± 1 teaspoon umeboshi plum paste, and let the mixture simmer 2 minutes longer. Add less soy sauce than for plain shoyu-kuzu, as the plums are already salty. 3. Shoyu-kuzu with umeboshi and ginger: To recipe number 2, above, add ½ to 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger at the beginning. Apple Juice— Kuzu: In 1 cup apple juice, dissolve 2 tablespoons kuzu starch and ± 1 teaspoon vanilla extract( optional). Cook until thickened, stirring all the time. Swirl in 1 tablespoon tahini( sesame seed paste). Eat hot or cold.( This tastes like dessert, but it is a remedy.) BARLEY WATER( C / Ac / W / B-u): Two tablespoons barley cooked in 2 cups water for approximately 1 hour, covered. Mix. SOFT RICE( C / Ac / W / B-u): Cook 1 cup washed brown rice in 4 cups water for 2 hours; stir often. Soft rice can also be made by re-cooking previously cooked rice in an equal volume of water, until creamy, over a very low flame, stirring often. ROASTED RICE CREAM( C /-Ac / W / B-u): or rice and millet, mixed fifty-fifty. Wash 1 cup grain. Spread in a baking pan and roast at 350 ° F, stirring once or twice, until lightly browned and fragrant( about fifteen to twenty minutes). Grind in a blender or coffee grinder. Dissolve the roasted ground grain in water( use about 1 cup ground grain to two cups water) and bring to a boil while stirring. Cover and cook from thirty-five to forty minutes over the lowest heat, stirring often. Delicious— and more alkalizing— with a few drops of natural soy sauce( shoyu or tamari) or umeboshi vinegar or with some gomasio. For a tangy flavor and a good alkalizing effect, rice cream can also be cooked with a whole umeboshi plum mixed through it; no extra seasoning will then be needed. All the foregoing remedies have a distinct flavor. The advantage of using foods as medicine is that the taste can guide us: It’ s quite safe to live by the notion that if a food remedy tastes good to us, it is good for us, and vice versa. Kuzu, in its various forms, is an especially good example of this premise: The preparation that appeals to you at a given time is the one you should have at that time( and this can and will vary); the one that makes your throat close up will do you no good. The body knows what it needs, and it is unwise to force yourself to swallow any food remedy if you dislike it. EXTERNAL REMEDIES I’ ve found that food remedies are very well complemented by external water treatments. Water is probably the oldest of healing tools; it is easily available, either from brook, sea, rain, or even tongue. It can be used:
• As ice
• Cold
• Lukewarm
• Hot
• As steam in the form of:
• Packs
• Compresses
• Baths
• Sprays
• Steamings A comprehensive review of water therapy is outside the scope of this book. There are several excellent works on the subject, which periodically appear and then go out of print, because the public in the United States, unlike that in Europe, is not familiar with this easy and highly effective form of natural healing. 6 There are, however, several simple treatments that I have used for a number of conditions— especially fevers and earaches— with great success; you will find the details in the individual section for each condition. On the whole, please note the following:
• Cold water, in short applications, reduces fever, relieves pain, and tonifies the system. In a compress( a folded cloth dipped in water and wrung out), placed on abdomen or sprained muscle, covered by dry towels, cold water warms up and increases circulation; thereby it aids metabolism and the elimination of waste matter. Long coldwater applications are depressant and can chill the body. A cold foot bath can relieve congestion in the upper body, as blood rushes down to heat the feet.
• Hot water, in the form of compresses or baths, relaxes the muscles and combats tension. It also increases perspiration and surface circulation, thereby relieving congestion that is deep within the body. The eventual reaction to hot water will be cooling, as the perspiration evaporates; unless care is exercised, a hot-water application, if too prolonged, can both weaken and chill the body. For this reason, it is a very good idea to finish every hot shower with a few seconds of a cold one, to provoke the body into a warming reaction. CAUTION: Hot-water treatments should NEVER be used on:
• Open wounds or injuries