Hello my luvlies! Let me ask you, what better way is there to inspire ourselves to eat to stay healthy then to launch The Medicinal Gourmet Cooking Collective! Many foods are also medicines and when included in a meal can really help to improve your health! In India there are many spices and herbs that are used, as well as certain vegetables like bitter gourd that are very medicinal. Bitter foods tend to help the blood and heart. In China there are many things eaten for health such as Ginseng, Fermented Foods, Mushrooms, and many Herbs. Most countries have their own way to heal the body naturally through food, and this collective will bring us all together so that we can share our knowledge and inspire each other.
This challenge is a lovely opportunity to cook, learn, experiment with some new ideas, and share in the spirit of good health. In this collective we are more concerned with the medicinal value of the dishes rather then having perfect presentation (although that always helps!). Your meal can include a drink or juice as well as a starter or dessert if you want. It's up to you how far you take your meal and how medicinal you want to get.
The Five Elements
Each week we will be cooking to support one of the five elements. According to the Ancient Chinese, all things in the world can be divided into five vibrational families and the elements of Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. In the body, these Five Elements represent the five major organs - The kidneys, the Liver, the Heart, the Spleen/Stomach/Pancreas and the Lungs - all of which are necessary for survival. Usually one of these organs is stronger than the others giving extra energy to that organ and helping people to behave in certain ways and clearly influences personality and lifestyle choices - things like food preferences, fun, fashion, decorating, sleeping, playing, etc. And, one of the organs is usually slightly deficient and needs building up. When you are strong in one element, you usually need to build up the other elements to find balance.
fire (火)
metal (金)
wood (木)
water (水)
earth (土)
When our organs are in balance with each other we can experience good health. Our organs can be supported by eating foods that nourish and bring balance to the body. You can see in the chart below how the elements correspond to the organs of the body, what emotions they are related to, as well as the colour and tates that can be eaten to bring them into balance.
Week 1: Red / Fire / Heart Food
Consuming food that is red in colour or bitter in taste is good for your heart, small intestine, and brain. Foods that fall into this category include carrots, tomato, sweet potato, strawberry, chilli, red beans, red pepper, jujube, goji berry, dragon fruit, apple, beetroot, saffron, and anything else that is a shade of red. Other food types that are good for the heart include 70%+ dark chocolate, raw garlic, olive oil, nuts, asparagus, spinach, artichoke, aubergine, liquorice, broccoli, and flax-seeds.
We will cook once a week, and today marks the start of the first day of week 1. If you would like to join us in this challenge for week 1 please let us know in the comments. You don't have to do them all if you don’t want, a one week commitment is also totally fine ;-) The final date to post with us is next Thursday 12th July.
Posting Guidelines
This first challenge will focus on the Fire Element or the Heart. This could be a meal that contains ingredients that are known to reduce blood pressure, stress, or other heart related ailments. It might include a relaxing tea such as chamomile. It should be a dish that promotes a healthy heart. It could even include a dish made with red chocolate!? It could be a special soup that helps to reduce weight, or any medicinal dishes that help the heart that you know of.
1. The meal should include an element of the colour red and there should be a bitter element to it. You can also use any ingredients that support the healthy functioning of the heart.
2. Please post using the tag #medicinal-cooking so that it is easy to find your post.
3. Please try out the recipes yourself and include photos of your dish(es) and how you made it.
4. Please explain in your post how this meal is beneficial to the Heart or Fire Element.
5. This challenge is open to everyone. There are no rules regarding ingredients, including the use of (ethically sourced) meat or fish, although we encourage vegan ideas as they are usually the best!
6. The deadline for this is Friday 13th July ;-) Please do comment if you have any questions!
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This is an awesome initiative! I'm definitely up for joining in!
yay! happy to have you on board! should be fun!
Thank you 😊💖
Great idea! And so much more exciting than the old Steemit Culinary Challenge, because I know I'll be able to come up with something each week :-)
I'm glad that there is a nice long time-frame for this, haha! I'll make an entry tomorrow or Wednesday, feel free to shoot me a reminder on Discord if it pops in your head :-P
i thought u might like this one ;-) its been great to see quite a few people post some really good recipes that I want to try out.. happy to hear you may take part.. i like calling it a collective more than a challenge because it doesn't really matter if you do one or all of the weeks..
look forward to seeing what you come up with! <3
I actually just harvested some rhubarb this week, It’s very bitter with some red touches, although I don’t think the rhubarb apple crisp was good for the heart, lll have to find another recipe.
oh yeah, that sounds like it has all the makings of a 'good for the heart' part of a dish! I hope to see what you come up with!!
Awesome idea! I am down to participate in this next week if I have enough time after publishing my album. I really hope I will. I believe this is a perfect @kennyskitchen contest lol.
nice, happy to hear! if you cant make this week you can always do the next one.. ;-) mind you that was the point of this is to make us make time to make healthy good food in between getting everything done ;<3
I just made roasted red pepper soup, but you see, I don't have time to document it right now. Its more of a time availability issue for me, I feel my diet is healthy.
oh yeah that sounds like just the ticket.. you know, a part of this collective is to just share ideas.. so Please feel free to just upload a pic in the comments here and mention the basic ingredients.. whatever works bro!
Cool, I can probably work a couple photos in here and there.
Wow, this is great! Very interesting, herbal medicines and vegetables are always the best. Hoping to drop my entry soon. Thank you @eco-alex.
Great happy to hear!
I'm up for the challenge. I believe food is our medicine and I will dig into my treasure trove of recipes to come up with something for the red fire element. Count me in.
Great! Look forward to seeing what u come up with!
I love this challenge, I love cooking and I have spent almost a year on this platform to make the dishes that inspire me, I hope to fulfill all the expectations and that my imagination fly very high to make each week the best, thank you very much for this challenge.
Yes! I LIKE this and am putting this on my posting radar! Super initiative, Alex! x :)
Super happy your into this! Xx
Oh Yes!! :)
this is really great @eco-alex, what we eat really makes us who we are, this is such an important challenge that I hope to get involved in, resteemed xxx
hey if you're pushed for time you could just make a salad with loads of arugula and a chocolate brownie for dessert ;-)
it is more that I am away from my home so do not have all the foods that I would normally have available to me, but I already know what salad, tea and dessert I would do xxx I will try xx. I have made them all in the past, I might just have to include the recipes and reasons for choosing them if that is okay, as i' in Ireland again, is that okay?xx
u know its always OK! a dark chilli chocolate pudding im hoping on dessert!
thank you xx dark chilli chocolate pudding sounds great xxx
i think theres a nice recipe using avacado! Also good for the heart! ;) now i want one!
oh dark chocolate, avocado and lime yum you are making me hungry xxx
Greetings dear driver @eco-alex, I think a great idea this challenge of medicinal foods. There are many things to know and now I am learning in your article. Thank you for your wisdom, and account with my participation in this first week of the fire element!
Thanks for the information sir.
Interesting initiative, hope to make my enter soon.
One lovely idea red wine and bitter chocolate, perfect match ;)
Yep! It is
Amazing idea. As you know Im away too but will join in when I get back in a few weeeks time. I bet this will take off for sure!!! Xxx
Excellent this initiative for which I join this great challenge. Thank you @eco-alex, for this idea.
Upvoted and Resteemed.
It may be that what I am about to say is assumed, but just in case it is not:
All the ingredients you mention, they should qualify under both these categories:
They must NOT be GMO
and
They must BE Organic (no chemicals used, for either fertilizer, herbicide or pesticide)
Otherwise, I love this and though I will not be contributing, at least I now have a tag where I can go to find healthy recipes.
A great initiative.
thanks arthur! i mean, yes for sure.. but we just have to assume .. ideally it would be home grown ingredients really! ;-)
be sure you check the @ecotrain page for the tie up posts on this, because the medicinal-cooking tag will only show the last 7 days posts.. that is how it works on steemit for unpopular tags.. everything older than 7 days vanishes!
caramba! I did not know that...I've been blithely using my own tag for ALL my posts, thinking it helps keep a copy for me...I guess I'll have to return to bookmarking my posts in my browser. Thanks for letting me know.
Nice post mn....
Please guide and sprt.. i joined new this platform.. please help..
I would love to join, but I'm not a vegan. Is that a deal breaker?
I would love to join,
But I'm not a vegan. Is
That a deal breaker?
- lousapphire
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
I wrote that it is ok to use meat or fish for this challenge ;) all meat or fish should be organic free range etc! But to be honest I can't think of much that is non vegan that really does much good for the heart! Let's see maybe you know something I don't..
Saturated fat from meat does not cause heart attacks. Actually, bad LDL is triggered by inflammation in the body. What causes inflammation? It's caused by sugar and refined carbohydrates. You see, LDL cholesterol does serve a purpose. It's job is to enter the blood stream and plug up the lesions caused by the inflammation brought on by high blood sugar. As a result, so much bad LDL builds up over time and causes artery blockages; thus, causing heart attacks. Plenty of vegans have cardiac arrests. Unfortunately, pious people like you drown out what constitutes as real nutrition. Do some research @eco-alex and don't be so hung up on vegan dogma. Good luck with your disinformation campaign, hippie.
i didnt say that meat does cause heart attacks.. but when you eat things like beets, and medicinal food it can be much more beneficial to help to heal a heart problem.. ask any doctor that!
and by the way i just told you its fine to use meat so i have NO idea why you are flapping about like this!? Im quite aware of how bad carbs and sugar are!
I'm "flapping" because you just said, "But to be honest I can't think of much that is non vegan that really does much good for the heart!". Maybe you didn't say that meat causes heart attacks, but you certainly implied it.
Well look mate, im not some kind of fanatacist.. i eat meat once in a while and love pizza, but what im saying is a slab of steak aint gonna help clear your arteries like the medicinal foods do. Id say meat is goOd for u but it doesnt provide the kind of really beneficial nutrients that u find in the herbal world.. the chinese live on meat but they use herbs and fungi as medicine .. hope its clear now
Hey, I like fungi too, the medicinal kind, if you get my drift ;)
Gracias amigo por esta bendecidad oportunidad. Estoy preparando mi publicación, espero que seas de tu agrado
I have my post up for the Medicinal Cooking Challenge at: https://steemit.com/food/@porters/the-perfect-combination-tomato-and-basil-plus-garlic-medicinal-cooking
I would like to make a recommendation too of a wonderful book - "Healing Herbs Cookbook by Pat Crocker.
I was fortunate enough to attend a workshop with her at a Herb Conference and it was there that she turned me on to making pesto using all different types of herbs besides just the standard basil. I had included a lemon pesto recipe in my post.
In her book "Healing Herbs Cookbook" she gives the description of the herbs (and some spices) flavor, parts used, how to grow, healing properties or actions, uses, availability, how to use in cooking and folklore plus many marvelous recipes. A great reference book!
I'm inside @eco-alex, what a great contest, but more than that is an extraordinary way to eat healthy and encourage others, thank you friend for sharing.
I would love to join this contest sir.
I would post mine (medicinal recipe) before 12th july. Thanks.
Nice challenge! I want to write for this first element fire, of the heart. I'll probably post today using the tag. xx
This sounds like an awesome challenge and I'd love to participate! When is the entry deadline?
Great! The official deadline is friday but its fine to post a bit late.. more importantly wed like to see your recipe!
Oh I will definitely be able to make that happen - Malaysian markets are full of bitter gourd that just waits to be used for a great recipe challenge 😉
I had so much fun putting this recipe together, thank you for organizing this different kind of cooking challenge 😉 Here is my entry post:
Bitter Melon Salad with Guacamole (Raw+Vegan)
buena publicación,y si hay muchos alimentos que son buenos para la salud
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