I used to get my chaga from a health food supplier out of Florida, but they have been out of stock for some time now. So I did a search for “wildcrafted chaga mushroom” and found many on Ebay. I chose the chaga from Maine.

Chaga (scientific name: Inonotus obliquus) also known as cinder cork. It’s a unique fungus that grows especially on the wounds of birch trees. But it can also be found growing on ironwood, elm, alder, beech and other hardwood species.

To prepare chaga, it has to be dried. Some advise simmering the dried chaga for a few hours. Just to be on the safe side, I let mine simmer on high in the crock pot for 10 hours. I used 2 small pieces along with 3 quart of water. The color was very intense, looked very much like coffee. The smell was pleasant, very fresh and woodsy.

This is 1/2 chaga extract with 1/2 water. It taste very pleasant and no bitterness at all.

Chaga has the highest antioxidant concentration of any known natural food. When made into tea (and no sweetener added), the taste is suppose to be slightly bitter. Like many herbal medicines, the bitterness seems to be a common factor.

Due to chaga’s health benefits, it’s been referred to as “King of Herbs” and “Nature’s Silver Bullet”. Chaga has been researched as an antiviral, anti-tumor for breast and uterine and other cancers, and diabetes.

Cheers to Chaga!

Note: Survival Topics has a neat post on how to harvest and prepare wild chaga.

Some advise to boil while others say to simmer for hours. For best result, take 30 minutes on empty stomach before a meal.

Two leaves & a bud is one of my favorite tea company. The latest tea from their line that I’ve tried is Organic White Peony.

The white tea is minimally processed, gently sun-dried to preserve the mellow, smooth and savory flavor of the tea. So it’s a very light tea with a floral note.

White tea is prized for it’s high levels of antioxidant and other health promoting properties. It gets the name white tea from the silvery bud that forms along with the two leaves of the tip of the plant.

Tea Notes:

* Caffeine: LIGHT
* Top note: Smooth
* Middle Note: Robust and sweet
* Finish: Complex texture

I like how this tea never gets bitter after steeping. I can also steep it 2 or 3 times before tossing it out.

This tea is also easy to drink with any meal. A cup of White Peony is perfect for this time of year.

Comes in an eco-friendly cylinder holding 50 grams of loose tea. Makes 25 cups.

The company is also on a mission to support all Fair Trade teas. Their teas come from small farmers.

We need more small family farms and should do our best to support them. Both at home and around the world.

“Our journeys to the gardens show us time and time again that great growers deserve to be rewarded for great tea. As a result, we pay more for premium whole leaf teas, ensuring that more money makes it back to the source.” - two leaves & a bud.

It was exciting and really worth it to make homemade yogurt. I started off making a smaller batch than the other recipes because I didn’t think I could eat that much yogurt.

Here’s my first jar of homemade yogurt. I’ve already finished half of it and it was delicious! It’s really creamy and not as tangy or thick as the store bought one.

The usual recipe calls for 8 cups of milk and 1/2 cup of starter yogurt. I used 4 cups of milk and 2 heaping tbs of plain yogurt. I got 2 mason jars of yogurt.

For a starter I used Nancy’s organic yogurt which has billions of live cultures of acidophilus and bifidum. But any plain yogurt will be just fine.

Directions:

Using a 2 quart crockpot (which is the smaller one) I measured out 4 cups of skim milk (1% fat milk). Let it cook in the crockpot for 2.5 hours at LOW setting.

Then unplug and let it sit there for 3 hours. After 3 hours, take out 2 cups of the warm milk and add in 2-3 tbs of plain yogurt. This plain yogurt is the starter that will provide the good bacteria.

Whisk the yogurt into the warm milk thoroughly then add the it to the crockpot. Stir well, close lid. Take a towel and wrap it around the crockpot for 8 hours. If you have a gas stove with a pilot light you can always stick the crockpot ceramic into the oven for the next 8 hours. The longer you keep it wrapped and warm, the more sour it gets.

After 8 hours just transfer the yogurt into a clean sterile jar and refrigerate. It should keep for 1-2 weeks.

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I used to eat lots of yogurt, especially those with fruit on the bottom. I liked the variety of fruits they used, but it was always too sweet. And the fact that is was loaded with sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup made me stop eating them.

Then I discovered Greek yogurt which is not as sweet and much thicker in consistency. And it fills me up for a long time too. That’s because it has more protein then regular yogurt.

It seems I’m not the only one that prefers Greek yogurt over regular yogurt. Sales of Greek yogurt has been doing very well, even when it’s twice as expensive as regular yogurt.

Yoplait Greek yogurt with blueberries on the bottom. It’s very thick!

The Altantic reports, “Just five years ago, Greek yogurt was a $60 million market in the U.S. (Too sour! Too thick!) But sales have increased 2500%, accelerating through the Great Recession despite the fact that the “Greek” stuff (it’s actually more Lebanese, but anyway) tends to be twice as expensive as normal yogurt.”

Yogurt is consider one of the world’s healthiest food. It’s health benefits includes building stronger bones, enhances immunity, lowers blood pressure, and may even have anticancer and weight-loss effects. Also improves lactose intolerance and provide probiotics for healthy digestion.

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There are plenty of fresh citrus in the market this season. Recently I bought a bag of organic oranges and saved the peels to add to my tea. This time of year is also when we get Meyer lemons from a friend’s tree. I also saved those peels and add them to tea.

The peels can be fresh or dried. To dry them, just leave them sun or in the oven. But make sure it’s fully dry so it doesn’t get moldy. And store them in a air tight container.

I used fresh orange peel with this cup of green tea. It gives the tea an orange tint and it’s not bitter at all. The skin actually gets soft and you can just eat them too. And if you like it sweet, add a little bit of honey.

When you are cooking with citrus peel, it’s best to use only citrus that are not sprayed with pesticides. This is because the precious citrus oils are located in the outer skin and can absorb the chemicals.

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I’ve been eating this new fruit I found at the Asian grocery store. It’s called sourop, but also goes by many other names too.

In Brazil, it’s referred to as Graviola or Brazilian paw paw. And guanábana in many Spanish speaking countries.

Soursop is a cousin of the delicious cherimoya but not as sweet. It looks almost similar except for the spines. The spines on the skin do look scary for a really healthy fruit. Photo collage above from Wikipedia.

Not only do they have the frozen soursop at the market, but they also have soursop drink. The drink is way too sweet and I find it to be too mushy to drink up. So it was better eaten with a spoon.

The frozen soursop is not as sweet, but still sweeten with syrup. The fruit taste both tangy and sweet. It’s difficult to describe, more like ripe pear, hint of mangosteen and of pineapple. On some occasion, the frozen fruit pulp had lots of fiber, so it was very tough and chewy.

More info about graviola or soursop:

Graviola is native to tropical South America. They mainly use it to make shakes and sorbets (sherbet), but it is also enjoyed fresh when ripe.

This plant can also be grown successfully in Florida. But it is commonly grown in South America as well as in Asia.

It is a small, evergreen tree, with large, glossy, dark green leaves. The fruits are heart-shaped and yellow to green in color. While the inside flesh is white.

All parts of this plant is healing. Including the bark, leaves, fruit, and seed.

Raintree Nutrition noted the following healing benefits:

All parts of the graviola tree are used in natural medicine in the tropics, including the bark, leaves, roots, fruit, and fruit seeds. Different properties and uses are attributed to the different parts of the tree. Generally, the fruit and fruit juice are taken for worms and parasites, to cool fevers, to increase mother’s milk after childbirth, and as an astringent for diarrhea and dysentery. The crushed seeds are used against internal and external parasites, head lice, and worms. The bark, leaves, and roots are considered sedative, antispasmodic, hypotensive, and nervine, and a tea is made for various disorders toward those effects.

Many clinical studies many have also been done concerning graviola. Researchers in Taiwan reported in 2003 that the main graviola acetogenin, annonacin, was highly toxic to ovarian, cervical, breast, bladder and skin cancer cell lines at very low dosages saying; “. . . annonacin is a promising anti-cancer agent and worthy of further animal studies and, we would hope, clinical trials.”

It would a great addition to have one of these healing plant growing in your backyard. You can make tea or tincture with it. The fruits are a tasty and healthy treat too.

But if growing a tree isn’t possible, then be on the look out for this fruit at your local Asian market.

Soursop cheesecake anyone? Here is a neat recipe from Cap Trib Exotic Fruit Farm in Australia.

Another note, I am always amazed at how much of nature is one big pharmacy! The more reason we should be protecting our rain forests.

CNNMoney.com reported in July of this year that “barely half the population has dental insurance”. That is a high percentage.

Just a few months ago when I got a gold crown to fix a damaged tooth, it cost me about $600. And that’s with dental insurance. The price they quoted without dental insurance would be $900.

But just step across the border to Mexico at a DentiCenter office and the cost is $250. That’s a huge price difference!

DentiCenter is a small but growing chain of full-service dental centers sitting along the U.S. border of California, Arizona and Texas. The 6 offices are located in Mexico but 97% of its patients come from the U.S.

Vacation in Baja and vist the dentist too. Photo from The Travelers Journal.

I would probably go to the office in Baja, Mexico and visit the beautiful beaches and cove. Then it wouldn’t be so bad to visit the dentist, as long as you get a short vacation out of it.

The idea of traveling abroad for medical care is becoming common. There are even medical tourism companies that cater to just that idea. Especially in Thailand and India.

DentiCenter is one that caters to dental care. The center is founded by Dr. Juan Eng, a USC-trained periodontist from the Baja peninsula. They have been in business for 20 years now. DentiCenter’s services includes free transportation for all patients a convenient shuttle to and from the Mexico-U.S. border.

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I finally got my hands on a dragonfruit plant.  The best part is I didn’t have to travel to any dragonfruit convention to find them.

I’m hoping mine will survive the northern California winter.  We do have nights where temperatures get to 32 degrees Fahrenheit.  At least I’ve had good luck with my other succulents such as Aloe Vera and Queen of the Nights.

It was really easy to plant the cuttings. All I did was stick them in good soil and topped it off with lawn clippings (my version of mulch). Some people mentioned growing dragonfruit from the seeds. I think that would take too long to grow, if at all. But next time around I’ll try to save the seeds and grow them. And they sure have lots of seeds!

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I’ve never heard of chaga until I came upon a bottled drink of chaga made by Sayan Health.

The bottle stated that it’s not a tea or juice, but more of an exotic medley of healthy herbs and berries. It was not bitter at all. it was actually very good.

This is the bottled Chaga I tried in wild raspberry. Can be found at your local Whole Foods Market or ask about it at your favorite health food market. Photo from Amazon.

The label on Chaga tea also stated that this mushroom has antioxidants that are 6 times stronger then acai. The fact that it’s not as pretty looking (as many of the superfruits) probably make this fungus less popular.

Sanya Health got it’s company name from the Altai-Sayan Mountains in the Siberia taiga (where temperatures are below -40 degrees most of the year). As this is where they harvest their chaga, since the extremely cold temperatures produce more potent chaga.

Chaga (scientific name: Inonotus obliquus) also known as cinder cork. It’s a unique fungus that grows especially on the wounds of birch trees. But it can also be found growing on ironwood, elm, alder, beech and other hardwood species.

It has the highest antioxidant concentration of any known natural food. When made into tea (and no sweetener added), the taste is suppose to be slightly bitter. Like many herbal medicines, the bitterness seems to be a common factor.

Due to chaga’s health benefits, it’s been referred to as “King of Herbs” and “Nature’s Silver Bullet”. Chaga has been researched as an antiviral, anti-tumor for breast and uterine and other cancers, and diabetes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since Açaí (pronounced ah-sigh-ee) berries came into the health market, it’s interest has not slowed down. Native Brazilians have been eating acai berries long before the rest of the world knew about it. And to the natives, it’s just part of their daily diet.

My latest bar of Açaí Berry Superfruit handmade soap.  It’s made with acai berry extract. And also other superfruit such as pomegranate juice powder.  I also included organic beet powder and grape seed extract.

Acai has also found it’s way to the beauty industry too.  Some of Ikove Amazonian beauty products are made using Açaí as it provides a remarkable concentration of antioxidants that help to combat premature aging.  It contains essential amino acid complex and valuable trace minerals.

The Acai berry extract or pulp can be added to anti-aging creams, after sun products, body creams and lotions. Science Daily News noted, “Acai berries are packed with antioxidants that are essential to assist our bodies as they help fight illness and reduce the aging process.” It’s just good all around.

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