Pu-Ehr — My favorite tea

It turns out my favorite tea, Pu-Ehr tea, is not only an enigma, it’s fermented! Who knew?? I learned this tea is not green and not black, it’s specially prepared and fermented to produce unique compounds that helps to burn fat! Wikipedia has good information on it, but here’s a pretty good summary:
Good Pu-Ehr Tea Article.
Pu-Ehr tea often comes in tightly packed ovals or balls that is often hard to break apart. It has an earthy favor that is absolutely delicious.
This special tea is believed to improve digestion and to clear toxins from the body, especially when the toxins come from too much drink.
Try it the morning after imbibing a few guiness stout with raw egg!
Pic of packed Pu-Ehr Tea

Probiotics — For Life!

No tonic blog would be complete without a mention of probiotics. Almost every culture has a fermented food product that is considered a staple. These fermented foods mean bacteria in the gut that are producing vitamins and protecting us from bad bacteria. These “good” bacteria in our gut also provide protection against viruses. Korea has kimchee, japan has natto and miso, china has a variety of fermented bean and soy products. Europe and middle east have yogurt, kefir and sauerkraut. If you look closely at any culture, it will have a ‘culture’ that confers health benefits.
Probiotics are becoming trendy and there is a lot of hype. I’m not sure exactly why we need to take supplements that survive the stomach acid if people have been eating foods for years without this problem. Nevertheless, the proponents of supplements say that you should look for a guarantee of potency through the expiration date and not the time of manufacture. You also want to get as many cultures as possible. Look for a good balance of names with “L” for the small intestines and “B” for the large intestines. You need to get both for optimum results.
An interesting side effect? Extremely vivid and intense dreams. Many have reported this side effect. I think that since we have ‘brains in our guts’ this side effect is interesting and should be studied.

Sea Cucumbers!!

My latest food adventure is preparing a dried sea cucumber I bought in a Chinese Herb shop. Sea Cucumbers are very expensive, slightly disgusting looking, very tasty and sought after for their reputed tonic effects. They are often eaten at Chinese weddings and other special occasions in the East as a delicacy.
Sea Cucumbers can be bought already cleaned and soaked but the most common way to find them is dried. They resemble rocks or what you would imagine a petrified cucumber to look like. This picture is a dried one next to one that has soaked for one day:

Preparing them is a time consuming process. I haven’t been able to google a good procedure for preparing them. I’ve been told to boil them with ginger daily and let them soak all day, changing the water once or twice daily. After it softens a bit, slice them open to remove the innards. The sea cucumber must be scrubbed and rinsed daily.
This is another shot of the sea cucumber getting ready to be boiled with slices of ginger:

I know it looks disgusting, but after several days of soaking, boiling, and cleaning, this gelatinous and phallic culinary item will taste delicious.
I plan to saute it with some mushrooms and oyster sauce!

Ten-Chi Cha — A cool “new” tea

I found this tea at the Korean Market the other day. It’s a blend of 12 herbs from Japan called Ten-Chi Cha, translated as Heaven Earth Tea.
It looks like this:
Japanese Herbal Tea Picture
I’m anxious to see what effects it has. It’s billed as a ‘detox’ tea and has something called “Hardy Rubber Tree” that I think may be eucommia bark.
I drank a few cups today. It has a roasted tea taste. Mild tasting. It’s good. I wouldn’t call it delicious, but it’s not disgusting like most chinese herbal teas. Very drinkable.
I’m guessing it could have a nitric oxide enhancing effect because it’s supposed to be immune enhancing and anti-bacterial.
Since it’s supposed to be a detox tea, i’m curious what effect it may have.
Read about it here.

What’s up with Aspirin?

There’s little known research that indicates aspirin works by increasing Nitric Oxide in our blood vessels. Wow! That’s big news..think about what that means..not only can it potentiate drugs like Viagra or Cialis, but it could probably also help fight off infections by increasing this bacteria killer. Nitric oxide kills tuberculosis, for example, and people are often recommended eating peanuts to help stave off this disease. For example, click here to read an article on this topic. Maybe you should pop a few aspirin to help fight infections!
Here’s a cool article from a blog on sexual health matters that discusses aspirin, nitric oxide and foods that contain natural aspirin: Menz News Blog.
And you can read the scientific study on how aspirin increases nitric oxide:
Link to article.
Let’s hear how you’re doing!

Old Aspirin Ad

Nitric Oxide From Vegetables

Looking to boost your nitric oxide levels? Then eat your vegetables, especially root and green leafy vegetables. We always knew eating vegetables was good for you, but now studies are showing why. Roots and Green Leaves are high in nitrates. These dietary nitrates will increase your nitric oxide levels. If you suffer from stomach ulcers, heart disease, baldness, erectile dysfunction, high blood pressure, certain immune disorders, slow healing or are interested in boosting your athletic performance, then you want to pay close attention! Beet Juice is one of the easiest ways to boost your nitrate intake–and it tastes great.

I googled around found this juice online. You can read about it on this blog:
Biotta Juice Blog.
Beet Juice Pic -- Lots of Nitrates
Try making your own juice with beets, carrots and spinach.
Here’s an article on how it increases athletic performance:
Athletic Performance Boost from Vegetables.
Now it makes sense to eat and drink your veggies everyday!

Shark Liver Update! Watch that cholesterol.

So, I had been taking Shark Liver Oil religiously since October. You can read about it here:
My Shark Oil Post.
After a routine physical last week, boy was I in for a surprise. I was expecting my usual great lipid profile. My cholesterol has been around 200 for the last few years, but with good HDL, low Triglycerides and very low of the bad LDL. However, this time, my LDL almost doubled from last year. The only supplements that were significantly different from other years was the Shark Liver Oil and tocotrienols. The tocotrienols, btw, I feel has contributed to significantly thicker and shinier hair (but more on that in another post). I really don’t think the tocotrienols have contributed to this problem. However, the shark liver oil is not looking too good. Check this study out:
Shark Liver Raises Cholesterol in Hamsters.

Aaargh!! this is horrible. It states: “supplementations of Squalene (SQ) and Shark Liver Oil (SLO) in diets caused significant accumulation of SQ in the liver and adipose tissue. The present results suggest that SQ and SLO are hypercholesterolemic at least in hamsters. Caution has to be taken when SQ or SLO are routinely consumed as health supplements.”

Watch out with this one. To be fair, my HDL was still high and my triglycerides were still low. I’ll test again in 6 months and report on what I find out. For now, I think Shark Liver Oil is not on the recommended list. Until we know more about cholesterol levels and the ratios of the different types of cholesterol and inflammation, be careful.

Ching Chun Bao — Antiaging tablets from China

Ching Chung Bao also spelled Qing Chun Bao is an interesting tonic I found while on my quest for Shark Oil.

Chin Chung Bao
Chin Chung Bao

It’s meant to be taken twice a day and over a long period of time. The bottle says, “Main functions: Postponing aging, maintaining youthful face, enhancing youthful vigour.” Sounds good to me!
These are the listed ingredients:

  • Ginseng
  • Rehmannia Root
  • Chinese Asparagus Root
  • Siberian Solomon Seal
  • Cistanches
  • Goji Berries
  • Astragalus root

All of the above are Tonic Herbs. As long as there aren’t any hidden ingredients, I think this is a superb formula to take over time. Everyone’s heard of goji berries and ginseng. Solomon Seal is a wonderful lesser known tonic that is said to help restore your body after stress and over indulgence. Cistanches is a great nitric oxide enhancer and probably a decent pde-5 inhibitor (must research that sometime). Astragalus is another great tonic and has a reputation for enhancing your immune system. You should be able to find it for about 8 usd a bottle.
Generally, and according to the traditional chinese medical system, all of these types of tonics that benefit the kidney and liver system are good for anti-aging because those are the systems that are mostly responsible for keeping us young. They govern the condition of your hair, teeth, bones, connective tissue, memory, sex drive and youthful vitality. Check out the jing post on this site for more info.
Although this one is interesting, I doubt I can commit to taking it religiously twice a day. Anyone interested in trying this one out?

Mushroom Mania

Who thought that the simple mushroom could be one of our biggest arsenals for staying young, boosting our immune systems and balancing our hormones? Did you know that mushrooms are powerful anti-aromatases?
Check out this link regarding how powerful the white button mushroom is for keeping your Testosterone levels high : Click to read about how mushrooms inhibit hormone conversion to estrogen.
white-button-mushroom
If you take DHEA, you probably know that it’s hard to control what DHEA converts to. It can convert to testosterone or estrogen. Eating mushrooms should help make sure the DHEA doesn’t convert to estrogen. Too much estrogen is a bad thing! Not just for men, but for women too. There are too many environmental estrogens called Xenoestrogens that are wreaking havoc on our health. Read what Wikipedia has to say about Xenoestrogens here. They are bad news and have only appeared in the last 70 years or so. They are implicated in cancers and higher estrogen levels for men. In fact one study implied that men’s johnsons are getting smaller over the years because of it! Don’t let this happen to you or your loved ones.
So eat your mushrooms! Try them with Oyster Sauce and a little onion, garlic and ginger.
oyster-sauce

Shark Liver Oil H1N1 fighter?

I discovered Shark Liver Oil recently. It’s been around for centuries. Apparently, fisherman in the cold deep waters off northern Europe have recommended it for wound healing, colds and flu, and as a general tonic. Whenever I hear about something being good for colds and flu and wound healing or general tonic, I start thinking Nitric Oxide related.
I did find an interesting study indicating that Shark Liver Oil may increase Nitric Oxide levels here. The article states shark liver oil may be helpful for boosting the immune system.
If you’re a pig, your sperm will improve. This study indicates that Shark Liver Oil improved sperm motility and velocity:Click here to see study.
Cod liver oil is something I’ll write about in the future. Cod liver oil is a great source of Vitamin D, that many consider the single most important vitamin supplement you could take. Well, shark liver has that too. Cod Liver Oil is a purported Testosterone Booster, however Shark Liver Oil is not as well known. I’ve discovered that no one seems to know what this is. You can certainly find it online, but good luck finding it in conventional health food stores or your local chinatown herb shop. I found mine in a chinese herb shop. The owner smiled when I bought it and said it was an excellent choice and to make sure I drank a lot of water with it. I’m surprised I found it in that store, since no one spoke English.
There’s a bit of hub bub on the net about this Oil boosting the immune system and fighting cancer. Cancer is not something to talk about lightly. I’m limiting my discussion to verifiable tonics. As a tonic, this has some interesting potential. Faster sperm? More nitric oxide? Sounds like a plan!
Shark Liver Oil