, the end of the year. Erica is generous and says: “I think about these times and I can think of a recipe that is very nutritious (providing good quality protein and fat), but that, at the same time, helps clean. Mung beans are very cleansing and green foods rich in chlorophyll improve liver health (the liver is the most active organ during spring, the associated emotion is anger and frustration, it is easily intoxicated by poor quality oils, ultra-processed foods, drugs, etc. When it stagnates, there is a lot of emotional blockage, impatience and irritability). So it is better to go refreshing, cleaning the body, appeasing the mind and the heart”.
cold mung bean soup
Ingredients: 100 gr of mung beans – broccoli with its leaves and spinach leaves – 1 leek – 1⁄2 palm – 1⁄4 cdita. of cayenne pepper – 1⁄4 cdita. of nutmeg – 1 cdita. of grated ginger – sea salt or pink to taste – 2 tbsp. of olive oil – 2 cups water
Preparation: Soak the beans for 12 to 24 hours and then cook them with kombu seaweed for 25 minutes approximately. In a frying pan, with a little oil, sauté the leek, add the broccoli and cook until slightly tender. Blend the beans, broccoli and sautéed leek, spinach leaves, spices, ginger and avocado with the water until creamy. Add the salt and rectify flavors. Serve with gemolada on top.
gemolada
Ingredients: 2 tbsp. grated lemon peel – 2 tbsp. chopped parsley – 10 walnuts – ½ clove of garlic – 1 tsp. nutritional yeast – olive oil, salt and black or white pepper
PreparationDirections: Grate the peel of a well-washed, agroecological lemon. Chop the parsley, chop the garlic, the walnuts (previously hydrated or toasted) and combine all the ingredients together with the nutritional yeast, salt, olive oil and pepper.
the green feel
Salvador Perez is an artist from Cordoba whose project, Mate with yuyois an itinerant mini-studio of illustration, editorial and audiovisual design.
For this note, Salvador worked online with a fanzine that he self-published last year, The Green Feel: “A small compendium of brief reflections that invite you to reconnect skin, sap and emotions. A selection of illustrations full of color and energy in a mini-log format, with very light productions with manual calligraphy”.
*By Soledad Sgarella for La Tinta / Cover image: Salvador Perez.