brown rice fast

as many of my friends and clients know, every fall signals a brown rice fast (brf) of ten days. i start thinking of the rice for a few days and bang, the ten days start. funny how at the end of it i don't wish to see another bowl of short grain organic rice but as summer ends my body is yearning to begin the ritual of cleaning for the winter. i love the summer eating, fresh food from the farmer's market and the garden in the back yard. lovely tomatoes and green veggies.

winter is indicative of foods of convenience. dead meat, packaged, fruits and veggies from far away. it is the time when food used to be scarce but now with transportation so easily we get what we wish. yet the body is a primordial system that has seasons of ebb and flow. there was a time when the gut only had grains in the fall then only meat in the darkest winter, then spring arrives and green shoots are the only live food around. this is a northern pattern.

the body is like a worm or sometimes i say, oyster. we eat and it snakes down a long intestinal line like a worm and comes out the other end. like oysters, it is easy to consume the seafood after we clean the sand and grit from its gut with a bucket oatmeal water.

i think of the brf as a cleanser of the intestine. as we chew and because it is so boring, slowly, we manage to integrate the sensations of eating. it activates the enzymes in the mouth saliva to chew. to eat one type of food without oils or seasoning takes a great focus.
it takes an alkaline solution to break down the carbohydrates of the rice. acid solutions allow proteins to be assimulated. to understand giving the body a chance to digest a single chemical reaction. simple yet confusing to the modern man due to the today's addictions to the businesses of food production. we have been trained to eat way more than we need and that has produce a nation that is obsessed with overeating and sensationalism. i bet that in the old country for many of us that was not a problem. it was just stress to find food to eat.

i must say that i was raised in Canada to a farm girl from China so i have some experience of eating a boring diet in my youth but as soon as i got a job and indoctrinated into the world of big macs, i never looked back. pile it on, sugar, fat, protein. it was not till i became a health nut in my late twenties did i have to learn to correct that habit.

now in my forties, i am more to eat in moderation and on the healthier side but one cannot account for the enviromental polutants we don't know about in our air, water and foods. i am glad that every fall i have the habit to do the brf for my intestines, and in the spring i do a liver cleanse.

how to do it? i start by soaking my organic short grain brown rice a couple of days before i cook it. i wash it, put in twice as much water to rice and then i put it on my rice cooker. i usually soak a lot of rice and cook about 2-4 cups of rice. each day the rice soaks changes the texture of the rice as well, the amount of water used to cook the rice also affects the consistency. when you eat only rice, it is smart to change it a little just to make it more exciting.

some days i will cheat by putting in some grains of seasalt into the rice to cook, some days i eat some seaweed with it. some days i will eat some rice cakes to break the monotony of the rice. i also have to make, chewing the last few grains of rice, a game so that i educate my jaw to chew.

the first few days are good because of the novelty. day 3-7 are a grind. day 7-10 are a slog but that is when the best results happen. this is when a lot of water is released from the tissue and the skin begins to glow.
i drink roibois tea and lots of water. keeping the simplicity of not putting to much into the equation.

i have always been delighted by the process. it is a meditation.

excellence

life is ebbs and flows and this week has me using many modalities to keep myself afloat.

shadow yoga has started and my feet are so much stronger than ever and i am proud.

there has been a lightness of being that give me the willies and i worry. that is not a good habit. i am gratefull to know that that is an old style and i am practising to be.........a new style.

i just met a raw food teacher and chef from costa rica on internet dating and i find that very serindipitous. my friend sarinda is a rad practising raw foodist and i have been influenced by her life. hopefully on oct 20/21, i can network the past and the future and make wonderful connection at eric rivkin's cooking class in vancouver. look him up, it looks like a good read. funny where i get my inputs. i am gratefull that i have the nack.

i am planning to study with jeff spencer, m.a., d.c., in spokane on nov 17/18. his web site is amazing. the western conference for quantum will be nov 1-4. it is a fall full of education and i am so happy to have things to study. it is constant and fullfilling.

alex has just started at a new school a few blocks from our house. it is one of two montesori public schools and it has a waiting list to get in. he has been on the waiting list for three years. so he chose to go. see how it is for two years and if he wants, he would head back to his charles dickens school by grade 6. the school is building a new leed environmental sound building and i think that it will have aired out by then. i am thinking that that is long range planning for a 8 year old. i think maybe we will be in whistler by then.
hopefully harreson martell will show up at my house this week and we can play. he is the big cheese in thailand at the absolute yoga studios. they have seven sites of hot yoga in thailand and he is head of instructers training and scheduling. my friend peter lount is going there to do some computer programing for the company and to find love. i know he will find it. alex's dad russ is thinking also to do his post surgury recovery learning yoga in thailand. i hope that they can all hook up there.

namaste.