Your Liver and Your Health. By: Claire Georgiou, Reboot Naturopath, B. HSc NDLiver health and your overall health go hand in hand with each other. The state of your liver has a huge influence upon how well you live, look and feel. If you liver is not healthy you will not be either. The liver is the largest organ inside the body and it filters over one litre (3. The liver has more than 2. More than 2,0. 00 Australians die each year from chronic liver diseases, cirrhosis and cancers of the liver, gall bladder and bile ducts. An interesting Japanese study showed eating vegetables provided a protective effect against liver cancer. Liver dysfunction, which is different than liver disease, is when the liver has not yet sustained permanent or sufficient damage to cause major impairment of its normal functions. This can include mild to moderate fatty liver. A dysfunctional liver is working at a reduced capacity, and is overloaded, fatty, toxic or sluggish. This will have a significant negative influence on health. Symptoms can include pain or discomfort under the right ribcage, indigestion, bloating, intolerance to fatty foods, fatigue, chronic skin itching, poor concentration, intolerance to heat, gallstones, elevated LDL cholesterol, fat around the upper abdomen (liver roll), weight gain, sugar imbalances and cravings and allergies. If you have a number of these symptoms concurrently it may be your liver causing these symptoms. Here is a link to an extended list of symptoms. So with all this information about the liver, how can we take care of such an AMAZING organ! Fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices all provide an astonishing amount of nutrients that support its natural detoxification pathways. If you take care of your liver it will take care of you! The liver is the most restorative regenerative organ in the body. Let food be your medicine as plant foods are the most important foods for a healthy liver. Simple guidelines for liver health. Cabbage family vegetables contain a phytonutrient called sulforaphane which has been shown to increase the activity of the liver’s detoxification enzymes. These enzymes are well known for their ability to clear a wide variety of toxic compounds. Culinary herbs and spices for liver health include rosemary, turmeric, dandelion leaves and ginger. These can be easily added to juices or any reboot meal suggestions. Liver Juice Recipe– 2 Cabbage Leaves (any variety)– 1 Beetroot (Beet)– 1 Lemon– 2 Kale or Spinach Leaves– 1 Carrot– 1 Apple– Knob of turmeric or Knob of ginger. It grows not a mile from here. And about eight miles north of here I was collecting it some 2. Yet the government says it is not in this county. Sometimes I wonder how the federal department of agriculture gets by. Thus I read the USDA plant distribution maps with a skeptical eye. I’m not sure they are updated every century. And if you write to them and tell them their map is wrong. Kudzu, ear tree, wild pineapple, NONE of them grow here officially. The only thing worst than academic botanists who never get into the field is USDA agents who can’t tell a pumpkin from a cherry. The blossom has a very intense grape aroma. That said, kudzu, Pueraria montana var. We just don’t use it enough. But know this, if kudzu grows near you, you won’t starve. Indeed, economic times may make kudzu valuable again. It’s not on menu’s yet but you may wish it were. A couple of years ago there’s was a kudzu methanol car- fuel plant in the works in the U. S. The only thing about kudzu I don’t like is the smell of the flowers in bloom: It smells exactly like the very cheap, very intense grape- flavored chemical gum kids chew. You can detect it from hundreds of feet away. Very strong, but good for identifying. If you like that aroma let your nose guide you. Observational cohort studies and a secondary prevention trial have shown an inverse association between adherence to the Mediterranean diet and cardiovascular risk. Low-Carbohydrate-Diet Score and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Women. Halton, Sc.D., Walter C. Willett, M.D., Dr.P.H., Simin Liu, M. Did you know that you can help us produce ebooks by proof-reading just one page a day? Go to: Distributed Proofreaders. List of high protein rich foods and their nutritional content. All protein foods that are high in protein are listed with how much protein they contain. Jacqueline McLaughlin is an Associate Professor of Biology at Penn State Lehigh Valley and Founding Director of Penn State's award-winning, international, and. Kudzu has no choice, so I don’t blame it. But the gum makers do have a choice and they make the wrong one. The exposition was to celebrate 1. United States being an independent country. Japan built a garden using Kudzu. Then it was at an exposition in New Orleans in 1. American gardeners fell in love. The government stopped paying to plant it. Kudzu can grow a foot a day and when escaped from cultivation, it can smother and kill an entire forest. By 1. 97. 0 the government called it a weed and it’s been a “pest” ever since finally getting on the Federal Noxious Weed List in 1. Granted Kudzu is a problem, but “pest” or “resource” is a matter of attitude and policy. What would a country in famine do with those hundreds of thousands of acres of food? I doubt they would call it a noxious weed. Perhaps instead of sending dollars to the starving we should send them nutritious kudzu. Kudzu’s pods and seeds are NOT edible.
Kudzu can be eaten many ways. The young leaves can be consumed as a green, or juiced. They can be dried and made into a tea. That said, kudzu, Pueraria montana var. We just don’t use it enough. Shoots can be eaten like asparagus. The blossom can be used to make pickles or a jelly — a taste between apple and peach — and the root is full of edible starch. Older leaves can be fried like potato chips, or used to wrap food for storage or cooking. With kudzu you can make a salad, stew the roots, batter- fry the flowers or pickled them or make a make syrup. Raw roots can be cooked in a fire, roots stripped of their outer bark can be roasted in an oven like any root vegetable; or grated and ground into a flour to make a thickener, a cream or tofu. Kudzu is used to make soaps, lotions, rope, twine, baskets, wall paper, paper, fuel and compost. It can also be baled like hay with most grazing animals liking it, especially goats. Only the seeds are not edible. And while the root starch is edible, it takes hours of pounding to get the starch out, as my friend Doug Elliott wrote in his book, Roots. Kudzu, to someone not familiar with it, does have a couple of look- alikes, such as the Desmodium rotundifolium, or the Ticktrefoil. The hog peanut, Amphicarpaea bracteata, may be mistaken for young kudzu vines, but it does not have hairy stems or climbs into trees. The key is to look for hairy stems on the young kudzu, and when it blossoms follow the grape aroma. The word “kudzu” comes from the Japanese word “kuzu” which means vine. The name itself comes from a particular region of Japan where the people are also called Kuzu. It is not known which came first, the name or the people. Pueraria was named after the Swiss botanist Marc Nicolas Puerari who taught in Copenhagen. Montana means mountainous. Sometimes the plant is called Pueraria lobata, skipping the Montana part. In China it is called g. We call it a weed because we are not hungry enough. Recipies on bottom. Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile. IDENTIFICATION: Kudzu is a climbing, semi- woody, vine that can reach up to 1. Stems can reach the diameter of . Leaves alternate, compound with three broad leaflets to 4 inches across. Leaflets may be entire or deeply 2- 3 lobed hairy underneath. Flowers in late summer, seeds pods brown, hairy, flattened, containing three to ten seeds. TIME OF YEAR: Shoots in spring, young leaves anytime, blossoms July through October, roots best in fall or early spring. ENVIRONMENT: Likes full sun, heat, plenty of water. METHOD OF PREPARATION: Nearly too numerous to mention. Kudzu has been used successfully for centuries as a treatment for alcoholism, and this is a main focus of modern kudzu medical research today. Experiments with hamsters and rats, show that a compound in kudzu actually causes the repression of alcohol consumption. This research could have great value in the future for the treatment of alcoholism Kudzu Blossom Jelly. Spoon over cream cheese, or melt and serve over waffles and ice cream. The blossom liquid is gray until lemon juice is added. Kudzu blossoms. 4 cups boiling water. Wash Kudzu blossoms with cold water, and place them in a large bowl. Pour 4 cups boiling water over blossoms, and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight. Pour blossoms and liquid through a colander into a Dutch oven, discarding blossoms. Add lemon juice and pectin; bring to a full rolling boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar; return to a full rolling boil, and boil, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Remove from heat; skim off foam with a spoon. Quickly pour jelly into hot, sterilized jars, filling to 1/4 inch from top. Cover at once with metal lids, and screw on bands. Process in boiling water bath 5 minutes. YIELD: 6 half pints. Rolled Kudzu Leaves. Kudzu Leaves. 1 can diced tomatoes. Juice of 3 lemons. Bacon Grease (optional)Stuffing ingredients: 1 cup rice, rinsed in water. Salt and Pepper to taste. Gather about 3. 0 medium- sized young kudzu leaves. Make sure area has not been sprayed with chemicals. Wash leaves. Drop into salted boiling water. Boil a 2- 3 minutes, separating leaves. Remove to a plate to cool. Remove heavy center stems from the leaves by using a knife and cutting down each side of the stem to about the middle of the leaf. Combine all stuffing ingredients and mix well. Push cut sides together and fill with 1 teaspoon stuffing and roll in the shape of a cigar. Place something in bottom of a large pan so that rolled leaves will not sit directly on the bottom of the pan. Bacon grease is great for seasoning. Arrange Kudzu rolls alternately in opposite directions. When all are in the pot, pour in a can diced tomatoes, 2 teaspoons of salt, and 3 cloves of garlic, cut in half. Press down with an inverted dish and add water to reach dish. Cover pot and cook on medium for 3. Add lemon juice and cook 1. Kudzu Quiche. Makes 4- 6 servings. Kudzu leaves and stems. Ground pepper to taste. Preheat oven to 3. Mix cream, eggs, kudzu, salt, pepper, and cheese. Bake for 3. 5 to 4. Kudzu Tea. Kudzu leaves. Mint. Honey. Simmer 1 cup of finely chopped Kudzu leaves in a quart of water for 3. Drain and serve with honey and a sprig of mint. If you prefer a sweeter taste use honey to sweeten the tea. Deep Fried Kudzu Leaves. Pick light green leaves, 2- inch size. Thin batter made with iced water and flour. Oil. Heat oil. Rinse and dry kudzu leaves, then dip in batter (chilled). Fry oil quickly on both sides until brown. Drain on paper toweling. Eat while warm. kudzu powder. Kudzu powder can be prepared on a small scale from wild kudzu with little equipment. Roots no smaller than 1 1/2” in diameter should be harvested during the winter months, December through March. Kudzu root should be washed, cut into approximate one- inch thick slices and pureed in a blender with enough cold water to blend the root well. The puree should be strained and the solid fibers squeezed to extract all the liquid to be used for further processing. The remaining fibers should then be saturated with water, stirred, and strained again, collecting the liquid into the container with the other extract. The brown kudzu liquid should be filtered through muslin or lower grade cotton fabric and left undisturbed in a cool or cold location for 2. The fibers can be composted and the brown liquid should then be discarded as grey water. The clay like substance remaining in the container should be broken up and mixed well, until thoroughly dissolved with clean water once again, and allowed to rest for 2. The liquid should again be discarded and the starch redissolved into a second batch of clean water, this time leaving the mixture for 4. The liquid should then be discarded and the layer of gray impurities removed from the starch. The starch is then ready to be used immediately or can be dried to preserve it indefinitely. To dry the kudzu starch, place kudzu chunks on a tray or on layers of paper and set it in a cool, well ventilated place for 1. Store dry chunks of kudzu in a sealed container. The dry chunks of kudzu, when pulverized, become kudzu powder. Kudzu Flower Wine. Pick kudzu blossoms when they are dry (mid- day). Wash in pan of water containing 1/2 cup vinegar to kill any bugs. Pour 2. 5 quarts of boiling water over the blossoms and stir. Put a lid on the container and stir twice a day for four days. Strain the liquid through a clean cloth. Press the blossoms to get all the liquid from them. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water. Pour the dissolved yeast into the liquid. Transfer to a one- gallon jug. Add enough water to bring the liquid within 2 inches below the neck of the jug. Attach the balloon and secure it with twine or a strong rubber band. Place jug in a cool dark place that is between 6. In approximately 6 weeks the balloon will stop expanding and the wine is done. Strain the wine through a clean cloth and transfer it to airtight bottles. Allow it to sit for an additional two to twelve months before drinking. Kudzu Root Sucker.
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